Darrin Grella – Interview Guru

Today I attended a webinar through ere.net presented by Geoff Peterson, (@geoffpeterson) president and owner of General Lead, a virtual staffing and consulting services company. Geoff is also dedicated to helping recruiters with web 2.0 tools and bringing more effective tools to a recruiters day to day life of research and sourcing. The webinar was specifically around using twitter as a tool to recruit talent. Well, I am going to turn the tables a bit to suggest how a candidate can use this tool as a means of increasing their visibility to career and networking opportunities.

Twitter is not a job board, resume service, or dedicated employment tool. twitter is a micro-blogging site that allows you to post random updates and links to sometimes important stuff that may interest you, all under 140 characters. Kind of like a cross between instant messaging and blogging. I would suggest that you check out the following blog: Koka Sexton (@kokasexton) wrote “All you need to know about twitter”(the picture may look a little familiar). This blog is a very good tool to help introduce you to the concept. I would like to highlight a couple of additional tools in order to help you get started with twitter more quickly and effectively.

Determine your objective with using twitter:
What do you want out of this addicting tool? You have to have a network of people in order to obtain your objectives. If you simply post random thoughts then more than likely no one will be seeing them UNLESS you are following people. Perform a search for keywords, whether it is a company you want to work for, a skill set that you are interested in or simply the term recruiter. This will search the 2.9 million tweeple to find your keyword. (Koka Sexton has some good ideas to help you better use your twitter tool.)

Twitter Etiquette:
If someone follows you, follow them back.
Don’t bash other tweeple or twitterers.
Be clean with your content.

Twitter Apps:
There are tons of applications designed specifically f0r twitter, try Twitteroo, Twitterific, Twhirl, Twitbin, Spaz, Digby, Blogo to name a few. Click here for way too many more.

Twitternology:
What is a tweet? (what you post is called a tweet)
What is your handle? (this is your twitter profile)
Tweeple? (people who are on twitter)

How do I build my network of followers?
I would simply suggest that you find people you think have good content or are industry specific people to your interest and follow them. The more people that you follow, the more will follow you back. CAUTION: Beware of spam. There are spammers out there that follow thousands of people and no one is following them back. Try not to follow tons of people and then you yourself can be perceived as a spammer.

This is only a few random thoughts. We could talk about other uses for hours. Follow me on twitter, I will follow you back. If you have questions, send me a tweet, but keep your comments under 140 characters.

Follow me: