Are we twits not to tweet?

The other day a friend advised me that in a job interview I would be expected to present my Twitter, my blog and my CV. The fact you have to show your CV is, of course, no surprise and blogging is an obvious way to demonstrate writing skills as well as an indicator of a ruthless ability to self-promote.  But the idea that 140 seemingly arbitrary characters are now not only a contributing factor, but even a crucial element, to a job application seems to me an unexplored phenomenon.  It seems that Twitter has succeeded where Facebook hasn’t; rather than being something to hide behind with a barrage of (dubious) privacy settings, it has become something to shout about – ‘Look at me! Here’s my Twitter!’

As most are aware, Twitter began as an entertaining and unique way of following your favourite celebrities; a sort of grown-up way of being nosy.  But astoundingly, it has developed into something much more significant with influence that ranges from the professional to the social.

Tweeting is essentially a way of communicating your opinion or at the very least exposing something about your character and likes or dislikes.  This has obvious implications for jobs which rely on such sources of opinion, such as media, advertising, PR, politics and even law, so it may come as no surprise that these and many other job sectors now count Twitter among one of the primary ways of researching a candidate.  But what if, for whatever reason, (perhaps dislike of an addictive social media that demands to know your life’s ins and outs or simply that you harbour an inherent anti-establishment feeling that means you just don’t want to do what everyone else is doing) what if, shock horror, you don’t join the bandwagon and sign up to Twitter?

I have no smartphone and although I am on Twitter, having to tweet when I am on my (cranky and very old) computer means that some of the spontaneity is lost and has resulted in, so far, very few tweets.  Increasingly I find that this is setting me apart from not only my peers, but everyone else in the Western world too.  It seems to be a grown-up form of those phases that went round at primary school – ‘everyone buy a tomagotchi, NOW!’  Closely followed by ‘everyone buy a jelly alien, NOW, and by the way if you can, by some extra-terrestrial miracle, make it breed through its head – extra points.’  Except, apparently, the universal opinion is that Twitter is not a phase and the consequent implications are along the lines of ‘not only if you don’t have Twitter you’re very backward, but more worryingly, if you don’t have Twitter you may be so out of touch, you may not get a job’.  That innocent-looking baby-blue coloured bird may just be the world’s most powerful icon.

So far the onus has been on Twitter’s impact on the professional sphere, but with the clever device of ‘hash-tagging’ it has created the social activity of ‘trending’; a vast network comprising of lots of people talking about the same thing. This has two effects – generating huge amounts of publicity for the brand/event/TV show/sport, but also at the same time excluding those who aren’t on Twitter from being part of the latest buzz.  With the recent Kony Facebook campaign that went viral on Facebook, what struck me most was the sheer size and power of the cyber community, and the speed with which an idea can be communicated.  Twitter takes this to a new level as, by including everyone from a young teen to a high profile celebrity to a top investment banker on Wall Street, an issue becomes so high profile and so encompassing of every part of society that anything that is commented on by enough people can no longer be conceivably ignored.

What began as a mild social pressure to join the latest new thing has become something so significant in our culture that without it you not only exclude yourself from involvement with any campaign which might catch the attention of the Twitter world, but more importantly for students, you may well be risking your place in the already competitive job market.  For anyone willing to test this theory and apply for a top position sans twitter account at the ready, be my guest – it would be a social experiment well worth the results if not the effort.  Me however, I’m off to upload a new simplistic yet informative tweet, and along with everyone else, continue doing whatever society requires I do to get where I want to be. #catchyouonlinelater.