5 Twitter Tools for your Job Search

During my day job as a recruiter I rely pretty heavily on LinkedIn to identify potential candidates.  But I have also realized that not everyone is on LinkedIn (or optimizes their profiles so they can be easily found).

I have started relying more and more on Twitter to identify candidates.  You can use the following tactics to identify contacts for networking purposes.  Same method; just different goals.

1- Advanced Twitter Searches: Go to search.twitter.com.  Click on the Advanced Search link.  Type in your keywords (job, PR, marketing... whatever would be related to the field you are seeking).  Fill in the distance range (such as 25 miles away from 20036) and hit search.  When the results come up, go to the RSS feed in the top right hand corner (Feed for this query), right click, copy shortcut and add this feed to your Google or Blog Reader.  Voila, you will get every tweet about Twinkies within a 25 mile radius of your desired location!

2- TweetDeck: Download TweetDeck and set a few search columns for keywords or companies (PR, Marketing, Social Media, Goldman Sachs, GE, Unilever).  You can now monitor every tweet being sent with that keyword in real-time.

3- Tweepz: Tweepz is a cool site where you can search for language in someone's Twitter bio.  This is a great way to find an "Accountant" in "Boston, MA" or any other combination of search terms.

4-  Wefollow: Wefollow is a User-Powered Twitter Directory that categorizes Twitter users by interests and industry. 

5- Listorious: Listorious is a great Web site that provides links to the best Twitter Lists.  Someone has already gone through the trouble of finding the most influential people on Twitter in industry X.  Don't re-create the wheel, check the lists out here.

As noted in my previous blog posts, networking is the best way to find a job.  Uses these resources to find people.  Read up about them.  Follow them.  Then reach out to them for an informational chat.

What other Twitter tips and tricks can you share?  Please comment below!