Miranda Pederson/Daily News Western Kentucky University sophomore Celeste Laurent of Princeton found an internship through Twitter.

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Tweet this: Limited to 140 characters, Celeste Laurent got an internship. Through Twitter.

The Western Kentucky University sophomore from Princeton had just learned her originally scheduled internship had fallen through. Rather than complain about it, she “tweeted” her status on the online social network.

“Searching for paid summer internship/job related to #farm, #agriculture, #journalism, #news-writing. Any suggestions welcome!” she wrote on her limited-space site.

Little did the journalism and animal science major know, someone was following her agriculture related posts, and responded with more than just a suggestion.

Sara Long, who works in communications at Michigan State University’s Agriculture Extension Office, had followed Laurent’s “Tweet” updates on Twitter and had even checked out the student’s blogs on her personal Web site www.celestelaurent.com.

“I wasn’t looking for a job, I thought I’d get replies like ‘oh, apply here,’ ‘have you tried this,’ ” Laurent said. “But (Long’s reply was) ‘are you interested in.’ ”

A few e-mails and a phone call later, Laurent was hired to spend the summer helping write news releases and develop the Web site for Michigan State’s extension office.

“It was a really quick process,” Laurent said. “Before we had even spoken, she had passed my resume and pieces of my work (posted on my site) around.”

Laurent said she had been a Facebook user in the past, but had purchased her own domain name for her electronic technologies in journalism class and decided to make the best of it.

Her instructor, Chris Houchens, also the Online Director at the Daily News, said the sites are a new requirement for students as part of the Journalism Department’s “Brand U” program.

The students purchase their domain name and as part of his class, submit weekly blogs with options to include a resume and personal information to essentially sell themselves to employers.

“She really embraced the Web site and Twitter and began using them above and beyond what I required,” Houchens said. “She really took the bull by the horns ... it shows the power of social media. She never would have made those connections.”

Laurent said she would eventually like to work for an agriculture magazine like Beef, but never expected to get her career start through Twitter. In fact, Laurent said she hated the site for the first couple weeks and had to force herself to “tweet.”

“I honestly didn’t expect anything but to complain to the big wide Web,” she said.