'Twas tweeting that made the difference

Yes, the typical social network serves mostly as a colossal time suck. But did you realize that Twitter is becoming more and more a required first stop in the job search process?

Who has time for scrolling through hundreds of (dubiously dated) posts on a job board? Twitter is both more convenient and more efficient. For anyone looking for a new position, signing up for a particular company's tweets, or signing up for messages from job list feeds, is just about mandatory, since what you want is delivered directly to you. In addition, with a simple 'reply,' there's a rare opportunity to open a digital dialogue with a recruiter. (Just don't blow it with an inappropriately informal response or with tweets of questionable content floating around for all to see.)

Companies likewise get top value from using Twitter over other recruitment methods. According to The Wall Street Journal, this cuts down substantially on the number of resumes a recruiter has to wade through, and ensures the applicant is "media-savvy." (Despite the word's appearance in every other news article these days, the site gets an average of 4.8 million visitors a day; it's likely only a small percentage of them are looking for work.) Further, corporate use of Twitter, if done smartly, can make a firm seem like it's plugged in to current trends (even if that's far from the case). And, tweeting is way less expensive than advertising or job board placements.

So, job hunters: If you shun such of-the-moment communications tools out of principle, you might want to reconsider. And HR/corporate department: Perhaps it's time to embrace the future. Here's hoping you all find a tweet or Twitterer that's right for you.

--Posted by Todd Obolsky, Vault Staff Writer