CHALLENGE

In 2023, the job market was flooded with talent due to widespread layoffs, including 24,000 former Meta employees, at a time when interest rates were soaring and AI was disrupting industries. For a seasoned creative professional like myself, standing out amidst intense competition in a market that favoured younger talent was a formidable challenge. I needed to find a unique and engaging way to capture attention and connect with potential employers.

INSIGHT

The traditional "#opentowork" posts on LinkedIn had become stale and ineffective for creative professionals. To differentiate myself, I realized I had to leverage the very tools and insights I had used throughout my career—creativity, humour, and storytelling. By transforming the generic green "open to work" badge into a personalized, campaignable narrative, I could flip the job search into a dynamic art form, generating both empathy and engagement.

SOLUTION

I created a series of engaging, subversive LinkedIn posts centered around the green "#opentowork" hoop, turning my job search into a creative campaign that satirised my situation while resonating with a wide audience. From playful analogies to visually arresting metaphors, each post was designed to entertain, inspire, and ultimately make recruiters and industry peers take notice. The viral success of these posts—culminating in 5.25 million impressions and thousands of profile views—led to a full-time position, proving that creativity, resilience, and self-expression could triumph in a tough market.