5 Ways Twitter Can Help You Score Your Dream Job and Get Higher Grades
One of the big reasons that interviews are tough is the gap in real world knowledge. The interviewer lives and breathes the job you’re going after and is completely immersed in the real world events surrounding it.
They know about the latest marketing campaign that’s crushing it or the big M&A deal that was just announced. They may even have been part of them.
Then you come along with the theory you learned in Intro to Marketing or Finance 101. The knowledge gap is massive.
The obvious solution is to take steps to close that gap.
Thanks Captain Obvious
This may seem obvious but you might ask…
How am I going to get to the same level of knowledge as someone who’s actually running marketing campaigns or closing deals?
My answer…you don’t have to get to the level of the interviewer.
A quick story to illustrate…
Two guys are running away from a bear and one stops to tie his shoe. The other turns to him stunned. Do you really think you’re going to outrun the bear?
The shoe-tier replies, “I don’t need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you.”
Now this is a little more of zero sum attitude than I’d recommend but it highlights a key idea. You don’t need to completely close the knowledge gap with your interviewer, you need to widen the knowledge gap between you and the other candidates.
Using Twitter to Build Knowledge
There are lots of ways to do this but my first pick is the smart use of Twitter.
Using Twitter right does 2 things for you.
1) Closing the knowledge gap. It’s an incredible resource for learning – you can learn from experts – not just credentialed, pontificating types, but actual practitioners whose credibility is right there in their feed.
2) It’s a great way to connect with people who you’d otherwise never cross paths with. This is massively underestimated but just one connection can completely change your trajectory.
Isn’t Twitter a Disaster Zone
But Twitter has a reputation as a cesspool, right, where it’s just constant shouting? Well, that’s only partly true – there are also amazing oases of value and knowledge.
Unfortunately, the shoutiness scares many people away from Twitter and those who get there mostly don’t even come close to tapping Twitter’s potential.
The biggest reasons for underuse
Twitter has nearly 400 million users. How can so many of them be missing out on the most useful parts of Twitter?
Well, to be fair, it’s mostly not their fault. It’s a combination of:
- Most users don’t know any better
- The algorithm serves up content to keep you outraged
- It takes effort to set it up right in the first place
So here are 5 ways to use Twitter instead of it using you:
1. Use Twitter lists – Putting yourself in control of your attention, not the algorithm
Use lists to let YOU decide what and who you see in your feed, not the algorithm.
In your main feed, Twitter will show you:
- SOME of the tweets of people you follow
- Suggested tweets that the algorithm thinks you may like
- Tweets that are currently popular
- Older tweets that it thinks you’ll like instead of a chronological list
It’s a mess and you are at the mercy of the algorithm.
Fortunately, there’s a better way. Curate lists of smart people who write about different topics you care about and see all of their tweets instead of just what Twitter thinks you’ll like.
For example, let’s say you’re into investing. You can curate a specific list of people who often post insightful tweets about investing in general or companies you care about in specific. Alternatively, maybe your interest is marketing. There are a bunch of people on Twitter who may prove as valuable to your learning as most marketing classes – real practitioners sharing their knowledge.
And this is where Twitter is worth its weight in gold. It helps your knowledge compound.
You’ll gradually take in the knowledge and insight you gain from the people on your lists and that knowledge becomes intuitive over time.
This is definitely going to help you get higher grades as you integrate what you’re reading into your work, but it’s also going to help you in interviews because your knowledge will be deeper and more “real world” than many of your competitors.
I’d recommend at least 5 lists:
· Finance/investing
· Marketing
· Productivity/self improvement
· Business News
· Interesting
The first 4 is self explanatory and the fifth is one where you can dump people in when they don’t fit into other categories. This is just how you start – but I’d recommend getting a feel for things before going crazy adding lists. You’ll be curating these for years to get that right combo.
If you don’t know how to do this, check out this thread where I take you step by step through the process.
2. Use Tweetdeck – It saves time and amplifies value
Once you make those lists it can get overwhelming and you may never look at them.
Tweetdeck is a fantastic (desktop only) app that lets you see multiple lists at once. It’s value increases if you decide to really engage with Twitter and post yourself (but that’s a conversation for another day).
By having visibility on multiple lists, you’ll be able to efficiently browse what you care about and avoid (or reduce) the risk of doomscrolling.
Pin your lists because they’ll show up at the top of your timeline on mobile and you can swipe between them. That way, when you have a few minutes to kill, you can read about things that you’re interested in and that you’ve selected instead of what the Twitter timeline shoved in front of you.
3. Master Twitter search – You’ll be amazed at what it unlocks
A well curated series of lists and using Tweetdeck will let you easily and efficiently access the gems that are being sent across the ether at that moment.
Knowing how to effectively use Twitter search on the other hand, unlocks the accumulated knowledge and benefits of Twitter – and they’re massive.
Here are some of the key ways to use advanced search like a champ…
Go ahead and copy and paste all of these into the search in Twitter and you’ll see what they produce.
1) From:TheMBA_Coach “active recall”
This will give you Tweets from me that mention active recall.
2) min_faves:100 #gobolts
Will give you tweets with the hashtag #gobolts (for you Tampa Bay Lightening fans) which have been liked more than 100 times.
3) from:tferriss min_faves:500 filter:links
Will give you tweets from Tim Ferriss with more than 500 likes but only include tweets that also have links in them.
So how to put advanced Twitter search to use?
As you spend time on Twitter, you’ll find people who are sharing valuable knowledge. Twitter search lets you mine their previous tweets for more valuable content.
Let’s use an example from marketing (this approach works better on the Twitter site instead of Tweetdeck).
Seth Godin is an outstanding writer and thinker. So let’s say you wanted to go down the rabbit hole of all his stuff.
You could start by searching from:ThisIsSethsBlog min_faves:250 and then read what you find there.
After consuming that content (and thinking about how to apply it yourself), you could try “seth godin” min_faves:250. This produces a bigger list of tweets to peruse.
As you’re scanning the tweets, hover your mouse over people’s names and you’ll see their Twitter bio. If they have an interesting bio they might be interesting to add to a list.
It’s this process of reading, learning and finding new interesting people to add to your lists which compounds the value of Twitter so much.
4. Bookmark tweets
This is a terrific tool to come back to read a longer form piece or a thread that you want to refer to again. For articles, I think I’d still recommend Pocket but bookmarks are a great way to put something aside to come back to later.
5. Shortcut keys
The last item is a quick one. I am always preaching about using shortcut keys wherever possible because of the incredible amount of time you can save. Twitter use is no exception, but there are only three that I’ve found super useful.
1. Press / to search
2. Press g then i to go directly to lists
3. Press the spacebar to pagedown
Take 10 minutes and start the ball rolling with Twitter lists of your own. You won’t regret it!
If you’re having trouble, DM me on Twitter and I can help you out!
