West Hollywood man offers to pay $3,000 for a job

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If at first you don’t succeed, try offering $3,000 on Craigslist.

That’s the strategy 50-year old Cyrus Emadi, of West Hollywood, is employing after nine frustrating months of job searching. Emadi posted ads titled ‘$3,000 reward for finding me a job’ on the Craiglist pages for Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.

Emadi, who worked in accounting and finance for 15 years, says in the ad that he’ll pay $3,000 for a job in that field ‘as soon as I sign an employment contract.’

‘Everyone says work your networks, and I got a few interviews out of that,’ Emadi said in an interview. ‘But it’s brutal out there.’

He said he’s sent out about 200 resumes since losing his job in September as a director of finance for a telecom company, but has received only a handful of interviews and no job offers.

Emadi decided to post the Craigslist ads to call some attention to himself -- because, he said, he’d tried everything else. He’s gotten a few scam responses, and one from a small business owner who had a serious job offer (it didn’t pan out).

Paying for a job makes financial sense, he said, especially if he receives the $100,000 salary he’s had in the past.

‘If I can get something good now rather than in a few months, that’s a $15,000 difference,’ he said. ‘Then I won’t mind paying $3,000 at all.’

-- Alana Semuels