People tend to look at me with disbelief when I tell them that if it weren’t for Twitter, and more specifically the advent of social media, I would never have garnered a career in the field that I am interested in as soon as I graduated from college.
I began accessing Twitter through an iPhone application that locates other users in close proximity to you and shows you their tweets. This was important because it allowed me to connect with people in the area and discuss relevant topics. Fast-forward a year-and-a-half… I was in full swing in my first internship, but I had started to wonder how I was going to obtain gainful employment when I graduated in December 2009. I knew that I was interested in recruiting, so I started researching how to break into the field. I remembered that one of the people I followed had something in her profile about being a recruiter and having to deal with all things workforce related. What better way to get answers than asking a recruiter first-hand? After two direct messages, @Karla_Porter gave me her phone number and told me to call her. That single phone call landed me the best internship in the world. The most interesting part about it is that I had no intention of doing another internship, but after speaking with Karla we discovered that we had a mutual acquaintance: one of my supervisors for my current internship. Things then began to snowball.
@Karla_Porter took me under her wing in early August as an intern in the Workforce Development/Human Resources department at the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce. Karla knew that I was interested in becoming a recruiter and recommended that I start following some recruiters on Twitter, so I could follow along with their conversations and interact. After watching for a while I began interacting with some individuals on Twitter. After all, that is the design and purpose of Twitter: to interact and contribute with others whom you share common interests with.
It was not very long until I started receiving some feedback from @Animal about my username and information on my Twitter profile. At first, I was hesitant about his advice but finely succumbed when I realized that this guy really knew what is going on in the recruiting arena. It was not long before @Paris22 and @BillBoorman asked if I, now known as “The infamous intern,” would be on their blogtalk radio shows. Karla was gracious enough to allow me to take time from my duties at the Chamber to participate. It was on the @BillBoorman show where he allowed me to discuss why I wanted to be a recruiter, and my current manager at Whiting Consulting heard me speaking about my desires and passions about being a recruiter. We exchanged a few e-mails and after a phone interview, I was on my way up to Geneseo, N.Y. to have a face-to-face with @cvitello. The rest, as they say, is history.
If it weren’t for Twitter, I would probably not be doing what I love, and I would probably not have a job in the field that I am interested in.
The best part about it is that I never intended for any of this to happen, but I wouldn’t do anything differently if given the chance.
In conclusion, if you remember anything, remember that Twitter is F.R.E.E.:
‘F’ – Follow those who interest you
‘R’ – Re-Tweet items that your followers would enjoy
‘E’ – Engage those who you follow
‘E’ – Entertain your followers

If you can keep those four things in mind, Twitter can do for you what it did for me!