Who's Using Twitter?

Maybe the better question is, who isn’t on Twitter these days?

Some contribute Twitter’s added boost of popularity to Oprah in 2009. Oprah, along with Ashton Kutcher, brought extensive attention to Twitter during a show where Oprah submitted her first tweet. Some would say Twitter was “put on the map” that day. Honestly, I believe Twitter had already put itself on the map, making it a force that attracted Oprah’s attention.

There are many who are involved with hiring that can be found on Twitter. For example, you’ll find career coaches/counselors, HR managers, recruiters, and yes, many resume writers.

You don’t need to look far before realizing a fair number of those in the hiring realm are using Twitter to start conversations and generate a better return from their sourcing and promotional efforts.

Since Twitter’s exposure has grown significantly, companies now tweet about a variety of topics, aiding with customer service and providing what some call corporate “transparency” to consumers.

“Transparency” allows you to learn about what’s going on “behind the curtain” of a company, possibly enabling you to learn firsthand about corporate functions, promotions, product issues, and various other business happenings in real time.

Within the vein of job topics, company tweets could include details about an upcoming job fair, name of a new internal hire you find useful (e.g. hiring manager!), current issues the company is facing that can add talking points for your cover letter, and so on.

5 Reasons Recruiters Find Twitter Attractive for Recruitment

■ Twitter is free; and with the cost of business sometimes being a hefty burden, even recruitment firms can’t resist the charms of a no-cost, useful online tool. For recruiters seeing a decline in assignments, free services such as Twitter can offer needed relief to a weighed-down operating budget.

■ Twitter provides a substantial reach for recruiters, putting them in touch with prime job candidates. Building hundreds of followers within a few short weeks is very doable, so Twitter can certainly put recruiters in touch with followers (jobseekers) quickly as well.

■ Twitter offers a formal and informal platform for recruiters to open conversations. Recruiters strive for the best job candidates, which usually means “cherry picking” prime candidates away from competitors. Twitter certainly offers one more method of contact to pick.

■ With Twitter having an estimated 300+ million monthly active users as of November 2013, building relationships and keeping in contact with colleagues and industry groups has never been easier. The next generation of the Internet is about building relationships, and Twitter’s neighborhood provides an ideal platform for doing that.

■ Twitter has created a community for recruiters to learn, and pass on those teachings. A recruiter would be wise to build their brand and network by using what they learn, or what they know, and passing it on to others.