How to Look for Jobs on Twitter and Facebook
Job search is already a complex maze of many sites, searches and alerts, so you might think that you also need to expand your social media searches, that’s bad news. But actually Twitter and Facebook can be a relatively ( relatively ) enjoyable part of the job search process.
Start with the strategies outlined in this Star Tribune article : On Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, follow people in your industry, where you would like to work, and people who write about your industry. Try talking to them from time to time, including when you are not looking for a job.
But this is just common sense when applied to social media. We have more specific tactics for expanding your job search on Twitter and Facebook.
Why do you need to do this
Most social media posts about a new job include a link back to the company website or one of the regular job sites. But they also face the real world, so you can really talk about work and find “your place.” You can even specifically ask the person who posted the link to put in a good word for you – it doesn’t have to be loud endorsement, enough to pull you out of a pile of apps that might otherwise go unread.
Unless you’re looking for a very specific job title, most of your job searches are spent sifting through piles of irrelevant or even objectively useless job postings. But job postings on social media tend to be more relevant:
- They are less likely to be “courtesy announcements” for jobs that are already being filled offline.
- Most likely, it will be a coveted job.
- Unlike official job listings, they have a social context.
- You can talk to the person who posts them.
Of course, they have a couple of downsides:
- They are not organized into a database.
- They are more visible and therefore attract more competitors.
- They are more focused on white collar work.
This is why you need to set up (yes, different) custom searches.
How to set up job alerts
Look for a combination of keywords about the job and words or phrases such as “we are hiring,” “we are looking for,” or “join my team.” Try to find the language in which people describe work in your field. Set up multiple searches instead of one complex search.
Twitter’s advanced search page allows you to specify multiple terms, but does not allow you to enter multiple phrases in the “any of these words” field. So you might have to get creative to make your search comprehensive. Here’s an example of finding sysadmin jobs:
Keep tweaking your search until the results are relevant. Then click “Follow Search” in the upper right corner. Twitter won’t give you alerts for your searches, but you can check them all by clicking on the search bar on any Twitter page.
You can set up several of these searches at once. Include a couple of friend-only searches so you can focus on jobs for which you can get direct referrals.
Then look for accounts that regularly post a particular type of job posting. These automated accounts don’t have all the benefits of human posts, but if you find one that matches your area, level, and location, you can tell Twitter (in the dropdown below the Subscribe button) to notify you every time it tweets. For example, @mediargh posts UK media jobs, and @GetNursingJobs and @OpenNursingJobs posts U.S. nursing jobs.
You will need to bookmark your Facebook searches as Facebook won’t store them for you. Again, use general search and friends-only search.
Join some Facebook groups related to your industry, with a preference for the groups that your friends are members of. Tell Facebook to notify you of all new posts in these groups or “highlights.” Keep an eye on public pages and people who usually post about relevant jobs.
How to reply to a job posting on social media
Even if you’re not trying to hide your job search from your current employer, try to respond to these social media posts privately. Send the DM to the person who posted the message and be as polite as if you were sending an email or cover letter. Even if you know them personally, you approach them in a high stakes context, so you need them to feel comfortable and respected.
If their private messages are not open, try @ -post, which is not a response to a job listing, asking for personal information (and implying the context of your request). It’s just that it’s more careful to conduct this conversation away from the post itself, where all the other applicants are also crowded.
Find the closest social connection with the person who posted the job. Ideally, find them on LinkedIn or Facebook (don’t be friends with them!) And look for general connections.
If that doesn’t work, look for people they follow , who follow you . For example, if I wanted to ask software CEO Anil Dasha about the job he mentioned, I would go to TweepDiff and search like this:
This is the most effective way to find people I really know, who Anil may have known. Then I can say, “Hi, I’m Mallory’s friend! I saw this post of yours. May I ask a couple of questions about the job? “
Don’t stretch it to some uncomfortable level; only use it if it improves your “random stranger on Twitter” reputation. And don’t brag like, “Hey, this person you like is following me.”
Before contacting anyone, make sure your Twitter profile makes a good impression, that your photo, link, and bio make you look professional and give you more information about who the hell you are and that your last few tweets have not. embarrassing or that your Facebook unemployment posts don’t sound too desperate if you read them all at once. And, of course, a link to your portfolio .
And be a giver. Anytime you see a useful job posting in your regular feed, or even if your search comes up with something really interesting that isn’t for you, share it.