Creating a Twitter Resume

Are you as excited about Twitter as the rest of the world? You can not only find out what’s going on with your friends on an hourly basis, but also peak into the lives of your favorite celebrities.

People have definitely embraced Twitter as a major form of communication; however, because it only allows you to type 140 characters at a time, the communication can be a bit limited. This is especially true when trying to promote your resume – but people are doing it. If this is something you’ve considered, here are a few tips to get your resume noticed by others right on Twitter.

Linking to Your Resume

Of course, the first challenge to presenting a resume in Twitter is keeping it short. This is completely impossible to do within the character allotment, which is why certain applications have popped up to help in this process. You know right away that you can’t post your entire resume on your profile, which means you’ll need to post yours somewhere else online (a great place to do so is via TweetMyJobs.com). Once this is done, you want to be able to link your resume to your Twitter message. The only problem is, often times, the link is simply too long to be able to add any additional message within it.

One application that provides a solution for this problem is link-shortening applications, such as Bit.ly or TinyURL. These applications allow you to link your online resume to your Twitter message by creating a new link that uses significantly fewer characters. This way, you don’t have to use up your character count to post your resume, making the “tweeting” experience that much easier.

Making the Message Short and Clear

After you’ve created your resume URL, you want to type your message for your Twitter followers – or anyone else who happens to see. Remembering that you need to keep your characters at 140 or below, many job seekers use what are called hashtags along with Internet/texting shorthand to make themselves findable by recruiters.

Hashtags on Twitter basically provide an opportunity for others to find you through site searches. By including the pound sign (#) before your word, you’ve created a hashtag. Some that you might consider include #jobseeker or #lookingforwork (a good source for hashtags is HashTags.org).

Also, it’s good to include RT at the beginning of your message because it tells others they’re allowed to retweet your message.

An example of a job seeker’s Twitter resume might look like this (the link below is not real):

RT #Jane Doe seeks a PR DIR JOB http://bit.ly/resisgreat @TweetMyResume #resume #prjobs

The message is basically telling you that Jane Doe is looking for a Public Relations Director position and that you can find her resume with TweetMyResume.com at the link she included. The hashtags allow for those who search for #resume or #prjobs to find her message. And at the beginning of the message, she’s allowing others to retweet (or repeat) her message. That’s a lot of information for only 87 characters.

By learning how to create a Twitter resume, you have the opportunity to gain access to more recruiters than ever before. So give it a try. It might just present you with the job you’ve been hoping for.