Twitter Tips for Job Seekers

I think most job seekers have gotten the word that they need to integrate social media into their search efforts, but I’m getting a bit alarmed at what some of them are Twittering.

“I’m eating a baloney sandwich.”

“I’m totally hungover from last night. Don’t even know the guy in my bed.”

“I hate my life. I hate looking for a job. “

Then, there are the bios: “A party kind of gal who loves Beanie Babies and eating raw cookie dough.”

Or, “Crazed man with a mission to break as many laws as possible.”

OK, enough. While there are plenty of tutorials about how to Twitter, I’m going to give tips specific to job hunters.

1. Fill out your bio. This is your chance to grab the attention of potential employers or other professionals. Don’t EVER leave it blank. If you don’t care who you are and what you have to offer, no one else will. Keep it professional. If you want to include a personal detail or two, keep it tame: “Cardinals baseball fan” or “avid skier.”
2. Post a professional photo. Don’t use photos that qualify you for the cover of Maxim or show you in your Captain Kirk outfit.
3. Provide a professional link. In your bio, provide more information on LinkedIn or another professionally focused site.
4. Be a valuable Tweeter. No employer cares what you had for lunch. Provide links to current industry news, or information on how to solve a problem – or how you solved a problem.
5. No whining. We all know the job market is tough and looking for work can be difficult. But employers want to get to know people who confront challenges and are energized by them. When you blame outside forces for your woes: “The economy sucks. My state sucks. My school sucks,” employers fear the bitching could extend to them if they employ you, so they move on.
6. Clean tweets, only. Don’t tweet – or retweet – anything profane, racist, sexist or anything you wouldn’t say to your grandmother.
7. No inanities. Employers don’t care if you’re going to bed, what you had for lunch or whether you are going shopping. If you can’t think of something valuable or interesting to tweet, don’t tweet at all.
8. Never use the word “desperate.” I’ve seen people say they’re “desperate” to find a job, either in their bio or their tweet, or both. Big mistake. Employers never hire “desperate” people.
9. Sound smart. Use proper punctuation, grammar and spelling. Using all lower case and lots of text acronyms makes you look and sound like an eighth grader.
10. Forget the personal health issues. You want employers to see you as robust, energetic and raring to go. If you tweet that you’ve got bunions, a urinary tract infection or a “weird rash on your leg,” they’ll move onto healthier prospects.

What are some other tips for job seekers on Twitter?

The Laws of Khaki Revealed

On this Tidbit Tuesday, I'd like to begin with a great quote I found from Mary Pickford, that Hollywood legend who had a way with words: "You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down..."

As for some items I think you might find of interest:

* Tuck in your shirt and stand up straight: Many men seem to be confused about what to wear to work when the dress code is casual (why else would anyone think Crocs were OK??), but Esquire magazine does a terrific job in its latest issue to illuminate more males about what is appropriate. Advice ranges from the fact that you should never wear a beret, to the the idea that any man who wears a shirt with a saying on it "has neither the intelligence to form a cogent opinion nor the good sense to keep it to himself." This is the kind of article to tuck into your sock drawer and study every night before bedtime. An example: "There are worse things in the world than being known as the guy who always wears a blue button-down. Like being known as the guy who looks like he just rolled out of bed or the guy who always smells a little funny. If you're going to settle on a look, get it right."

*Sorry, I've got to wash my hair: Next time you ask a co-worker to hang out after work or on the weekend, don't take it personally if you get some lame excuse. Seems most of us would rather ditch the colleagues and hang out with people we well, don't work with. A new studyby the University of Michigan found that only 30 percent of employees have a close confidant at work, down from nearly half in 1985.
On average, U.S. workers spend time outside of work with less than half of the co-workers with whom they regularly interact on the job, compared to 74 percent for Polish workers and 78 percent for Indian workers.

*Make sure the spinach is out of your teeth: The growing popularity of video resumes, coupled with the desire to network directly with employers, has been put into a new product called VisualCV. The Web site allows job seekers to build online resumes with videos, work samples, reference letters and other media, in addition to the standard work and education information. Links to the pages can be sent to prospective employers and shared with firms that have pages on the site.

* I'd like dental, too: The presidential race has given voice to a lot of concerns in our country today, and one of the most prevalent has to be health insurance. Especially concerned are young people just entering the workforce, often with crushing student loan debt, who are worried about not being offered some kind of health insurance plan from an employer. That's backed up by a recent Robert Half International survey that found that benefits such as healthcare insurance are nearly as popular as salary for today’s job seekers. Thirty-seven percent of CFOs interviewed said offering higher compensation than competitors is the most effective incentive for attracting accounting professionals, while 33 percent of respondents cited benefits as the top draw, a 31-point increase from 2003.




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