Twitter Users Are More Likely To Get Job Interviews
by Miriam Salpeter Friday, July 09, 2010
Miriam Salpeter, MA, is owner of Keppie Careers, where she teaches job seekers and entrepreneurs how to leverage social media, writes resumes, provides professional websites and helps clients succeed with their goals. Author of Social Networking for Career Success (LearningExpress, 2011) and 100 Conversations for Career Success (available from LearningExpress, fall, 2012), Miriam appeared on CNN and has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune and other notable media outlets. She writes for U.S. News & World Report’s “On Careers” column and CNN named her a “top 10 job tweeter you should be following." Find her on Twitter @Keppie_Careers, Google+ (+MiriamSalpeter) and Facebook (Keppie Careers).
Full Bio
Do you think of Twitter like this badge describes – as a pointless exercise? It may be time to rethink! Have you ever considered the skills you use to leverage Twitter well? It is not rocket science, but it does require key abilities, and not everyone has them.
Sending tweets that inspire people to read, retweet and reply requires an ability to communicate in the short form. It turns out this may be much more valuable than you might have realized!
Now, a new study out of the U.K. is saying that Twitter users are more likely to get interviews!
www.MyJobGroup.co.uk, which boasts over 300 regional job sites across the UK analyzed 500 CVs from UK-based jobseekers and found a lot of overlap and repetition between them:
One-third (37%) used exactly the same opening phrase; while the three most popular first-line words are ‘experience’ (27.1%), ‘skills’ (23.2%) and, ironically, ‘individual’ (22.6%).
The company believes job seekers who use Twitter are more likely to be shortlisted because they write interesting, eye-catching and succinct CV summaries which appeals to recruiters.
TheNextWeb reported on this study:
Professor Cary Cooper CBE, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University Management School agrees with the study, which was carried out by analyzing 500 UK CVs. He said: “When reviewing CVs for the first time, employers may only ever see candidates’ short summaries, so a job seeker with a standard, dull or uninteresting personal synopsis is less likely to be shortlisted.”
Is it Twitter use that trains people to write more succinctly, or does Twitter actually attract better writers in the first place? Professor Cooper seems to think the latter is true.
“Candidates who are innovative and novel in their use of language and identify themselves in a non-formulaic way are more likely to be people who use Twitter, or have their own blog. (Their) CV summary is more likely to be snappy, interesting and, ultimately, attention-grabbing.
“Twitter users more readily think about, and use, clever key words and they’re probably more expressive in an abridged style – the art of ‘getting to the point’ is not lost on people who Tweet.”
Maybe the question is a “which comes first, the chicken or the egg?” Do strong communicators naturally tend to use Twitter, or does using Twitter actually help hone those all important short-form communication skills? I think it is a little of both. There is no doubt that practice helps improve your skills in any arena. Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers asserts that you need 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert.
Clearly, 10,000 hours of Twitter is a lot more than anyone would ever admit to having! However, the point that practicing a skill (in this case, identifying key words, focusing on getting across a message quickly, clearly and in few words) is important for job seekers. You may have heard the famous quote by Mark Twain, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” It takes more time – and more skill – to write something short!
David Zinger lists three of Gladwell’s key elements of success:
1. Working harder than your peers.
2. Seeing things that others can’t see.
3. Finding or creating a good fit between your cultural legacy and what you choose to explore.
All of these factors impact peoples’ entree into social media. Let’s face it – using Twitter well (or having a blog), or even leveraging LinkedIn (a well known and accepted professional network) takes time and extra effort. Practicing being succinct and communicating in the short form (as written about in the book 140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form by Dom Sagolla) is important and useful in today’s “tell it to me now, tell it to me fast” world of sound bytes and text messages.
It does not surprise me that people who engage on Twitter and social media are more likely to get interviews. How about you?
Sending tweets that inspire people to read, retweet and reply requires an ability to communicate in the short form. It turns out this may be much more valuable than you might have realized!
Now, a new study out of the U.K. is saying that Twitter users are more likely to get interviews!
www.MyJobGroup.co.uk, which boasts over 300 regional job sites across the UK analyzed 500 CVs from UK-based jobseekers and found a lot of overlap and repetition between them:
One-third (37%) used exactly the same opening phrase; while the three most popular first-line words are ‘experience’ (27.1%), ‘skills’ (23.2%) and, ironically, ‘individual’ (22.6%).
The company believes job seekers who use Twitter are more likely to be shortlisted because they write interesting, eye-catching and succinct CV summaries which appeals to recruiters.
TheNextWeb reported on this study:
Professor Cary Cooper CBE, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University Management School agrees with the study, which was carried out by analyzing 500 UK CVs. He said: “When reviewing CVs for the first time, employers may only ever see candidates’ short summaries, so a job seeker with a standard, dull or uninteresting personal synopsis is less likely to be shortlisted.”
Is it Twitter use that trains people to write more succinctly, or does Twitter actually attract better writers in the first place? Professor Cooper seems to think the latter is true.
“Candidates who are innovative and novel in their use of language and identify themselves in a non-formulaic way are more likely to be people who use Twitter, or have their own blog. (Their) CV summary is more likely to be snappy, interesting and, ultimately, attention-grabbing.
“Twitter users more readily think about, and use, clever key words and they’re probably more expressive in an abridged style – the art of ‘getting to the point’ is not lost on people who Tweet.”
Maybe the question is a “which comes first, the chicken or the egg?” Do strong communicators naturally tend to use Twitter, or does using Twitter actually help hone those all important short-form communication skills? I think it is a little of both. There is no doubt that practice helps improve your skills in any arena. Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers asserts that you need 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert.
Clearly, 10,000 hours of Twitter is a lot more than anyone would ever admit to having! However, the point that practicing a skill (in this case, identifying key words, focusing on getting across a message quickly, clearly and in few words) is important for job seekers. You may have heard the famous quote by Mark Twain, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” It takes more time – and more skill – to write something short!
David Zinger lists three of Gladwell’s key elements of success:
1. Working harder than your peers.
2. Seeing things that others can’t see.
3. Finding or creating a good fit between your cultural legacy and what you choose to explore.
All of these factors impact peoples’ entree into social media. Let’s face it – using Twitter well (or having a blog), or even leveraging LinkedIn (a well known and accepted professional network) takes time and extra effort. Practicing being succinct and communicating in the short form (as written about in the book 140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form by Dom Sagolla) is important and useful in today’s “tell it to me now, tell it to me fast” world of sound bytes and text messages.
It does not surprise me that people who engage on Twitter and social media are more likely to get interviews. How about you?