Hi Sharon,

Happy New Year and thank you for your great question. I do think Twitter can help you in your job search.

For those of you who haven't checked it out, Twitter is a website (www.twitter.com) that enables users to send and read brief messages – only 140 characters. The messages, called tweets, are typically visible to the public.

Users can sign-up to receive tweets sent by a particular person. Signing-up for somebody's tweets is called "following" someone. Each tweeter uses a name preceded by "@" sign. For example, you can read my tweets about job search by going to the Twitter website and looking for @JobSearchCafe.

You can also read up on certain topics on Twitter by understanding how the "hashtag" symbol works. (The hashtag symbol is the tic-tac-toe sign on your keyboard.) Let's say you want to read everything that was tweeted recently about job search. You would simply use the search box on your Twitter page, type-in #jobsearch, and you would find a wealth of up-to-the-minute information on job search.

Twitter does get a bum rap, I'll admit. After analyzing two weeks of tweets, one 2009 study found 40 percent of tweets to be "pointless babble" and another 38 percent of tweets to be personal conversations. So just how can Twitter help you then? Twitter conveniently brings you:

1. Superb job search information. While 140 characters can't teach you much on the subject of job search, writers post links to their full articles within the tweet so if you want to read more, you just click the link. So if you are interested in learning information about resumes or interviewing, simply search for #resumes or #interviewing in Twitter, and you'll be surprised at the very current and high quality information you'll find.

2. Advice from the best career coaches in the country. Follow experts like @WSJCareers, @JobHuntOrg, @SusanWhitcomb, @GlassDoorDotCom, @Cenedella and @ExecTweets. Their secrets and tips will be pushed onto your personal Twitter page helping you improve your job search tactics.

3. Key business and industry news. The list of business leaders who tweet is impressive. You can use the Twitter feature, "Browse Interests" and then identify people or entities to follow. I follow AMANet, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and The Harvard Business Review. What better way to stay abreast of fresh business insights and ideas to impress hiring managers?

4. Information about companies. Are you targeting specific companies in your job search? Sign-up for tweets about the company and learn the inside (and uncensored) scoop before you interview.

5. Jobs! Companies tweet jobs openings. Recruiters have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and feed job openings to Twitter. You can sign up for services like Tweet My Jobs (http://tweetmyjobs.com), subscribe to different career channels (e.g., USA – IL – Chicago Metro – Sales), and get job openings sent to your Twitter account or phone. Using Twitter to identify job openings may give you at least two advantages. First, Twitter communicates at lightning speed and you may hear about an opening sooner on Twitter than on a traditional job posting site. Second, the majority of Twitter users are under 35. An older job seeker applying via Twitter can demonstrate strong technical savvy and fight ageism by being a part of this relatively new technology.

One final but excellent reason to claim your spot on Twitter is that at Patch, we tweet the latest, greatest Lake Zurich stories.  Be the first to know when something happens in our town or when this column is updated by following us on Twitter: @LakeZurichPatch.

Your neighbor and career coach,

@JobSearchCafe, Christy