Has anyone been hired after responding to a job listing on craigslist?
The reason I ask is that my experience has been somewhat confusing - I generally send an e-mail to the address listed (usually “job123456789@craigslist.com”), then I receive an auto-responder with a link to another site, where they request some weird info like your cell phone carrier, rate your credit, would you like to receive info on home businesses, etc. After filling out those pages and attaching a resume, it says your application will be reviewed and you will be contacted in 24 to 48 hours if they are interested.
I have probably done this 8 times now, and they were all positions that I am qualified for (RN with 20 plus years experience). I’m not talking about AmeriPlan, those ads are for home work which is an MLM. I’m talking about big name local companies with fine reputations. No one has ever called me or contacted me via e-mail. I am baffled by this. Perhaps my resume is not as impressive as I like to think, but more likely something is weird with the application process.
Would love to hear your stories, good or bad, anything you can tell me about your experiences with craigslist. I am in a somewhat small job market and cannot catch a break when it comes to a job.
I have been offered two jobs from craigslist ads so at least some of them are legitimate. However, the legitimate ones are generally the ads that provide a phone number or email other than the craigslist email link and the emails always have a proper business look to them (anything that ends in gmail.com or yahoo.com is probably a scam.)
Perhaps the entities whose names you recognize didn’t place the ads. If you are familiar with your area’s employers, you might do better to look directly at their newspaper ads or online listings at their own sites.
I’ve had good luck doing freelance writing on Craig’s List. I knew I was taking a risk when I did it…all via e-mail and phone, short little projects such as editing a thesis. I figured if I got shafted, I’d only be out a few hours of work and it would just be a lesson learned. The thing is, I never got shafted. Consistently, I deliver a paper or whatever and I receive a check shortly thereafter. I guess people are more honest than we sometimes think.
That said, if they’re sending you scammy e-mails asking for personal information, it’s clearly outside the bounds of a real job posting. That doesn’t mean all Craig’s List job postings are scams…just that you have to weed out the ones that might be. You don’t say what you do, but maybe it’s something that lends itself to increased spam?
In the meantime, if you’re worried your resume is a little off, have someone look at it…even having a friend run through it might bring things to light that you didn’t think of. There’s no reason to pay hundreds of dollars for a professional. Heck, I’ll take a look at it for free (I’m a professional writer, though I understand that my posts here don’t reflect that well).
Assume that any e-mail address going to gmail is a fraud.
Assume that any job paying more than industry average is a fraud.
KNOW that any “work from home” job is a fraud.
If they direct you to a site to apply, do a google search on the website name.
Never enter your SSN for any job at ANY on-line site. If they require it, that’s the perfect time to click the little ‘x’ in the upper right hand corner of your screen.
I’ve hired several people through Craigslist, up to and including my phenomenal Admin Assistant. Not only did I receive over 30 resumes, the level of applicants was top notch.
Some of the jobs I advertised for were summer/college type, but even those had a great response with highly qualified people.
Sure, there were some idiots. Applicants that would brag about their mad Word skills, yet couldn’t format a resume past 6th grade level, etc. etc.
My ads would be very specific, and there was a legit email address and link to our website.
A lot of the jobs that I got responses for were posted by a variety of temp agencies. But sure, I’ve gotten legit callbacks for applications for entry level jobs on craigslist. Of course, this was a few years ago, and they changed somewhere right around that time to have to pay to post a job offering, so maybe things are different now.
I’ve found several jobs with Craigslist, and know plenty of employers who pretty much only hire through it. It can be a great tool.
I have a secret technique that works amazingly. And I’ll tell it to you Dopers for free. Post a resume, but don’t actually post your resume. Instead, post some amazingly interesting ad about yourself. Mine included stuff like “I’m so organized that when I throw a pile of papers up in the air they come down in neat little stacks.” Make it as out there as possible. You want to entertain and intrigue. Then at the end write that you will gladly email your resume to whoever wants it.
People will want to know what kind of person wrote that ad, and they won’t bother with the resume, they’ll just call you straight in for the interview. This technique has worked a couple times and each time got me a variety of job offers (including a couple really good jobs) within a week.
I was looking for some part time work as a web designer.
Found an interesting offer on craigslist…part time, $500 a month, not far from where I live.
Contacted them.
Emails back and forth.
All going well.
Then I got an odd email going into somewhat of a rant that sent my radar in motion.
I politely declined the offer, figuring they were nutcases and glad to have seen the light before wasting the gas and driving over to meet them. I lied and said I had taken another job but (and I have learned never to burn bridges) politely said, "Thank you for considering me for this position.
They wrote back:
“Let us know if your job doesn’t work out. Most of the web designers we hire are inept idiots and we usually fire them after a month or so anyway.”
Golly gee, that makes me just want to get in the car and drive over and meet those lovely folks ASAP.
That said, there are some good jobs and people advertising on craigslist…but as the above story illustrates, there are some flakes as well.
I’ve gotten 4 jobs, an apartment, a house, and 3 employees off of Craigslist. Some big-name companies around here use it. However, Craigslist started as a local thing, so it’s far more cemented here than it may be elsewhere. (My company’s east-coast-based HR department was highly skeptical about us being able to find decent candidates on Craigslist, because where they are it’s mostly scams)
I’ve gotten jobs from Craigslist. I’ve encountered some weird ones, too, like the ones mentioned in the OP. At that point, I stopped and backed out of it. There’s legit people on there. Also, wackos.
Not necessarily. I’ve seen plenty of blind ads in my industry that direct the applicant to a gmail address. My field is small and quite incestuous, so it’s really the only way to give any level of detail about the job without everyone else in the field immediately knowing who the employer is, etc.
I was hired for a legitimate consulting gig vis Craigslist. I believe my current job was also advertised there, although I actually applied directly through my employer’s website.
I’ve gotten a quite a few interviews off of Craigslist ads, and I’m currently starting two jobs from there. Sure, there are plenty of scams on the site, but there are also plenty of real offers, too.