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Recruit a Luminary with Google Ads

How to Recruit a Luminary

If you want to recruit a luminary or rockstar executive, brace yourself. They are so heavily recruited it is next to impossible to get them to return your calls or respond to your emails. As a recruiter that can be pretty frustrating. But there is something you should know about industry VIPs. And once you know it you can use that knowledge to your advantage.

Recruit a Luminary with a Google Ad

Luminaries often “google” themselves. Of course, now that you know this quirky behavior, you’ve just opened up a new way to communicate with that individual. So how do you recruit a luminary? Run a Google Ad.

Famous executives “google” themselves to see what’s been written about them. Yep, they type in their very own name into the Google search box and then check to see what comes back in the search results. Call it narcissism. Call it curiosity. But whatever it is, it represents an opportunity for any recruiter who is attempting to engage with a highly sought-after candidate. You can harness that impulse of theirs by running an hyper targeted Google Ad for that one person.

Recruit a VIP with a Google Ad that Addresses Him by Name

The moment that VIP googles himself and hits return, your Google Ad addressing that one individual by name will appear in his search results. Think of it as sending a text via Google Ads, only this is everyone else who googles the VIPs name will see it too.

The technique was developed by an advertising executive who conducted The Google Job Experiment. (See video below.) For a total cost of $6 dollars, he placed Google Ads targeting the Creative Directors at leading ad agencies in New York. When they googled themselves, the top result was a message from the executive asking for a job. Of the 5 creative directors he targeted by name in the ads, 4 granted him interviews and 2 of the 4 offered him jobs.

A Great Way to Get an Executive’s Attention

If the recruiting technique works to gain a hiring executive’s attention in pursuit of a job, it could work in reverse, getting an elusive candidate’s attention. It could help a headhunter recruit the impossible-to-recruit candidate who never responds to recruiters.

So, You’ve Googled Yourself, Right?

If you’ve ever googled yourself — and chances are you have — you can understand why placing an online ad might actually work. Imagine surfing the Internet, googling your own name, and then noticing an ad in the search results that is talking to you.

While it may be a little creepy and stalker-ish — you likely would realize that someone went to a great deal of trouble to recruit you and you alone. They went so far as to personalize an ad just for you. Who knows, it could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

For more sourcing and recruiting tips, check out What to Do When LinkedIn Recruiter Falls Short. You can check out other Intellerati blog posts here.

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Krista Bradford

Krista Bradford

Founder and CEO of Intellerati | The Good Search. Retained executive search headhunter. Former investigative journalist. Wife of saxman. Mama of MD. Co-worker of Hamlet the Corgi. TikTok addict.View Author posts

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