Abstract: A system and methods for advertising to targeted candidates and optimizing the advertisements to improve candidate response. The method and system enable an entity to advertise a need of an entity to a targeted group of candidates. After information about the need is received and the candidate target group is identified, the information is converted into a plurality of advertisements and distributed to a plurality of publishers that are within the candidate target group. The advertisements are displayed to candidates when they access at least one of the plurality of publishers. The advertisements are optimized to improve the response of the candidate target group by adjusting at least one manual control on a computer-network interface.