I've never heard of someone doing this, and it's not a bad hack since it's apparently free. My main question would be the effectiveness of an ad like this vs a simple message to the people directly.
As a recruiter (which I was in a different life), would I even notice an ad like this? I'm not sure, but I'd definitely notice a message in my inbox saying "Hey Dave, I found your profile doing some research on $COMPANY ..."
Since he's only targeting 15 companies doing a quick search on LinkedIn for HR/recruiting types at those firms and sending a message like that could probably be done in under an hour, and I'd think it might be a bit more effective than the ad.
It's a clever idea, but I'd question how effective it might be vs a direct message.
If you do several targeted searches like this in a month LinkedIn now blocks the results and says "Looks like you are a power searcher, upgrade to premium to see results". It even blocks the "people also viewed" results on individual profiles. Makes it nearly impossible to actually find a number of specific recruiters.
I often do searches as an exercise with clients live, and I use the filters (location, title, etc.) to try and target results so I'm not scrolling through pages of profiles.
I have a LinkedIn Premium account, and despite that, one month it decided I'm a power searcher who must upgrade to the next level (2.5x more expensive).
My searching is only limited to looking up companies I might want to work for, and browsing what kinds of people work there, or in some cases, looking at people who have already messaged me, and from there their company.
I guess I'm just too curious.
How can a regular free user write messages to a non-connection? LinkedIn requires a premium for 'Premium InMail'
Also, if you complain, they do communications not by email where you own the records, but via their user interface. I had a ~$300 ad spend balloon to almost $2000 and only caught it when I saw the credit card bill. They had been renewing the spend and charging the card without sending an email or regular account notification, as though to run it up before it was discovered. Their representatives commitment to repay the amount does not seem to have been fulfilled either.
When you are unsatisfied with being ripped off, they try to convince you that they are sympathetic to your incompetence, but they are keeping your money and you should be ok with that.
In short, avoid.
