I Ran Facebook Ads to Get a Job. Here's What Happened.
Looking Back
June 2026
I wrote this article in 2018, when I was early in my career and looking for ways to build my marketing experience. Eight years later, I can see a few things I would have done differently.
For starters, you can't really replicate this experiment on Facebook today. Meta now places employment-related advertising into a Special Ad Category, which comes with significant restrictions on audience targeting, including employer and job title information. Even when I ran this campaign, there were limitations I didn't fully appreciate. Facebook's employer and job title data depended on what users report in their profiles.
More importantly, I don't think I was as clear as I could have been about what I was actually trying to accomplish. My ultimate goal was to get a job, but the immediate goal of this particular campaign should have been much more narrowly focused on generating awareness and moving interested people to connect with me. I was thinking about the campaign as a way to get my resume in front of people when I should have been thinking more about the journey that came after the ad. That would have meant a more targeted landing page, a softer call to action and a clearer next step.
I also would have paid more attention to what was already working. One of my campaigns was getting significantly more engagement than the others, and rather than simply moving on, I could have used that interest to inform a follow-up ad and try to reengage that audience. From a marketing perspective, I was asking an ad to do too much of the work instead of building a simple path from awareness to engagement.
Were I to do this again now, LinkedIn would be a much better fit for this kind of campaign. Its ability to target professional audiences by attributes like company and job title overcome the restrictions placed by Meta. And realistically, users would likely be much more open to this kind of tactic on LinkedIn than on Facebook or Instagram.
So, yes, I still see plenty of things I could have done better. And who knows? With a better funnel, I might have made some real connections and friendships that could have changed my life.
I Ran Facebook Ads to Get a Job. Here's What Happened.
Have you ever tried using Facebook Ads to network your way to your dream job? Did you know that was even a thing? Until recently, I didn’t.
When I began my latest job search, I picked up a copy of Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters 3.0 by Jay Conrad Levinson and David E. Perry. As we all know, finding a job is hard. But finding the right job is nearly an act of God. I was ready to do whatever it took to stack the deck in my favor, so grabbing a copy of this highly rated job-hunting book seemed like a no-brainer. It was a great read, and I got a lot of helpful tips from it. My favorite tip of the bunch?
The writers of the book advocate using Facebook Ads to find great opportunities. And it’s not just them. The book features an article written by Willy Franzen, the founder of One Day, One Job. On their blog, the One Day, One Job team even took it a step further by running a Facebook Ads experiment. Participants were given a budget and utilized Facebook Ads to reach individuals who work at target companies of interest. The blog post offers tips and best practices for using Facebook Ads in your job search based on the data they collected.
I was intrigued. While the One Day, One Job team cautions that using Facebook Ads won't be a slam-dunk to your next job, it's a great way to open doors at target companies and make yourself stand out from the pack. And as we all know, in today's job-hunting climate, finding a way to get your resume to the top of the pile is half the battle.
With that in mind, I took to Facebook armed with my best ad copy. And my credit card. I chose to target four large companies, in three different cities along the East Coast and Midwest, whose employees I would be reaching through my advertising. The companies are large enough that the average American should be familiar with them. I purposely chose companies I had not applied to and resisted the urge to even look to see what their current openings were.
According to Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters 3.0, 95% of jobs are not advertised. Instead, many positions are filled through networking. Like when the head of the department just happens to know a guy who would be perfect for the position that just opened up. So, generally speaking, advertising on Facebook is more of a networking endeavor and not necessarily dependent on targeting a specific job. What was the result?
I’ll start by saying I won't be getting a cubicle at any of my target companies any time soon. While there was some response in the form of comments and shares, which I’ll expand on shortly, I got zero emails or inquiries of any kind.
But let’s get a little more granular:
I ran my campaigns from November 2, 2018 through November 7, 2018, and spent a total of $50.38 between my four target companies. The engagement results varied with each campaign.
Target company 1:
Target company 2:
Target company 3:
Target company 4:
Between my four target companies, engagement results were all over the board. Companies 1 and 2 sat comfortably in the middle with 20 and 28 link clicks, respectively, while Company 3 blew the others out of the water with 43 link clicks. Meanwhile, Company 4 sat stagnant at a measly 3 link clicks over the course of the campaign.
In looking at my engagement, I had to take into account who I was actually reaching. Each of my four target companies offers nationwide retail outlets that would be very familiar to most consumers. That said, I had to be aware that most of the people reached, and likely much of the engagement I was getting, was coming from employees at the retail locations.
But just because I was primarily reaching non-stakeholders didn’t mean that I was exclusively reaching them. While the comments section was far from lit, my little Facebook ads created some conversation, and with a little sleuthing, I was able to learn that a few of my commenters were actually important marketing department stakeholders within my target companies.
One of my commenters tagged another individual who later commented that a third person had already sent them my ad. One quick LinkedIn search later, I found out that the tagged commenter is in charge of Copywriting at one of my target companies.
One of my other ads caught the attention of someone who turned out to be a Creative Director at one of my target companies.
So, would I do it again? Under the right circumstances, sure, I’d give it another shot. But with a few tweaks:
First, I would research current openings and perhaps try a different approach with my ad copy. Halfway through the experiment, I broke my own rule. I decided to do a search and find out if any of my target companies were currently hiring in their marketing departments for associate-level positions, and unfortunately, despite my target companies being large corporations, there weren’t many current openings that were applicable to me and my skill set.
While I respect the fact that the goal is to network, I hypothesize that there may not have been any appropriate openings at my target companies at the time of my advertising. And since my ad copy clearly indicated that I was looking for a job, this may have prevented those who would have been open to networking from reaching out.
Second, I would create a dedicated landing page. For this experiment, rather than create a dedicated landing page for each or all of the target companies, I simply linked my ads to a PDF of my resume, which displayed my contact info, including my website address. Perhaps the Facebook ads themselves captured attention, but following them up by slapping down my resume failed to seal the deal? I hypothesize that having a more interesting, more flashy, or dare I say, more targeted landing page may garner better results.
Third, I would tweak along the way. For this experiment, I pulled out without making any real pivots or tweaks and took the results at face value. Target company 4, with its ultra-low engagement rates, would have been a great place to play and experiment, but I chose not to. Next time, I would make a different choice with some of my underperforming campaigns and use them as an opportunity to try something new.
Even though this particular experiment was a bust, I would definitely be open to trying again. This tactic is a totally untapped resource and one that I truly believe has the potential to be impactful.
If you haven't used Facebook Ads to market yourself for your job hunt, maybe you should. Remember, you can set your budget to any amount you feel comfortable with, so the cost is manageable and will likely be more of an investment of time rather than cash. Whether you find your next dream job or just end up with a great story, there’s no harm in testing out a groundbreaking method for getting your name out there.