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How Twitter Helped Me Get 3 Solid Job Offers
Posted by Nathania Johnson
In early February, I found out my contract at an online marketing firm was ending at the end of the month. I immediately Tweeted my availability for a new gig. Within 24 hours, I had 3 solid job leads, all of which eventually turned into fantastic offers.
I’m not used to this. I’ve been unemployed something like 4 times in my life. I was having fun living in the DC area when unemployment struck one year. I applied to 100 jobs, went to several interviews and a good number of second interviews. I made it into the top 2-3 candidates for many jobs, but never got the offer.
I ended up moving home to NC and living with my parents at the humbling age of 27. I took a job at a nonprofit, only to be caught up in layoffs yet again six months later.
Thankfully unemployment only lasted 1 month that time, as I found work at an SEO firm as a copywriter. I took a $5,000 a year salary cut, but I had wanted to be a web content writer for so long (I didn’t know anything about SEO until this job, so I wasn’t searching properly).
Something about writing for the staff blog caught hold of me. I had this undeniable knack for blogging and social media. I was doing social media efforts via volunteering my marketing skills for nonprofits - before I even knew it was called social media.
Blogging at the seo firm and subsequently at the online marketing firm started to help raise my profile. Things weren’t clicking for me at the online marketing place, and I often wondered if I was desirable to other companies.
When my contract was terminated, I had my chance to find out. Like I said, with just one tweet on a given Tuesday, I ended up with three job offers. What if I had tweeted more often? I’m glad I didn’t. Choosing among good job offers is hard enough and Twitter wasn’t my only source of job leads.
But let’s be clear - the only reason I ended up having such success with Twitter was because I used the tool to network and to try and offer something of value. If I only Tweeted what I was doing (i.e. “having coffee” or “petting my cat”), then I don’t think I would have had any interest.
I used Twitter in a way that showed that I understand SEO, social media, and online marketing. And because of that, others had confidence in me in a way where I became hire-worthy.
I hope this post didn’t come across as arrogant. I hope some of you are able to use this to help empower your networking and your Twittering. Get out of a crappy job or get more freelancing gigs! Whatever your goal is, I know that social media can help you do it. And Twitter is a great place to start.
7 Responses to “How Twitter Helped Me Get 3 Solid Job Offers”
Leave a Reply
March 26th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Twitter is indeed great tools to many more things than a simple chatting. E.g. an experiment Problogger has made yesterday - extraordinary way to get listed on his blog in just one click.
Anyway, I’m new on twitter but found it useful already!
March 26th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Good for you. I’m wondering when people will start to believe us when we say, “Twitter isn’t just for teenagers and chit-chat.” Thanks for helping push Twitter as a business and professional tool one more step forward.
Lisa Creech Bledsoe
http://www.CalvertCreative.com
March 26th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Hey Nathania,
Very inspiring post!
(especially because I’m on the job hunt right now)
Plus it didn’t at all come across as arrogant, in fact, from following you, I’m not surprised you got three offers!
March 29th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Nathania,
Not at all arrogant. In fact, your points about showing your social media and SEO skills were great. You know that if you hadn’t been clear, someone who writes “having coffee” and “petting my cat” would send you some nasty email calling you a liar because he didn’t get any job offers. =)
I feel like Twitter is finally starting to come into its own as a serious business tool and it’s great to see articles like this that support that.
Congrats on the offers!
Sara
March 29th, 2008 at 8:01 am
[…] another of Nathania’s posts, How Twitter Helped Me Get 3 Solid Job Offers, and shows you just another way to use this platform. (This one appears at Social Media […]
March 29th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Thank you for writing your post Nathania. I am still asking lots of questions about the value of Twitter for me as a blogger and Interview Coach. Your post was very informative, specific, relevant to my readers. I will be posting about your story on my blog. Thank you for sharing. I am one step closer to setting up a Twitter account.
My greatest concern is the amount of time it takes to keep up with Twitter. I don’t have a lot of time and chatting is not what I am looking for. Thanks!
Darlene
Interview Guru
http://www.interviewchatter.com
April 4th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
[…] I have seen at least half a dozen articles about Twitter in high-authority blogs. These include: How Twitter Helped me Get 3 Solid Job Offers, How I use Twitter to Promote my Blog and Exploiting Twitter for Backlinks. I installed a plug-in […]