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Craigslist for finding a job
zkt
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Has anyone ever used Craigslist for finding work? It seems to me it is 80% bots. The very few times I'll get a reply it'll be some crap about doing an interview over Yahoo messenger, or to join some shady job search website.
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I'm canadian so I'm not sure if you've got the same sites.
It definitely helps searching in the career-specific areas, I think the legal sections are fairly devoid of the "omg great job, work from home" stuff that you find in the sales/customer support areas.
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Anything calling itself "sports marketing" on craigslist is almost certainly a scam, though.
General office work for a small to mid sized business.
You might try temp agencies. Often those jobs will lead to full time permanent work.
You just need to send your resume to more than one.
My experience with staffing companies thus far has been unsatisfactory, to say the least..how does a temp agency differ?
They're generally focused directly on office work.
The rule of thumb is to flag if there is any of the following:
- No company name
- No stated salary
- Asking for a photo
- No job description
Now, over the past few days, I've found some jobs that have fit into the first 2 categories -- so in both cases, I emailed them. I got very polite replies that were understanding as to the nature of Craigslist.
If you don't get a response within a day and see the ad again, flag it. FLAG IT HARD.
RE: Staffing agencies / temp agencies.
i started out as a 4 week temp and got hired on now past 6 years. They can be good. They can also be terrible. Friends of mine have been sent to crappy jobs for a week for 15/h, then called on Monday morning and told "job's over, don't go in today, we'll call you when we get another job for you", to never hear from them again.
I don't see why that's terrible. It's called a temp agency for a reason.
I got a job from one temp agency that told me I'd be doing office work in a physical therapy office. They neglected to mention that it was inside a mental hospital for the homeless. Someone took a dump next to my car. Someone took a dump in the middle of the floor. Puddles of urine everywhere. Cockroaches too. Plus no employee only bathroom, you had to share one with the patients. Didn't last too long there.
I have gotten some decent temp work from temp agencies though.
If you want some good job hunting advice, buy "What Color Is Your Parachute?". It's updated every year and has fantastic methods that are backed by statistical success rates.
Yes, because emailing a resume is so time consuming.
Like myself and others have said, you can find jobs on there.
I found my current job on CL a year and a half ago. I also sent emails to 15 or so places a day for about 3 weeks before I got an interview. If you're looking for work it's a pretty good way to spend an hour and a half of your morning/evening.
I recommend making a list of companies in your area and just check their job postings directly at their site everyday.
From my experience, you need to keep calling them every week saying you're still available to work and ask if they have any openings. You need to be proactive as I'm sure they have huge lists of people looking for work. Make yourself stand out.
Except you don't just email a resume. You also have to customize it for the job, and include a cover letter. These things take a lot of time.
For each job, you're looking at probably at least a 1 hour time investment (if you want to do it right). So why not use that investment to apply to positions in companies that have a much higher chance of getting back to you, using methods that maximize your chances?
Once companies start posting job ads on CL, that means they are scraping the bottom of the barrel at that point. It means all their regular methods of finding hires (internally, through networks, through career fairs, etc.) have failed. The problem is that the bottom of the barrel in this case is very, very crowded and it is very difficult to stand out among all the hundreds if not thousands of other applicants.
You can test this theory by creating a fake job posting on CL. Within the hour I guarantee that your inbox will be full regardless of the nature of the job. If it sounds even semi-legitimate, expect several hundred applications.
And, honestly, there will ALWAYS be people who say "oh yeah you're totally right, I found my current job through CL" but the fact is, that's just anecdotal evidence. When you look at statistics, it is very easy to see that CL is an absolute waste of time.
One last thing I should mention: the shotgun approach is terrible in general when it comes to job-hunting, because the low response rate can completely kill a person's hopes and motivation. You know the number one reason unemployed people stop looking for jobs? Because they use the wrong methods, never receive any replies, and then lose confidence and motivation and give up.
I know someone who got a job by wearing a cardboard costume with his resume written on it, and it took him less than one hour waiting on a busy street corner in downtown. Does this mean you should do it?
Absolutely!
And I was agreeing with you.
Nah, I meant the apps most big companies use nowadays. I did Tractor Supply, Target, and Home Depot. Target called me 24 hours after applying.
It takes about 15 minutes to customize a cover letter to a particular company and if you're applying for a specific type of position, you don't have to change your resume at all.
Sure, it's antecdotal evidence, but it's overwhelmingly positive and it takes little to no effort to apply on Craigslist.
As for "bottom of the barrel", that's complete bullshit. I know plenty of successful businesses that hire through Craigslist. Many businesses don't like to hire/promote from within or through networks. I'm not sure if you got scammed on Craiglist or what it is that makes you so bitter towards it, but it's a very valuable tool.
The fact that it is anecdotal invalidates it automatically. Yours may be overwhelmingly positive, but many people's are overwhelmingly negative. Buy that book and look at the statistics inside it because that's the only way to get an objective view.
Look, you are talking out of your ass again like you do in every other H/A thread. This is complete and total horseshit. The only companies that do not prefer hiring from within or through networks first and foremost are those that don't have capable enough employees or networks. Why would anyone want to work for such companies?
You can talk to every single HR department and they will tell you how disgusted they are when they have to resort to posting online job ads. The reason is simple: opening the job posting to complete strangers in environments where there is no pre-screening sucks. Whereas when you hire from within you already know that person, and when you rely on networks (friends of current employers) then you have at least some confidence in that applicant.
It's not based on personal experience. The difference between you and me is that I base my opinions on empirical evidence, whereas you base yours on your confirmation bias.
That's a load of crap. It just means a company decided to use CL: that's it. You can speculate as to why they might have chosen it, but you can get quality applicants through craigslist. Some of my best workers are from CL. Our last VP of Engineering was hired though CL, that was a 6 figure position.
There may some truth here, most of the applicants from recruiters or staffing firms we used were either crap or poor fits, so we include CL postings.