Overview: Craigslist.org is a no-frills site. Think of it as your local swap meet for jobs. It can be fun, it is easy to navigate and chock full of job offerings, but just like the swap meet you have to be on your guard for things that are ‘too good to be true, and you have to do the equivalent of walking around the entire market to locate what you are looking for. Mid to small size companies still rely on it to save recruiting expense. But, ironically, the site is losing effectiveness as a recruitment source under the weight of its own success. Job seeker traffic has exploded during the current downturn and at the same time, the number of quality job postings has fallen along with the slow economy. Being wide open and accessible to almost everyone, the entry bar is set very low. Every posting generates a flood of responses from unqualified applicants, your resume has to easily and quickly jump out and get noticed by overworked staff trying to do the hiring. This means you have a lot more competition for fewer jobs and it also means those doing the hiring have to cull through a lot more unqualified applicants to find the winners.
How to Join: Craigslist.org is free to use – no membership fee. We like free! Again, you get what you pay for so be prepared to serve yourself and accept that few of the postings are high-end, permanent positions. There is also a cost to you in lost time and wasted effort to weed through spurious postings and to back track from prospects that eventually turn out to be dead-ends.
The Good: There are lots of jobs posted. It is very easy to search by location and type of job. You can select your geographic area and further slice it by city or neighborhood. The postings are separated by job type sorted into around 30 categories. You want to search in several categories – not just one. Often the same job title is placed among multiple categories. For example, Web Developer may be found in internet engineers, software/qa/dba or web/ info design. Craigslist is very strong for part-time or project-based opportunities (their ‘gigs’ section is loaded with interesting ‘survival’ type jobs). Because small to mid-size companies tend to rely on Craigslist your strong work experience can give you an easier time being regarded as the ‘big fish’ in their small pond. The jobs are listed with the most recent postings at the top and older ones as you scroll down. You want to focus on the recent postings first; the older ones have already been deluged with replies. The best way to find a job is always to network – you can find lots of activities on Craigslist’s ‘community’ and ‘discussion forum’ sections. Craigslist has lists of classes, social events and volunteer opportunities to help you conduct your job search networking.
The Not So Good: An uncomfortably high number of the postings are dubious or unreliable. Craigslist has methods to police and remove bad listings, but there are just too many scammers and too many ways to get around the filters. Be prepared to wade through a lot of bogus work-at-home listings and companies that are willing to hire you without a job interview, or ones that want too much personal information or those that want YOU to pay for your own training. Plus, some of these are outright scams – not jobs at all, just lures to trick you out of some cash. Craigslist postings can be anonymous as well – you won’t always know who the company is. For these reasons, I do NOT recommend posting your resume on Craigslist. Only send your resume for jobs that have a company name and contact. From that you can use LinkedIn and other sources to perform your due diligence research to ensure it is legitimate before providing your personal information.
Ratings:
Cost: 4
Quality of Listings: 2
(I give it a 3 for part-time and projects, but only a 1 for permanent jobs.)
Ease of Use: 5
Friendliness to Mature Workers: 3
Return on Investment: 2
Overall: 3.2 out of 5
Final Thoughts: Craigslist.org does have valid opportunities. Trust your instincts and use your experience when sending queries for jobs – if it feels too good to be true it probably is. Be aware of the downsides, but take full advantage of those legitimate opportunities where your successful work history makes you shine. Be patient and diligent; remember that Craigslist postings get inundated with responses so it can take time for the employers to review them.
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