Recent grad advertises himself on Facebook to find a job

There are well over 10 million Canadians registered on Facebook and this statistic is growing every year. Zak Katz, a University of Western Ontario alumnus and one of those 10 million users, decided to use Canada’s Facebook fanaticism to his advantage by advertising himself on the social network to find a job after graduation.

Zak studied management and finance and, after graduation, started looking for positions in advertising. He created a blog containing information for potential employers so he could include the address to a personal website on his business cards.

One day, while he was surfing Facebook, he noticed the different types of advertisements running on the side of the website. Since job hunting is essentially promoting your skills to employers, Zak decided to create a personal ad to help him find a job.

Zak’s Facebook ad appeared under the headline: “Hire Zak Katz” and included his picture and a small description. Clicking his ad redirected you to Zak’s blog, which includes his cover letter and current resume. Zak used his insider knowledge of the marketing industry and Facebook’s suggestions to optimize his ad’s appeal. His goal was to make the ad appear basic with a clear message.

Facebook allows advertisers to target their promotions by selecting key words and specific cities where the ad will appear. By inputting these two components, Facebook can generate an approximate number of people that will view the ad. Zak inputted buzz words like certain job titles, companies, and terms synonymous with advertising. He decided to promote himself in his hometown of Winnipeg, as well as the advertising hub of Canada: Toronto. The result was an approximate audience of 10,000 viewers for Zak’s Facebook marketing campaign.

Advertising isn’t free, however Zak says Facebook is one of the more affordable venues for promotion. It is a small price to pay for being set apart from the job-seeking masses. Advertising on Facebook also shows that a knowledge of the evolution of the advertising industry.

Zak chose to pay based on the number of times his advertisement is clicked and set an initial budget of $100 for 2-3 weeks of advertising. Zak’s promotion was so popular that he hit the maximum daily charge of $25 on his first day. Due to this overwhelming response, Zak decided to allow his ad to run as long as needed. Though the cost was slightly more than initially anticipated, Zak reasoned “it only has to work once and then [he’ll] make it back pretty soon”.

The ad went up on May 29, 2009, and the initial response was a lot of spam. Zak received floods of ‘work at home’ offers and invitations to ‘pyramid schemes.’ But, as time progressed, he began to see more encouraging responses. People from across Canada reached out to Zak with advice and helpful suggestions regarding the field of advertising.

It seems as though the ad was a success! Zak was offered an account management position with Tactica Communications, a Winnipeg-based web development and online marketing company.

Would you hire someone whose employment ad you saw on Facebook?