Using Twitter and Linkedin to get a Job – Paul Weston’s Story

“Its like a soap opera, it’s the soap opera of life” – Dave Monk BBC Essex
This morning my friend Paul Weston was interviewed live on BBC Essex radio by Dave Monk. Paul is a normal guy, an estimator from Essex who like many of his colleagues was made redundant recently. So how come he’s on the radio?

From the outside social tools like Twitter and Linkedin can seem impenetrable and confusing, but in essence they are simply channels of communication between people. Linkedin is largely used by people who have professional connections – the people they work with, and twitter by people who have much wider connections, some professional and some social, and some both.

I first met Paul on twitter a few months ago when he was working for an Interiors fitout company and we planned to get together at a networking event to see if we could help each other’s companies get new business. Most people in the construction industry get work through the people they know. They get leads and hear about opportunities from friends and colleagues – and this is how we got to know each other.

As it turned out I didn’t get to meet Paul that time, and I’ll be meeting him for the first time tomorrow, but we became friends because he is one of the people I keep in touch with on Twitter. I use twitter in the same way that some people use the pub – a place to meet up and keep in touch with friends, to make new friends and to socialize and talk about work. In the Construction Industry in the UK there are hundreds of twitter users, some tweeting for their company, some for themselves and some doing both. I follow many of these people and we discuss what is going on, share ideas, find stuff for each other, help each other out.

So when Paul (well a friend of his actually, @RobertaWard) let slip to me he was looking for a job, were we going to hang about? He has a wife and two boys to support. We’re experienced using twitter to get help for people, why not him? We encouraged him to upload his CV to his blog and write about what sort of job he wanted, and then we tweeted about it.

And our friends tweeted about it.

And their friends.

And it got onto Linkedin.

And it got on the Radio.

So far Paul’s had several enquiries including from as far afield as Dubai and Australia, and he’s been on the Radio. But he’s still after that job. Its only a matter of time – can you help him?

You can read Paul’s blog (and check out his CV) here