Are you as excited about Twitter as the rest of the world? You can not only find out what’s going on with your friends on an hourly basis, but also peak into the lives of your favorite celebrities
People have definitely embraced Twitter as a major form of communication; however, because it only allows you to type 140 characters at a time, the communication can be a bit limited. Twitter’s limitations can be especially frustrating when you’re trying to use the service to promote a resume, but people are still finding ways. If this is something you’ve considered, here are a few tips to get your resume noticed by others right on Twitter.
Linking to Your Resume
Of course, the first challenge to presenting a resume in Twitter is keeping it short. You can’t really do this without carefully watching the number of characters you use, and quite a few programs have appeared to help you with smart character allotment. You know right away that you can’t post your entire resume on your profile, which means you’ll need to post yours somewhere else online (a great place to do so is via TweetMyJobs.com). Once you’ve got the resume up, you need to create a link to it in your Twitter message. You might not be able to say what you want with the rest of the message, though, if the link to your resume is too long.
One application that provides a solution for this problem are link-shortening applications, such as Bit.ly or TinyURL. These applications allow you to link your online resume to your Twitter message by creating a new link that uses significantly fewer characters. This way, you don’t have to use up your character count to post your resume, making the “tweeting” experience that much easier.
Making the Message Short and Clear
After you’ve created your resume URL, you want to type your message for your Twitter followers – or anyone else who happens to see. Remembering that you need to keep your characters at 140 or below, many job seekers use what are called hashtags along with Internet/texting shorthand to make themselves findable by recruiters.
Hashtags on Twitter basically provide an opportunity for others to find you through site searches. By including the pound sign (#) before your word, you’ve created a hashtag. You might consider a few hash tags like #jobseeker, #lookingforworkk, or others (some are available at Hashtags.org).
Also, it’s good to include RT at the beginning of your message because it tells others they’re allowed to retweet your message.
An example of a job seeker’s Twitter resume might look like this (the link below is not real):
RT #Jane Doe seeks a PR DIR JOB http://bit.ly/resisgreat @TweetMyResume #resume #prjobs
The message is basically telling you that Jane Doe is looking for a Public Relations Director position and that you can find her resume with TweetMyResume.com at the link she included. The hashtags allow for those who search for #resume or #prjobs to find her message. At the start of the message, she’s allowed others to repeat (sometimes called re-tweeting) the message in part or in its entirety. For 87 characters, that’s a pretty impressive amount of information.
By learning how to create a Twitter resume, you have the opportunity to gain access to more recruiters than ever before. Try it out. You just might get the job you’ve been looking for.