Following John's Job Search

Earlier this summer, I wrote about using Twitter as part of your job search. John Leger recently created a Twitter account not only to search for jobs, but so those interested could follow his job search. John linked his Twitter account directly from his portfolio. He says, "I made my Twitter page accessible from my portfolio site in hopes that potential employers would see who else I’m interviewing with and when. My intent here is to try and motivate employers to action."

I asked Dan Schawbel, personal branding expert, and Publisher of the Personal Branding Magazine, for his perspective on using Twitter for job searching. Dan said, "Applicants are hired by people and not machines, therefore by registering for Twitter, following people you have genuine interest in and messaging them, you can position yourself as a worthy candidate. This can be supplemented if you have a blog or portfolio in your Twitter profile you want displayed to recruiters. Even if someone isn't in HR or is labeled a recruiter, networking is networking. Twitter has over a million people and by participating and engaging, you have a leg up on the competition."

Hopefully, this will be the case for John and I'm interested in seeing how Twitter helps with his job search. You can follow John's job search, too, if you're interested. That's one of the things I like about Twitter - you don't have to be someone's friend, like on Facebook, or their connection on LinkedIn, to keep track of what they are doing.

You can follow me and the About.com Job Search site on Twitter, as well as some of my colleagues, including Heather McDonald, About.com's Guide to Music Careers, Andrea Santiago, About.com's Guide to Health Careers, and Susan Heathfield, About.com's Guide to Human Resources.

_{Image Copyright John Leger / Twitter}