July 19, 2013, by Business School Postgraduate Careers
Twitter for your career
By Beth Cooper
Twitter is often dismissed either because people feel they have nothing to say or believe it is full of gossip. However, it is a great tool to give you competitive advantage in your job search and future career progression in a quick and easily accessible way. For interview preparation, I would say it is an essential tool for you not only to keep up with what is going on in the industry and the wider world but also allowing you to read a range of comment and analysis to help build up a picture of what is taking place in a timely way. This is not an exhaustive list, have an explore and see where it might take you!
I have nothing to say
So don’t worry about saying anything. You can ‘eavesdrop’ on what others are talking about and see what the true hot topics are in your chosen industry.
It is full of gossip
Yes it is but you can choose who you follow so can tailor it for your own particular interests. Most blue-chip companies now break news and highlight new roles on twitter first, to save you visiting each of their websites individually. By a brief scan of the headlines, you can then click on links to follow up on stories that are of particular interest of you.
Beware of what you give away
Unless you choose to make your twitter account private, everyone can see what you post and who you are following. Think about the image you may portray and what it tells about you. That doesn’t mean it all has to be professional but do think about what you do share.
Where to start?
Start with the main news outlets. @BBCbreaking gives you breaking international news, @reutersindia will give you similar news but from an Indian perspective, which helps broaden your outlook by seeing how the same story may be covered by different news organisations. @BloombergNews provides a more US focus. Then think about following newspapers, such as @TelegraphNews and @guardiannews to link to content from different ends of the political spectrum. They both have twitter sites specifically dedicated to areas such as finance, politics and sport that may help you further. Then think about the companies you admire and want to know more about. They are likely to have separate corporate and recruitment accounts, which allow you to find out what they want to talk about and share. @HarvardBiz enables to to see their latest articles to keep your business knowledge up to date, with @McKQuarterly allowing McKinsey to share their latest research in an easily accessible way.
And where next?
Look at who you follow and to whom they refer and see whether you wish to follow them. Click or search on the hash-tags to follow what people may be discussing about particular themes. For example #leadership brings up a range of resources from leadership-related sayings, what leadership is, tools to help make you a better leader including new research from INSEAD on the topic. There is also a wealth of careers resources so if you know you need to develop a particular area, a hash-tag search on that topic will help you access the right tools for you.
Don’t forget closer to home
@NUBS_pgcareers is where we will post new vacancies, upcoming events as well as articles that we feel will be of use in your job search specifically tailored to your needs as postgraduate business school students. @UoNcareers is also one to follow, particularly for students across the university. @NttmUniBSchool helps you keep up to date what is happening in the Business School, whereas @UniofNottingham shares stories from the wider university. @UniofNottAlumni is one to follow once you have left us. Both China and Malaysian campuses also have their own accounts. Don’t forget about your lecturers and the research institutes such as @NUBS_ICCSR and @IngenuityOnline.
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