Why I’ll Probably Get My Next Job From Twitter

June 9, 2014

I vowed to never sign up for a Twitter as a teenager.

I dismissed the entire platform because I thought it was just another website for people to complain, only this time in 140 characters or less. Didn’t we have enough rants already on Facebook? It caused me to roll my eyes every time I heard someone say “tweet.”

When I got to college, a few of my new friends tried to convert me into a tweeter, but for them, it was a way to post song lyrics and negatively subtweet about one another. Yeah, no thank you.

I reassured them many times that nothing would change my mind. That was until my friend Vincent showed me his account and opened my eyes to the real potential of Twitter.

Vincent’s Twitter was different from the rest because of the way he used it. With an entrepreneurial spirit much like my own, he was connecting with other professionals early as a student to grow his networks as a student. I realized it wasn’t the tool that made me cringe but how most of my peers were utilizing it. With Vincent as my first follower, I started my Twitter journey at the beginning of my sophomore year in college.

It’s no secret that my love for Twitter today knows no bounds.

I always check Twitter notifications before opening text messages or emails. The only times I’m not surfing Twitter are if I’m spending time with friends and family or working, but even then it’s still a part of my job description.

Twitter is my love language.

It’s the hub where I’ve found an incredible amount of encouragement and support for not only my professional endeavors but also my personal passion projects. These Twitter communities are my fuel for designing the life I want and defining what success means to me.

I have had four internships in pursuit of my Bachelor’s degree and they all started with Twitter. Each position was created for me because I reached out to companies and blogs I was interested in interning with and created my own opportunities. I built relationships with each brand before asking about an internship, which helped immensely because they knew who I was and, more importantly, the work I was capable of from my online portfolio and blog.

Now that I am a semester away from graduation, I have no doubt Twitter will play a leading role in my search for an entry-level position in the fields of public relations, marketing, and branding. I can’t imagine how shocked Teenager Kayla would be to hear those words, but it’s true.

To all of you who I have connected with on Twitter, thank you in every sense of the phrase. To those who I have yet to connect with, I look forward to tweeting you (without the eye roll this time!).