Can jet engines be used for VTOL civilian aircraft?
Can?

Of course they can.

Does it make sense?

No, it does not.

A VTOL needs thrust at least equal to its weight. That is much more than a fixed-wing aircraft (HTOL) needs. Airliners have lift-to-drag ratio around 18–20. That is in clean configuration; in landing configuration it might be about half (~10) and we need twice as much thrust in case an engine fails, so around ¼ weight. So a VTOL would need 4 times as much thrust as a HTOL.

Likely more, because the craft would still have to be capable of reasonably controlled landing in case of engine failure. And while rotorcraft can do that by autorotation and pilot of Harrier or F-35B can simply eject, jet-powered civilian VTOL would only have the remaining engines for it.

Now fortunately thrust and power are only indirectly related. To create thrust, force must be applied to the air. This force accelerates air, giving it some momentum and some kinetic energy. Thrust is (change of) momentum per time and momentum is mass time velocity while power is (change of) energy per time and energy is ½ mass times speed squared.

So we can produce a lot of thrust with little power by accelerating a lot of air by a little. Which means large propeller: a rotor. That's how helicopters get enough lift/thrust with reasonably small engine.

Unfortunately rotors are not very practical for flying fast. One would also be rather difficult to tilt. That's why V-22 Osprey and Augusta-Westland AW603 use a compromise that is somewhere between; large enough to still have good efficiency in hover and small enough to be possible to tilt.

What would definitely not be efficient for hover is a jet though. Jets are small and can't affect that much air; what they can is accelerate it a lot. That is necessary for flying fast, but it is terribly inefficient when flying slowly.

Military jets don't care. They want so powerful engine to fly very fast anyway and they don't care for efficiency much as decisive edge in combat is worth a lot of money. But for civilian transport the small advantage of being able to land closer to destination would not outweigh the disadvantage of being several times more expensive to operate. Flying the long distance with HTOL to a nearby airport and, if the destination is not reachable by car, hiring a helicopter just for the final part of the trip ends up being a lot cheaper.