While you might be following their official Twitter account and hoping you get hired by sheer luck: You see a job ad that fits you perfectly, apply for it perfectly and get chosen among the other 100+ people that might have applied a bit later but are equally as good, seems – cute. But let’s be realistic. If you really want to stand out from the crowd (both the ones that are tweeting and those who aren’t), you need to create such a presence on Twitter that you get hired for sure when you apply for a job! For tweeting!

Your Twitter Profile as the Best CV

Unlike LinkedIn which obviously has profiles that fit the usual form of a resume, Twitter profiles don’t really lend themselves to putting a lot of information about your experience, both past and present, as well as the benefits a company would get by hiring you.

On the other hand, being concise is good so we can use your Twitter profile as a short, yet sweet resume that gets to the point and communicates clearly why someone should hire you instead of someone else.

Making a Lumberjack Microsoft’s Must Hire

In your description, start with what you do currently (your position and the company you work at), followed immediately by your expertise. Make it relevant to the industry or companies you want to work for. While it’s great that you are a lumberjack, it might not be relevant to Microsoft or Google where you want to work as a project manager. Scratch that actually: You should add interesting facts about yourself that will make you more interesting, but only if you follow the following 2 rules:

First of all, save the interesting facts for the end of your profile description. Second, make sure it’s relevant to your target audience. You might be a lumberjack and think that has nothing to do with project management, but deep down you know how hours of chopping wood have made you organised and able to handle hours or repetitive work – which, as you can see – can be portraited as a benefit even for a tech company like Microsoft!

The People (on Twitter) Behind the Brand

Who should you follow? In the introduction to this article, we already said that following the official Twitter account of the brand you want to work for isn’t enough. Go one step further – follow the HR manager, CEO, your future colleagues and anyone else at the company that could tweet something that’s relevant to you getting a job there. It will not only be a great source of information but also put you on the same level as your future employers and colleagues who will start regarding you as their Twitter friend, even before they’ve hired you!

Make Your Ideal Employer – Follow You!

While most of us will go out and follow all the companies we want to work for in order to get the latest on what they are up to (and don’t get me wrong – you should be doing that), the ideal scenario is for the company’s leadership to be following you – especially if it’s because they want you to work for them. So how do we position you?

Make Sure They Are Active on Twitter

Being the best candidate on their stream means nothing if they aren’t following Twitter’s timeline. In a sea of tweets that no one is looking at, your active tweets won’t mean a thing. First of all, see if they are actually looking at Twitter or have they just opened the account, tweet regularly but don’t really look at what others are saying.

A good way to make sure that they are paying attention is if they are tweeting comments at other accounts that haven’t asked them anything. Active commenting is a sure sign that they will probably see your tweets…

Do They See Your Tweets? Know For Sure!

Keep in mind that unlike Facebook, Twitter’s timeline is truly a stream of content that is just passing by. In order to ensure that the people you want to see your content really do see it, you have to:

Know when they are active. If you plan on tweeting, do it in the timeframe that they are usually active in, which you can discover by following their pattern of tweeting. Just go to their profile and scroll through their tweets, making a note for yourself the times that they usually tweet at. Is it morning or evening, Mondays or just the weekend? There is no point in tweeting a lot of great content during the working week, if the CEO of the company you want to work for finds the time to tweet only on Saturday afternoons while he’s watching TV.

If no pattern emerges, you can use a little hack that most Twitter user’s don’t really take advantage of. In Twitter’s official app, or a lot of the 3rd party ones, turn on notifications for a particular user – such as the HR manager of a certain company and you’ll get notifications of when they are tweeting. Most people stay on Twitter at least for 30 seconds or a minute to browse through the timeline so, even if you see the notification, you need to act fast and tweet something insightful. In these situations, it’s best to have drafts of tweets ready so you can just click “tweet” and be done with it.

If, on the other hand, you do see a pattern among the hopefully hundreds or thousands of active tweets, you can use this knowledge in one of two ways. The first is just being active while you know they are (probably) watching while the other way is using a service that lets you schedule your tweets. There are a ton of services that let brands schedule their social media content, but most might be overkill for your needs.

The two you should try are TweetDeck and Buffer. TweetDeck used to be the most popular “power user” app for tweeting back in the day before Twitter acquired it. TweetDeck offers a lot of features, such as columns that let you organize your Twitter streams while also letting you schedule your tweets. Another tool that is made exactly for scheduling content on social networks is Buffer, a free app for individuals with a very detailed set of features that let you schedule your content right when you want it.

Don’t Just Follow Them – List Them As Well

As I mentioned, TweetDeck offers columns and you should definitely make use of them by using one just to follow all the relevant people in the company where you want to be hired. It’s far easier to see what they all think about a certain topic if you have them in separate columns. This effect can be achieved by creating a Twitter list and then adding accounts to it. After you have the list (make sure it’s private!), you can either load it in TweetDeck or open it up in your favorite mobile Twitter application.

What to Tweet to Get Hired?

When thinking about what you should tweet about, content relevant to your future job or industry certainly makes sense. If you produce your own content on a blog or write for a magazine, you should definitely tweet links. Even if you don’t produce original content, be sure to both tweet and retweet content – while adding your own comments and commentary.

Commenting content is important because you don’t just show that you are a great source of relevant content but are also knowledgeable on it. A lumberjack can either tweet a link to a news article about a fire that burnt down the forest, or comment on what the authorities could have done in order to prevent it. Do you even wonder which would make him or her a bigger authority in the eyes of fellow Twitter users – as well as lumberjacks?

Engage Them in Conversations

While being active at the right time is great, nothing beats engaging others in order for them to notice you. You already know when they are tweeting either by having notifications on or knowing their “Twitter schedule”. So tweet at them, comment on the links they put up, have an opinion that will show to them how relevant you are to not just them personally but also their company. And don’t #forget to use #hashtags, especially the ones that are relevant to your future #industry!

They Know Their Perfect Candidate – From Twitter

Ideally, following the steps that I’ve outlined you’ve come into a position where not only does the community know you, but so do the decision makers at the company (or companies even – aren’t you ambitious) you want to work for. They not only know who you are, but also regard you as someone with the skills to get the job (they are thinking of asking you about) for!

The only thing you have to remember is to watch your DM, but also have your email address available. While getting a Twitter mention about “Can you get in touch via DM” is cute, let’s make it as easy as possible for the best companies to hire you!