• by Larissa Faw , May 19, 2016

Most job applicants submit their resumes to an online database and hope for the best. Graham Allgood  on the other hand, took things a little further in order to catch the attention of his dream employer, Horizon Media.

"My solution was to market myself to the media agency by targeting them with my own ad campaign," Allgood wrote in a self-published LinkedIn post. "I needed to match Horizon Media's brilliant progressive thinking and innovative content. Running a creative campaign in a new media space would show the agency my skills in design, negotiating media space, and publishing attractive content."

Allgood  applied for an internship position at Horizon using a Snapchat geo-filter that cost approximately $30. The filter let him publish a geo-targeted ad aimed at Horizon's New York headquarters during peak business hours in order to make sure they saw his resume. He had been following Horizon Media on Snapchat for months and knew that Tuesdays were consistently the agency's most active day. 

On Tuesday, May 3, Allgood published a tweet and an Instagram post about the Snapchat geo-filter and by 4:00 pm, he received an email from Horizon's director of social asking for an interview the next day. The agency's head of talent  monitors the company’s Snapchat account and routed his resume and information to the social and HR teams. During the interview, Allgood provided the analytic results of his campaign, including over a thousand views of the filter and a 400% increase in his personal website views.

Allgood’s ingenuity impressed Horizon executives . This week the agency used Snapchat to offer Allgood an internship within its social media department. He is Horizon's first Snapchat hire and starts June 6.