Intro

Hi there. I'm Olivia and I'm a senior graduating college in May - which means I spent most of spring semester looking for a job after graduation. Looking for a job can feel like a full-time job itself, especially when trying to juggle classes, internships, and some semblance of social life. I had the added challenge of applying to jobs across the country - I decided to move to Minneapolis after graduation and wanted to stand out from the crowd of local candidates.

The career coaches at my university always tell us to "sell" ourselves to recruiters with a strong pitch. As a marketing major, I know that when you're trying to sell something, you usually run an ad for it.

So that's exactly what I did for my job search.

I created a Facebook ad campaign linking to my resume, targeting people in Minneapolis I thought would be interested in hiring me. Here's how I did it and what kind of a response I got. Spoiler alert: it worked really well.

Method

Targeting

I wanted the right people to see my ad, who would be interested in interviewing me or able to connect me with a recruiter at their company. I used geographic targeting, setting a 25-mile radius of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Since a lot of firms have their businesses in the suburbs, I wanted to be sure I captured those too. I also only targeted adults 25 and up, so that I wouldn't end up targeting college students. Lastly, I used interest targeting on various marketing topics.

While I wanted to specify my interest targeting more, Facebook limited my options a bit. Targeting by job title and field of study doesn't work anymore, after some users filled in these fields with hate speech. There's some confusion over which targeting fields still work and some workarounds have been proposed, but Facebook wouldn't let me continue with any job-specific targeting. It was frustrating, since it limited my ability to target to certain companies I wanted to apply to, but that's the way it is with digital marketing. Algorithms are constantly changing and your campaign has to be able to adjust.

Landing Page

Now that I had the targeting and copy set up, I needed a landing page for the ad to link to. I wanted it go to a personal website that would showcase my resume and a porfolio of projects I had worked on. The page should also include easy ways to contact me. While I was developing a WordPress site for myself, I hadn't finished it yet by the time I wanted the campaign to start. Instead I used Carrd.co, a free and easy-to-use tool that creates responsive one-page sites. It had lots of cool templates to choose from, and once I found one I liked, all I had to do was add a picture of myself, some info about me, and contact links. Although it lacked some of the functionability and customizability of a full-fledged site, I had it set up and live in no time.

Results

Now for the important part, did it bring me any results?

Over a 2-week period, with a $60.00 overall budget these were my results:

Reach: 4,579

Impressions: 5,933

Clicks: 162 (CTR of 4.7%)

Conversions (people who e-mailed or reached out to me): 6 (conversion rate of 3.7%)

Job offers: 1 (happily accepted!)

I saw most engagement from men and women ages 25-34, mostly women. I also, surprisingly, had some organic reach, through someone sharing the ad on her news feed, as seen in the screenshot below. The ad itself had some engagement in the form of likes, but this was minimal.

Conclusion

I received offers for interviews for several companies - all as a result of my Facebook ad campaign. Not all were the best fit or worked out, but it was still great interview practice and a great way to build connections in Minneapolis. I've been amazed by the positive responses I've gotten, and it's been a great conversation starter with hiring managers. I learned a lot about running my own ad campaign, and had a lot of fun along the way. Marketing is something I'm truly passionate about, so to run a campaign all about me was really interesting.

The first conversion I made from my campaign actually ended up becoming an offer for a full-time internship at an ad agency! Never in my wildest dreams did I think this Facebook campaign could actually lead to a paid job after graduation and I'm so glad I took this risk and went for it.

Finding your first job will never be easy. But it doesn't always have to be a stressful anxiety-inducing experience. You don't have to do things the old way with a standard cover letter and resume if that's not working for you. Establishing a personal connection with a recruiter by standing out for something you're passionate about is not only effective, but it'll be an experience you enjoy.

To my fellow job seekers, if you want to run a similar campaign for yourself, let me know and I can help you get it set up and build your landing site for you. And good luck on your job search, it'll all work out in the end.



