I Ran Ads on LinkedIn to Impress Gary Vee, Here’s What I Learned

Editor's note: The author of this article, Maiya Miller, is a Gary Vee superfan and came up with an interesting way to get her resume in front of the man himself—by buying LinkedIn ads.

When I discovered Gary Vee’s content, the sense of confidence his videos instilled in me had me convinced that I would be his best employee ever. If given the chance, I could be the employee featured in his daily vlog, or participate in the internal meetings that are frequently broadcast. I felt entitled when I had no real reason to be.

As I consumed everything Gary Vee, I realized that I was nowhere near ready to have a job at VaynerMedia. I thought I had no value to offer. Once I realized this, I worked tirelessly to gain value that I could then leverage to get a job at Vayner. I wasn’t disappointed that he didn’t reply when I emailed him requesting an interview. It made sense, and now it was all about changing that.

I started a hookah catering business earlier this year, in August, to learn about offering more than you take, consumer behavior, creating a brand and using Gary's marketing tips to help it grow. I wanted to put the things Gary talks about every day into practice.

Cut to December, I experienced some success in building partnerships at different local clubs. I believed I had accumulated enough skills to, at the very least, apply to work at Vayner. Not because I had priceless experience or anything cliché like that, but more so because I had a better understanding of what the culture was there and what it might take to succeed.

So I took Gary’s advice from his content about the untapped potential on LinkedIn and I ran an ad on the platform. I figured if his strategy of targeting employees at a given company and personalizing your ad based on who you were targeting could work for a business, it could also land me a job. I posted the ad on Linkedin and targeted it towards Vayner employees; it was basically a video of me saying, “Hey, Vayner employees! Could you use an extra hand in the office? Well, tell your boss to hire me!” I had a “Learn More” call to action button that directed viewers to my personal LinkedIn profile.

From there, I contacted every Vayner employee that visited my personal profile. I sent my appreciation for their interest and expressed my desire to connect. In the macro, with the connections I was able to make, the ad was a success. In the micro, I was aware that the small number of replies I received spoke to the ad being poorly executed, given the potential of this opportunity.

It was poorly executed for a few reasons. First, I did not fully understand the way to navigate LinkedIn for personal use, because so much of this ad space is used for B2B marketing. I couldn’t even post the ad directly from my personal profile, which would have been more ideal.

That led to the second mistake: I thought that the people who did actually get to my LinkedIn profile were my key targets because they might be more willing to help since they did go out of their way to view my profile in the first place. It was the wrong assumption because I did not make the people clicking care enough about what my message was.

Which brings me to the third, and maybe the biggest, mistake I made. I assumed that because people on LinkedIn were not used to seeing people advertising to get a job, I would get a lot of positive feedback.

That wasn’t the case. A LinkedIn member commented on my ad and said, “Paying for an ad is fine. Maybe next time [film] something you’ve done that was fun, cool and challenging.” I should’ve posted a clip of myself shipping something I flipped, or buying books at Goodwill to sell—side hustles that Gary Vee has advocated on his personal channels. A company ran by Gary Vee definitely values hustle like that, and they could have appreciated it in a real way. Anything would’ve been better than 30 seconds of me talking to the camera in my living room.

I am not blind to the fact that buying an ad to get a job seems like a reach. But I reached senior level employees and had 74 employees of all levels click on my ad for $81.82. I ran this ad for a week and got over 1,000 impressions. I’m not saying it is worth it for everyone, but people like me who can be patient for their dream job will realize that LinkedIn possesses enormous opportunity in the long game of getting there.

And now I’m here writing for ONE37pm, a company Gary Vee himself launched, still trying to gather beneficial attention in new ways. For people in the job market wanting to explore this LinkedIn method, I encourage you to remember the execution is just as important as the initial plunge. Go for it! But, be strategic.

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