Some career consultants caution you against using social networking sites to find a new job. I, on the other hand, am a huge fan of social networking sites. A couple of weeks a go, I wrote a post about LinkedIn, today I want to focus on Twitter. Twitter is a great way to expand your network and ultimately expand you visibility and in turn strengthen your changes of getting hired. Twitter is all about researching and networking, which coincidentally are the two major “offline” skills you need during the job search.
Here are some useful tips to maximize your Twitter job search experience:

• Choose a good name.  remember you are looking to establish credibility and build your brand.  For example, if you are in Marketing, you may want to choose something like, “marketingpro.”  I am sure that is taken, but you get the idea.
• make sure you include your Linkedin url in your account.  You should use Twitter as an extension to your Linkedin profile.  If you have an online resume or portfolio you should link to that as well.
• Find the players and follow them.  This is easy to do, conduct a search on your area of expertise and just read the threads.  In a day or so it will be very clear who the players are.  Once you determine who they are, click to follow them.
• Participate before going in for the kill.  What I mean by this, is do not start of by asking if anyone knows who is hiring, that is back technique and just plain tacky.  Instead, become a participant, share some information, you must give before you can get.
• Once you are established, start asking for advice, this will lead you down the job opportunity path.

Twitter is a great tool, but just like everything in life, the harder you work at it, the better the results will be.

Why not get started right now!