Craigs List – An Important Addition to Your Job Search

There is nothing fancy about Craigs List and the search page is very basic with almost no options for searching. However, it has an Alexa rating of 26 and that sort of says it all. A rating of 26 means there are only 25 other web sites in the world that have more traffic.

As a job seeker, Craigs List is good for only one thing: finding job openings. You cannot post a resume and there are no career articles or other job search resources of any kind.

For employers, it's free to post jobs except in three areas: Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. Even in these cities, posting a job is very reasonable ($25 in LA and NYC and $75 in SF). As hiring manager, this is a no lose proposition. I get to post ads for free except in these three cities and the site has massive traffic. This means it's a good place to find job openings at smaller employers and for lower level positions that companies normally don't want to pay to post at the other major job sites.

Actually, the quality of jobs is better for the three cities for which Craigs List charges a fee to post because it weeds many of the worst most work-at-home, MLM and scam job postings.

Currently, Craigs List is considering charging a job posting fee for several more cities.

PROS

• Large number of job openings
• You may see openings that don't appear on other sites because it's free to post (except for three cities)
• Extremely simple search – just pick a city and a job category

CONS

• No way to refine your search or sort the results
• You can't post a resume
• There is no job search advice or resources