Sometimes it takes having our backs against the wall to make us get creative, and there’s no doubt that some jobseekers have come up with some weird and wonderful ways to attract the attention of employers – check out the Pepsi Max advert at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKV0QuQsonk for an amusing example of one tactic which is probably best avoided.
Thinking creatively about how to find employment doesn’t necessarily require such extreme action, however, and Marian Schembari’s recent Facebook ad campaign is a great example of how to reach a targeted audience and get responses. Marian, a recent graduate who was desperate to get into the world of publishing, employed this particular technique and generated lots of positive replies, including call backs, invitations for interviews and even an offer of some freelance work. Albeit that publishing is an extremely difficult area to get into, she reported only a couple of weeks ago that she is now employed by a book PR firm after a job search which lasted only six weeks. Although there is a small investment necessary, you, the advertiser, are in control of how much you want, or can afford to pay.
The way that Facebook advertising works is basically that you create an ad which can include text and an image, as well as a link to your own website, blog or a particular page, application, group or event on Facebook itself. Once your ad is prepared, you can then ‘hypertarget’ your audience according to a range of demographic and other filters which include, most relevantly, location, workplace and keywords. In Marian’s case, she had a clear idea of which companies she was interested in working for and so was able to target current employees of those firms specifically.
Your next decisions concern whether you want to pay for your advertisement ‘per click’ or ‘per view’ (Facebook FAQs can help you to decide which is better for you), how much you want to spend per day (the minimum is $1 per day) and the scheduling of your ad campaign. Once you have completed the process, your ad will then appear on the Facebook pages of all those users who meet the criteria set via your filters.
Marian’s ad was simply worded and directed readers to her website which contains her resume, references and testimonials, portfolio and contact details and is a nice example of how to set up a professional job search site. You can view it at http://marianschembari.com/index.html. The Director of Digital Marketing and Associate Publisher at HarperCollins was so impressed by Marian’s approach that she even wrote about her job search campaign on the HarperStudio website, thus creating even more publicity. Again, you can read this article by clicking on the link on the Home page of Marian’s website.
Obviously this is not a tactic that you will want to try if you already have a job and are looking to move on, but if you have recently graduated or are currently unemployed, what a great way to get yourself noticed and move your job search forward!
You can sign up for Facebook advertising and create your own job search ad by going to http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?advertising&src=guk2.
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