How to Get a Job on Craigslist

I recently ran a help-wanted ad on Craigslist. The position was a photo-editor job for a site that I dare not mention because some people will complain that I promote it too often. Here’s what I learned a lot from this experience—much of which you may apply to a job search if you respond to a Craigslist ad:

• Apply fast. I posted the job at 11:19 pm on Thursday, August 2nd. The first response came in thirty-one minutes later. Fifteen more responses came in the next day. Therefore, 43% of the responses came in the first day or so. If you wait a few days, employers who advertise on Craigslist may already fill the job. Indeed, looking for a job is a job, so don’t take a few days off (for example, the weekend) from your search.

• Write a cover email that addresses the position. Two people simply attached their resume to their response. I pushed back on one and suggested that he write a cover email. He copied and pasted my job description to, I guess, let me know which job he was applying for. Needless to say, both candidates didn’t get serious consideration. I don’t know about other employers, but the thing I can’t stand the most is laziness. Although, to be fair, the ad was for a position at the worst website in the world.

• Rise to the occasion. The vast majority of the candidates were highly-qualified professional designers, photographers, and photo editors. My response to the first thirty-one applicants (who were diligent enough to write a cover email) involved a test to find pictures that illustrated five sample stories. Twenty-six (94%) of the twenty-nine immediately completed the test. Now you know that there are highly-qualified diligent candidates in the Craigslist talent pool.

• Apply well. You should jump right on an opportunity because if the position is filled there’s usually nothing you can do. However, the three people that we hired did apply on the fifth and seventh days after the listing. The reason is that they simply picked the pictures that we liked best—which is to say either our tastes were similar or they figured out what we liked, both of which work for me.

• Apply really well. The person who was the most obvious “right candidate” did something that no one else did: He not only chose good pictures, but he also resized them to approximately 140 x 105 pixels. This is the size of the pictures that we use on our site. Thus, he figured out what kind of pictures we liked and what size we used.

  Several other candidates said something to effect of, “These aren’t the right size for your site, but I figured you just wanted to check my taste, not my ability to resize photos.” Actually, we wanted to see how much initiative candidates had too. Most companies would love to find the one candidate that stands head and shoulders above the others, so be that person by applying really well. Ask yourself this simple question: “If I were hiring for this position, what would impress me?”

• Don’t be stupid. I mentioned in the ad that Macintosh expertise was highly desirable—specificially with a handful of apps. One person wrote back, “Quite frankly, I’ve never even heard of FlySketch, Skitch or MarsEdit (or Ecto or Qumana).” Honesty, is not the best policy: either don’t mention your lack of qualifications or spend ten minutes to go figure out what these applications do. My conclusion from the candidate’s response was that he was lazy, and laziness wasn’t in the job description.

By the way, the ad cost $75, and it yielded approximately thirty-seven good candidates—therefore, at a cost of a mere $2 per candidate. I’d heard from other companies about the extraordinary effectiveness of Craigslist, but now I “know” this is true. And if you’re a candidate for a job on Craigslist, now you “know” what you’re up against, so apply fast, write a good cover email, apply well, apply really well, and don’t flaunt your lack of qualifications.

Comments

[Dustin]

Sorry... the double-post was due to an apparent browser/webpage glitch (or possibly a PEBKAC error, who knows?)

[Dustin]

You've inspired me. I've done a quick search on CL, found a job opening of interest, and applied the cover letter & resume approach outlined in your "Dear Libby" post from August 2006 -- don't sue me for plagiarism ;).

I'm using this as a sort of a test to contrast with past efforts in career moves. I've had a past habit of using a more exhaustive and fancy (albeit one-page) resume and a not-as-good-as-yours cover letter. I'll be interested to see the response on this one.

[Rafael]

So instead of resting, one should apply in the seventh day ;)

[Shefaly]

Guy: As Duane Benson suggests, it is a highly localised experience. Your 'catchment' has to be fertile enough for you to get these responses. I am sure in middle America you will not get so many CVs,leave alone, so many relevant ones.

In the UK, Gumtree (owned by eBay) is far more well-known and better-used than Craigslist. So in the UK you experiment may not have worked on Craigslist, but may have done on on Gumtree.. Depending on whether it is Gumtree in Essex or Gumtree in middle England.

[David Mackey]

Craigslist is a bit crazy for the job poster. I posted a listing and received at least fifty apps. rather quickly. Its a pain filing through them all.

[Jon]

Recently, I used craigslist when searching for a job. I submitted resumes on a Thursday... had multiple interviews early the next week and was offered a great job the following Wednesday. Worked for me! However, knowing that there would be many other applicants, I carved out a stand out resume. I was told that the resume got me noticed. After I was hired, a friend, also in the same professional field, was looking for a job. I mentioned craigslist and he blew me off. I gave hime a copy of my resume and instructed him to copy my cover letter and resume with his info and send it out. I am proud to say that within a week he had a job, actually, a better job than I obtained... and I'm glad about it. In short, work your arrrrse off on the resume and you will benefit from craigslist!

[jayvee f.]

one blog i love to read AFTER reading Craigslist is the Craigslist's Curmudgeon (http://www.craigslistcurmudgeon.com/). I'm affiliated with b5media -- but still, the Curmudgeon has been a long time around before it was acquired and its mighty funny!

[Terra Andersen]

I love Craigslist. I have found some great help on that site, and continue to use it to find employees and specialized skills.

Good Overview!

(beware of the nigerian scammers that flood that site... they get your email address through some pretty sneaky tactics!)

[Michael Hennessy]

Craigslist is certainly a great resource, and you will definitely get a ton of responses. For a small company, though, monitoring not only how many "applicants" click on your apply link or email their resume in is important, but also monitoring how many "Views" you receive can give you great insight into how well your ad is doing. In the world of "Talent Marketing" (our area of expertise), the views you get on craigslist are almost as important as the candidates who apply. Remember, marketing is about "impressions" and posting your job on craiglist will actually help get your company, product, etc in front of many people.

However, you should branch out and market your jobs on as many sites as possible, and not just job boards but through many different avenues...which our WildFire product does! (www.smashfly.com) Ok, enough of the pitch!

Great write up Guy, and yes, CL does deliver...we have the metrics to prove it!

[Duane Benson]

This is for Smittie (commented below) and anyone else with the same questions;

The thing I look for in a cover letter is a very brief and to the point translation between my specific job and you. If a lot come in, the cover can really help to set you apart.

I like to see a quick "how you heard about the job" - though not everyone cares about this. Then just give one or two, maybe three at the most, very strong highlights that demonstrate that you are well suited for the job and that you took the time to do a little research on my company. Keep it open and brief with lot's of white space. Don't worry about completely selling yourself to me. Just piqué my interest enough that I want to spend time reading your resume.

It doesn't help much for you to tell me that you're perfect for the job. Rather, pull the most relevant-to-my-job-posting and hardest hitting bullet out of your resume. For example, if I were posting for a project manger and my company produced embedded software, you could note that "as a software engineering project manager on the iPod program at Apple, your scheduling and project management contributed to an on-time, world-beating product."

As far as the resume goes, you have some great material, but the document is very long. Based on the dates, I've been around as long as you and I struggle with the length of my resume as well, but the length really can get in the way of effective communications. Think long and hard about each and every word in your resume. Will that word help get you into an interview? If not, find a way to get rid of it.

Best of luck to you

[Scott Yates]

Another tip: Send your resume as a PDF. This goes for any job. Word files leave too much room for problems, PDFs will actually show up the way you want them too.

And my favorite tip for sorting through resumes: Throw out half. That way you won't hire anyone who is unlucky!

[Susan]

I have both gotten jobs from Craig's List and hired for jobs using Craig's List. I recently hired a writer for a blogging project and asked for writing samples with the application both to see if people would follow directions and to get sense of their style. Frankly, I'm a little appalled by how many people emailed saying "here's my resume, I'll send writing samples tonight when I'm home" and then NEVER did it!

[Duane Benson]

Perhaps there's a local-bias involved. Up here in the Portland area, I’ve had quite a different experience, both hiring and trying to get hired.

During an extended stretch of unemployment a few years back, I found a number of interesting sounding marketing management positions on Craig’s List and I received interviews for just about all that I applied for. With but one exception, every one was a “marketing” job without a base salary – commission only sales for products not yet marketable or with extremely long sales cycles and no penetration. None of the posting companies mentioned this until I had come in to talk.

When using Craig’s list to hire, I received just a handful of resumes. The few that came in were either deceptive or from candidates that likely didn’t actually read the job requirements.

Granted, “I” am a very small sampling, but it is enough to cause me to question the site and/or the Portland employment environment.

Duane Benson

[Smittie]

CareerBuilders.com is pretty much crap. The signal to noise ratio is so low (no signal, lots of noise) that it is not worth posting a resume to. The majority of responses you get are spam and frauds. Searching for jobs there is also a study in wading through waist deep muck (this being a family program) looking for precious stones. Half the time the best you find is a cheap amethyst. There might be diamonds there, good luck finding them.

Monster is only slightly better.

Craigslist is actually a pretty decent place to search for jobs provided that you take into account Guy's first observation. Jobs go quickly on Craigslist. If you're going to search there, you need to be looking at Craigslist two to three times a day and you have to be ready to fire off a reply immediately.

Now, a question for Guy. What makes good cover?? I understand the importance of a cover letter but, because I seldom get any feedback on cover letters that I write, I'm never really sure what is effective and what is not.

Smittie

PS I'd love your critique of my resume too. http://resume.smittie.com

[Michael]

I use Emurse.com whenever I've had to post my resume to craigslist.. It's great, I can see who is looking at it, and from when/where.

Not to mention Google/Yahoo/MSN usually picked it up shortly after posting it once, so there was less of a need to play the CL game anymore.

Might be worth a try...

[Rob Mathewson]

Great use of built-in screening tests, Guy. It's amazing what bubbles to the surface when a candidate is asked to perform even the most basic of simulated job-related tasks.

[Harrison]

Insofar as the how-to-apply comments go, they're a given, or should be. Unfortunately, far too few applicants take the time to see their application from the employer's perspective, and their method of hiring, as you described, is first to find out who not to hire and then sort through the short list of who to hire.

CraigsList for jobs, however, is off the mark. Job boards have become pretty clearly delineated: CraigsList for 1099/contractors and retail/seasonal; Dice for IT (although recruiters are now going elsewhere because of so many H1B visas they don't want to deal with); HCareers for hospitality; CareerBuilder/Monster for most everybody (although CareerBuilder is redundant, has less traffic than Monster, and Monster has a staggering 50 million plus unique resumes, CB about 20% of that); and niche boards (e.g., LinkedIn). I'm not advertising for Monster, I've just been working with recruiters for so long that these are the facts. CraigsList has its place, in particular for the kind of position you described. Sure, there are exceptions but as a rule, the boards have staked out their positions and depending on what you're looking for (employer or employee) this is a pretty solid guide to what the industry is doing right now.

Note: I didn't mention Yahoo's Hotjobs for a reason - search Monster.com for "yahoo" and see what you come up with =^)

[Tony]

Craigslist is effective, but not for the volume of replies. I advertise on CL when I need to hire someone, and always get many replies. Many, about 50%, are worthless or spam. Of the remaining 50%, many are people with professional deficiency (the laziness Guy mentions in his list). So for any given ad, I get from 1-5 worthwhile responses out of a pool of about 20-30 total. This usually spans 2 days, all I generally need to find a candidate, so Guy's advice to apply quickly holds true. In the end, CL is a good resource, you can't beet the price or the speed with which responses arrive, but you have to approach it like fishing with a grenade. You get alot of fish, but most are dead.