Have you considered renting a billboard and promoting your resume that way? If you have, can I make a suggestion? PLEASE DON’T do that.
- Mark4Hire <– Did it work? No.
- HirePasha <– Did it work? No, but she started her own company. God bless her. How much did it cost to rent the billboard? $7,000.00)
- Julie Sarpy <– $1200.00 for 3-days of Billboard hype. Not sure if it worked.
- David4hire <— $5,000.00 billboard. No success story posted. (Anybody have an idea?)
Why billboards are a bad idea:
- Not targeted – On any given day, on a major thoroughfare, tens of thousands of cars pass through. Where are they going? To work? Maybe. Maybe they are job seekers like you? What percentage are people ideally suited to hire you? Can you tell? Nope!
- Expensive – In these days and times, spending thousands of dollars on a longshot is very risky.
- Can’t track who saw it – Sure, its in a great location for a lot of eyeballs (presumably) but how many people really paid it attention? Maybe they are listening to the radio, talking on the phone or they saw it but did not really see it. Case in point, if you drive the same way everyday to and from work, do you still look at the street signs?
- Often in a bad location – Bad location is subjective. If you have a pizza joint near an intersection, then a billboard is GREAT! However, if you want to work in the semiconductor industry and there are no semiconductor companies near that location, then that location pretty much sucks. You dig? So, my final analysis?
Just say no!
However, if I caught you too late and you have already invested in a billboard. Sigh… Here are a few suggestions (for what its worth)
- Use a (free) service like Textmarks. With Textmarks people can text a phrase to a number (41-411) and the service will automatically send a message back to them. The message that is broadcast could be “Project Manager – 10 yrs experience – Six Sigma Certified – www.hiremenowplease.com” When someone texts the service you get their phone number. So, follow up and say “Hi, are you hiring?”
- Find other suckers / umm, I mean other jobseekers to join you and thereby defray costs. Have the billboard point to a website where multiple resumes are posted. Hmm.. Maybe you can make a business out of it? If so, let me know (and send me a cut).
- Make sure that the billboard is not on a major highway. Beyond all the traffic, who is really looking at it? Do the research and make sure that the billboards are near office parks. The price may be lower since you are not near a major intersection, but at least the traffic will be more targeted. And speaking of location, do yourself a favor and put your tax dollars to work. The Department of Labor keeps stats on occupational trends. For example, http://www.dol.state.ga.us/wp/area_short_term_emp_projections.htm <– reports on what counties in Ga are projected to be hiring and in what and which counties are expected to be doing the hiring. Make sense?
Good luck with your search.
-Jim
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Wow, I can’t believe people have actually used billboards. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. Its unfortunate to see someone lose so much money on a technique that is likely to make you see either really desperate or overly conceited. Of course like you mention it is also difficult to tell how effective the billboard is at actually picking up the attention of a driving recruiter. Its even more difficult however to get that person to whip out their phone or notepad in time to jot down your number…