Job Application over Twitter: Business Change 140 Characters At A Time

At Answer Guy Central, we receive job applications all the time. Sometimes they’re in response to gigs we have available, but more often they’re unsolicited requests for work.

If you’ve ever weeded through dozens or hundreds of documents like this, you know what it feels like; the very first time it happens you’re happy to have generated a response like that, and then you realize how much work is involved in reading all that material.

So why not limit the size of your next batch?

Here’s a job listing on Craigslist that’s been live for a few days. UPDATE: it’s gone now, so click this archived copy. Bottom line: it reduces the information requested . . . for that matter, the information accepted . . . to a few multiples of the 140 character limit for messages on Twitter.

Business change means lots of different things, and perhaps none is more important than eliminating information you don’t need. It clutters things up, confuses you, and gets in the way of your vision on the items that you do need to track.

I’m intrigued about whether the company that placed this ad gets who they want from it, but I sure do like the idea. Less really can be more, and if you can reduce or avoid storage of unsolicited material, shorten work time processing the “good ones”, and even do a quick pre-screening by setting up criteria that tests job applicants’ skills, you’re ahead.

Twitter for dating, anyone?