Twitter is, hands down, my favorite social network. It's a great source of information and learning, and a wonderful way to connect with people who share similar interests. As a recruiter, it's also great for sourcing candidates. Despite the concise nature of the tool, there's a wealth of data to be found - if you know where and how to look.

Twitter's Advanced Search

Start with Twitter's advanced search.

Let's say you're searching for an email marketing manager in San Francisco who specializes in marketing automation - just type what you're looking for into the various fields to search both tweets and people that match those keywords (alternatively, I can just type marketing automation near:"San Francisco, CA" within:15mi into the search bar at the top).

These are the results I came up with:

The first one is a promoted tweet, which has no mention of my keywords - so I just ignore it. But the next three are very interesting indeed.

1. Josh Mack is a marketing professional in San Francisco. Upon further review of his Twitter page, there isn't a whole lot of information about what he does, but it looks like he works for Shutterfly. No problem, he comes up first in my search for him on Linkedin - and I can easily find that he's the CRM Manager at Shutterfly. He is responsible for managing "all lifecycle and automated CRM email marketing campaigns" - cha-ching! Sounds like a great candidate to reach out to.
2. The second tweet belongs to Carly Guarcello. Again - not a ton of information about her professional background, but it's clear that she works for Achievers. A quick Linkedin search later, and we've found that she's the Marketing Automation and Campaign Specialist over there - boo-yah!
3. And the third result could potentially be the best of them all! Mitch Patel is a self-proclaimed "modern marketer" at Eloqua, which happens to be a top of the line marketing automation vendor. His knowledge of marketing automation tools and best practices has got to be astronomical, plus I'd bet he knows a TON of marketing automation professionals. Goldmine!

Now, I do want to include a disclaimer here that I'm searching for marketing people, who are most likely to be on Twitter and Linkedin - which has contributed significantly to how easy this search was. You are not likely to have this kind of luck for every position you're looking to fill - and you should keep mental notes of which positions Twitter works well for, and when you should source elsewhere. OK, back to the article...

You've Found Great Candidates, Now What?

1. Start by responding to the tweet you found from your search - and keep it short (140 characters!) and catchy. Something like, "Your enthusiasm for marketing automation is exactly what we need @BrightJobs! Interested in a chat? We're tons of fun http://goo.gl/Q0lkv".
2. Add each candidate to a Twitter list so you can easily keep track of who you're interested in, and keep up good engagement with them. Get their attention by retweeting, favoriting or replying to some of their other tweets.
3. Follow up later in the week if you haven't heard back. Sometimes, candidates don't contact you back because they were busy and forgot, or your message slipped by them undetected - don't let a great prospective candidate slip away just because you didn't connect on your first try! At this point, it's recommended that you also try a different medium of engagement - perhaps a phone call or email, if you can find it - just make sure you reference your original message on Twitter.

Reaching out via Twitter works because most in-demand candidates aren't being bombarded on Twitter, like they are on Linkedin, and it's very quick and easy for them to respond. Although you can't include much information to sell your candidate on working for your company, you can easily provide a link with additional information and next steps.

Do you use Twitter for recruitment? Share your experiences and best practices below!