15 Twitter Applications for Your Job Search

Has Twitter turned into a popularity contest? According to Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and CNN (@cnnbrk) it is. The two fellow Tweeters were in a fierce battle to be the first to get to 1Million followers, but in my opinion that is not what Twitter is about. It’s not about how many followers you have, it’s about networking, making contacts and turning those contacts into something that will benefit you, your career or your business.

From the standpoint of a job seeker, if used correctly, Twitter can turn your job search from feeling like the dreaded fail whale to landing you the job of your dreams. With the right tools Twitter can become a never-ending source of information to assist you along your way.

Other than Tweeting about your job search and putting your job pitch in your bio, here are 15 Twitter Applications and Tricks to help you along the path (keep in mind there are hundreds of applications for Twitter and most of them can be used in someway or another for a job search, these are just the ones I found most interesting):

ConnectTweet – See what is going on inside the doors of a potential company, through the Tweets of their employees. ConnectTweet allows individuals at the front lines of the company to add a #tag to their company relevant tweets, those tagged tweets are then filtered and posted to the companies @org’s Twitter account, allowing the company’s followers to clearly see the human voices on the inside.

TwitterJobCast– A local job search that allows you to see who is hiring on Twitter by browsing for jobs by city, state or zip code. It works by making requests to the Twitter API. Additionally, the Yahoo! Maps API is used to translate locations into geocodes for use with the Twitter API.

TwitterJobSearch – An open source search engine for jobs posted on Twitter, TwitterJobSearch has posted 44,165 new jobs in the last 7 days. Many of the jobs listed are tech related jobs, but through their search you can look for the position you want in the city you want.

Twellow – Also know as the Yellow Pages for Twitter it allows you to cut through the clutter Twitter sometimes creates. It enables you to find real people who really matter. The Twellow service grabs publically available messages from Twitter, analyzes and then categorizes the tweets into categories. By using this service you can narrow your searching to specific niches and find who you are looking for, that way you can follow specific Tweeters and network your heart away.

TweetBeep – “TweetBeep is like Google Alerts for Twitter” TweetBeep is very simple, you signup for an account, confirm your email and set up alerts to be delivered to your email. Want to know whenever someone posts a job for a Java Dev? Set up and alert for that and you will be notified through email on a daily or hourly basis.

HashDictionary- #Hashtags are a way on Twitter to group certain conversations about a particular subject. If you want your Tweet to be included in a special grouping put the group’s #hashtag somewhere in your Tweet and it will be grouped with other updates using the same hashtag. HashDictionary.com is a community based dictionary for hashtags on Twitter. Hash tags have been described as collective digital bookmarks and are widely used throughout Twitter. If you want to you can also search the most popular hashtags at #hashtags.org or Tagal.

JobMotel– Allows you to search web developer jobs listed on Twitter. From what I can tell JobMotel mines Twitter for web dev related jobs and rss feeds them onto their site.

TweetDeck – One of the more popular Twitter 3rd party application, Tweetdeck is a desktop application that acts as your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening by connecting you with your contacts on Twitter. With TweetDeck you are able to create groups from Twitter users and have all those tweets filtered into one screen. It also lets you do a search for a specific topic and get a live feed every time someone Tweets about that topic. It helps out with your job search because you can create a filter for the companies you are interested in, see what the Twitterverse is saying about them and be aware when they post open jobs.

TweetMyJobs – TweetMyJobs is a service that brings recruiters, hiring managers and job seekers together on Twitter. They create Twitter Channels for major cities and job types, and an easy-to-use interface to subscribe to those channels. You will get instant notification of any new jobs as a text message on your cell phone. In your job search all you have to do it create an account on Twitter and TweetMyJobs, subscribe to the desired Job Channels, and have any new openings automatically sent to your cell phone as a text message via Twitter. You can also access job openings on the web at TweetMyJOBS or Twitter.

VisualCV – Not quite a Twitter Application, but you can create your online resume on VisualCV and include a link to your resume in your Twitter Bio.

TwitterSearch – You can find job information on Twitter Search. Type in the keywords that are important to you it will display results with all tweets that have those keywords, you can either view all the tweets and follow the users or create a RSS feed to read the results later. Other Twitter Search applications are Just Tweet It and TwitterTroll .

NearByTweets – Search Twitter by Keyword and Location – find out if there are any jobs available in your area or the area you want to work.

Twollo – Twollo allows you to automatically follow users that have similar interests as you. You tell the application what you like or what you are interested in and the program will generate tweeters for you to follow that have similar interests as you.

Twitscoop – Find out what is being talked about on Twitter right now. You can search by keyword, allowing you to see realtime info on jobs and networking events.

Follow Twitter Users specializing in job postings some examples are:
@JobAngels – Helping the unemployed find jobs
@indeed – One search. All jobs.

@jobshouts – General job postings
@simplyhired - Job search site

@StartUpHire – Jobs at VC backed companies
@twithire – Job board service