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!

MyJobGroup.co.uk (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?

Some posts to help you get started:

Twitter chats can help you find a job.

Indeed.com research shows Twitter is the fastest-growing word on job boards.

Twitter isn’t second nature for everyone.

LinkedIn helps you find friends on Twitter.

Use Twitter to help you find a job.

Why use Twitter?

What Twitter applications should you use for your job hunt?

picture via jmilles

The post Twitter users are more likely to get job interviews appeared first on Keppie Careers.

Even if you did not already know that the word  “Twitter” is the fastest growing term to appear in job postings appearing in job boards (per Indeed.com), you should still be using Twitter because it is an amazing place to connect and learn and to grow the number of people who *know* you and are able and willing to help you (with your job hunt or your workout routine).

Thanks to Christina Brown, I recently learned about a resource I had not used before – the Twitter Chat Schedule.  Another resource to find chats is Tweetreports.

A Twitter chat is a time when people who have similar interests hop on Twitter and tweet using a hashtag (a hashtag is a # along with a word or acronym) that helps everyone interested get in on the conversation. I have participated in #JobHuntChat (Monday nights at 10-11 pm eastern), which is a great opportunity to network and learn from career coaches, hiring managers, recruiters and other job seekers. Clearly, I follow the job searching community on Twitter pretty closely, which is how I knew about this chat.

However, I would never have imagined that there was a chat about strength training (#sbgym) or pharmaceutical marketing and social media (#socpharm), a chat for foodies (#SOSfood) and one to discuss fashion and style (#styletalk). The list goes on and on. Of course, there are a lot of chats having to do with social media, and there are several other career oriented chats – #internchat, for example…

The great thing about joining chats and communities pertaining to your hobbies and interests is that it gives you an opportunity to connect with other people about things that have nothing to do with jobs. Just as it is a good idea for job seekers to join a biking club if they enjoy biking, or an art class if artistically talented, Twitter provides an unprecedented way to reach out to new people and to extend your “loose” network – people you would otherwise never meet.

Don’t be shy – take a look at the schedule and find a fun chat…You will be surprised at how generous people are once you exchange a few tweets. The next-door neighbor of the person who may need to hire you may be on Twitter chatting right now!

Haven’t gotten started on Twitter? Read this post that I wrote to encourage job seekers to dive into this amazing network.

photo by joelaz

The post Twitter chats – a great way to expand your network appeared first on Keppie Careers.