How Craigslist Can Give You the Upper Hand in Your Job Search

Are you looking for a job? If so, you’re probably familiar with Craigslist jobsearch. It’s a great resource in the labor market for finding jobs, and can even give you an edge over the competition. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of Craigslist when seeking employment.

Thanks to the social job search and sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, you don’t hear much about job boards anymore — but that doesn’t mean job boards are totally useless. Indeed, one of the old kings of the job search, Craigslist, still serves job seekers quite well. While it is true that the site’s Web 1.0 interface and text links do not generate much publicity anymore, job seekers could be ignoring a major resource if they forget about Craigslist entirely. Businesses still use Craigslist to post job ads, and the site remains one of the most popular job sites in the U.S.

Additionally, Craigslist has some features that make it uniquely helpful:

Local, Local, Local

If you reside in a mid-sized city or larger, there are plenty of places to find job listings for your area, but if you live in a smaller town, Craigslist remains the best local job search site in the world. No matter your hometown, there is a Craigslist job board for your community, with plenty of nearby job listings.

Small Businesses Prefer Craigslist

With a few exceptions, most Craigslist job boards allow free postings, compared to $75-$500 per post that sites like Monster and LinkedIn charge. For small and medium-sized businesses, Craigslist is a prime place to post jobs for a local audience. At the very least, businesses often cross-post their job ads to Craigslist, even if they have bought ads elsewhere.

If you are looking for work in small and medium-sized businesses, you’re likely to find more jobs listed on Craigslist than anywhere else.

Completely Real-Time Job Search

There is no post-scheduling on Craigslist. As soon as a job is posted, it is live. This means you can respond to ads almost instantaneously. If you refresh Craigslist all day long, you can see right away when new jobs pop up, and you can be the very first to apply.

Direct Response

There is no convoluted system of contacts with Craigslist ads. Every job post pings back to a real email address (usually anonymized for the sake of privacy). When you respond to a Craigslist job ad, your response goes directly to the hiring manager’s inbox. This gives the job seeker the ability to make direct and personal pitches to the person that really matters when it comes to making hiring decisions.

Community

Finally, Craigslist remains a vibrant and lively community. If you peruse the jobs bulletin boards on a regular basis, you can find people in situations like you, people with whom you can share tips, advice, and support. Other job sites attempt to copy this type of community support feature, but Craigslist continues to maintain the most organic community available.

In fact, Craigslist is still one of the better resources for finding a job rapidly, especially if you know how to use it correctly. By following these tips, you can make sure that your next job search is more successful and less time-consuming. So what are you waiting for? Start your job search today.