
The Google (Ads) Job Experiment - chaostheory
http://alecbrownstein.com/project.php?cat=3&subcat=&pid=23
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petercooper
If you'd rather see a graphic that explains it than watch a 1 minute video:
[http://alecbrownstein.com/united_way_files/Google_Ad_Layout....](http://alecbrownstein.com/united_way_files/Google_Ad_Layout.jpg)

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patio11
Creative, but it could be done so much better. Improve the copy a bit and send
them to a landing page which functions as a combination pitch and portfolio.

(Psst -- if you're on the job market, have one of those. And since most of you
here can program, have a way to quickly spin up ones targeted to the interests
of a particular decisionmaker. )

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gjm11
Given the results he got, it doesn't seem like he needed to do so much better.
(Of course, perhaps he was just lucky.)

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dfj225
I have to say, that's pretty bloody brilliant. If you were the one performing
the search, how could you _not_ click on that link?

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natrius
I'm used to seeing people search results there when I search for names, so I'd
probably skip over it. There's got to be something more attention grabbing
than "Hey, $NAME".

Still, this is cool.

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zalew
But his target was people from the ad industry, and they pay more attention to
ads than you.

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WillyF
This is brilliant.

I'm the guy who came up with the idea of using Facebook Ads to target
companies that you want to work for.

[http://www.onedayonejob.com/blog/use-facebook-ads-to-make-
em...](http://www.onedayonejob.com/blog/use-facebook-ads-to-make-employers-
hunt-you-down/)

I toyed around with the idea of using Google AdWords, but couldn't quite
figure out how to get the targeting right. This just made me smack my
forehead. For most job seekers this idea is a lot harder to implement than the
Facebook idea just because you often don't know whom you want to talk to about
landing a job with a given company.

Still, this has me thinking of all kind of ways that you can use AdWords to
target really niche keywords. The clicks probably cost a nickel, but the
attention derived from that click could be way more.

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quickpost
How often do these guys google themselves? My mean time between self-
googling's can be months... seems like there would be the potential for months
to pass before hearing anything.

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prawn
Consider that a friend, acquaintance or employee might have seen the ad and
mentioned it to them. That'd reduce the waiting time.

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patio11
That's _even better_ , because you've just leaped up the trust totem pole from
"A nobody on the Internet" to "a warm introduction from a trusted associate."

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acangiano
Excellent example of thinking outside of the box.

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eru
And the copy-cats will pay much more than the 6$.

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jwegan
Why? I don't think it is going to be wide spread and people aren't all going
to be going after the same people for jobs.

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eru
Good question. I just assumed this would get popular, like the million-dollar
homepage.

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ryanwaggoner
Cool idea, but why would you use a video with cheesy promo music to explain
it, instead of a paragraph of text with a screenshot or two?

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nfnaaron
Because that's appropriate for your intended audience?

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ntoshev
I've tried hiring using Google Ads with keywords relevant to some advanced
techs we use and if you are in my country, you get an ad. It didn't help much
with our immediate hiring needs but it worked better as brand advertisement -
it generated some discussions and I believe it did help us hiring later.

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joshu
Heh. There used to be a job ad on my name. By a former employer. Now there's
just one from my current employer.

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Timothee
That'd be a great answer to YC's application question "Please tell us about
the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your
advantage."

Granted it still involved a computer, but I'm sure they'd agree it was a great
example.

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_delirium
So this is a cool idea, but since the video was just some text and two
screenshots, couldn't he have made a blog post instead of making me load a
video?

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grease
Hmm ... wondering how frequently do people google themselves "as compared to
other people googling for them". The ratio will be even smaller for famous
people.

It can be debated that the others will not click on the link. Or that people
actually google themselves more often than I think. Just a thought.

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microcentury
Pedantic point: that's the first ad at the top, not the first search result
(which is not clear in the video).

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rythie
This was just on the channel 4 national TV news in U.K.

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stretchwithme
amazing. the opportunities are all around us

