9 ways to tweet your way to a graduate job 🤳

As a graduate job hunter, the shrewdest move you can make is to adopt lots of different job hunting tactics in parallel; there’s more than one way to skin a cat, as they say!

While Twitter may seem like an unlikely treasure trove for grad job hunters, it is in fact a bit of a gold mine: you can use it in your quest for finding companies and their vacancies, it can help you learn a whole load more about a particular sector, and it also lets you market yourself to grad employers.

Take a look at other ways to research an employer.

Here are GAGAGO’s top 9 tips on tweeting your way to success!

1. Find and follow companies

It may seem like an obvious suggestion, but following companies you’d like to work for is a great way to kick-start your Twitter grad job efforts.

It will mean you can a) keep up to date with their latest news, b) get a feel for what they’re really like- and whether you’d enjoy working there, and c) keep  up to date with their new vacancies.

Larger companies will often have separate job Twitter handles (ERAC_jobs or ‏@Boots_Jobs) or even separate graduate job Twitter handles (e.g. @NHSGradScheme) – make sure you follow these too – they’ll often be the first to be updated when new positions arise.

If you only have your beady eye on a couple of companies at the moment, Twitter can be a great way to discover new companies to add to your hit-list.

Look who this company is interacting with, as companies will often follow/ be followed by similar firms that you may like the look of.

2. Search for specific opportunities

Twitter’s regular search bar can prove a little hit and miss when hunting for vacancies in a specific industry.

Its advanced function, however, is a handy little tool to have up your sleeve: you can search by location, for exact phrases, or phrases with include/exclude specific words, as well as particular hashtags.

3. Download Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is a free downloadable tool that can work wonders in terms of organising your twitter job hunting efforts.

Why? It lets you build your own personal dashboard that you can customise with different columns that will help you in your job search, such as tweets which have mentioned you, the latest tweets from a certain company, or tweets which include specific phrases e.g. ‘Marketing Assistant London’.

4. Retweet and comment on interesting content

As well as using Twitter to search for specific companies and positions, you can use to it to boost your social media profile and market yourself to employers by demonstrating your enthusiasm for a certain sector.

Check out other ways of successfully networking.

Follow twitter accounts for key magazines/blogs/organisations of industries you’re interested in.

For example, if you’re pursuing a career in HR, you might want to follow @hrmagazine or @CIPD. Try to comment on their tweets, answer questions and offer input, rather than simply retweeting.

5. Showcase your personality

While you should be tweeting about articles/news stories related to industries you’re interested in, it’s vital to get the balance right. Tweet like a person, not just a job-seeker.

Employers like well-rounded candidates, so do tweet about your hobbies and other interests, rather just endless articles about the banking sector!

6. Tweet your own content

As well as using Twitter to find and comment on other peoples’ content, it can be a great way to publicise your own- it’s one of the easiest ways to make it reach the masses.

A well-written and interesting blog is one of the best ways to show employers your personality and written communication skills.

The best blogs from an employer perspective are well-written (of course), regularly contributed to and run along a theme i.e. films or books you like, restaurants or cafes you’ve been to rather than just a ‘dear diary’ style list of what you did at the weekend.

7. Create lists

Twitter lists are feeds from specific Twitter handles.

They let you avoid the busy clutter of your main feed and really focus your job hunt.

Create lists of your favourite jobs boards, industry-specific magazines or blogs, or companys that you’re interested in.

8. Don’t swear and keep your spelling/grammar in check

Your digital footprint really does matter!

If a potential candidate gets in touch with us on Twitter, and their most recent tweet is something like ‘Can’t believe that *^&!*&  bus driver didn’t let me on’, we would certainly think twice about sending them onto a client.

And while swearing makes you look unprofessional and hot-headed and is an obvious no-no, watch out for subtler mistakes, like poor spelling, which make you look sloppy.

9. Make the most of your bio

You’ve only got 140 characters, so you need to make the most of your bio; remember it’s your personal sales pitch.

The trick is to keep things quite specific and avoid giving off any air of desperation.

For example, we see a lot of grad bios along the lines of: ‘Graduate urgently seeking a job!’.

This will make an employer think two things: 1) ‘This grad is desperate- why aren’t other companies interested in them? What’s wrong with them?’ 2) ‘This grad doesn’t seem to have a clear idea of what they want to do.’

Neither is a particularly attractive prospect for an employer! Instead, stick to the following winning format:

[current position] [something about your personality/interests] [what kind of position you’re looking for]  [link to your LinkedIn profile/resources/blog/website]

Which might read something like:

Biomed grad from Uni of Edinburgh with a passion for data, disco music and Dime Bars. On the hunt for a job in market research.

Find more graduate career help on our blog – or search the latest career opportunities for graduates on our job board!