ALT-2 Getting a Job on Craigslist
One of the most popular ways to find a job or an employee is to respond to or create posts for craigslist. Craigslist is easy, well-organized, and has a much more intuitive interface than some of the major job search engines that are online.
The main concern for job-seekers should be getting interviews, but not necessarily interviews for a particular job, but just for the sake of networking with companies and individuals that you are interested in working with. With regard to Craigslist, here is the strategy to get as many interviews as possible:
1. Sit at your computer for at least a couple hours starting at 9AM. This should be the time at the location your searching for jobs in on Craigslist.
2. Begin replying to postings on the first page of search results by sending a targeted email cover letter that addresses as much of the specifics of the job listing as possible, and attach your resume.
3. Secret weapon: Every 5 minutes or so (or after each well-crafted, and well-targeted reply you send), refresh the search listing, and respond to any brand new listings that appeal to you (if there isn't any, then just keep going down the list to the older listings, and remember to refresh again after a few min.).
The trick here is to be the first or one of the first replies, with an excellent, and relevant cover/resume, and to do as much as possible to catch the prospective employer while they are are still seated at the computer just after they posted the ad. Here's a hypothetical that explains the reasoning with this strategy:
A secretary arrives at work where there is a position open for hire. She is in charge of posting job-listings, and scheduling the interviews for the HR department who will eventually hire someone. Knowing that it's best to get listings up online in the morning (to maximize responses), that will be one of the first things she does that day. She spends time crafting the post, or if the copy is prepared, she brings it up in Word to access her copy-and-pasting material, then she posts it to craigslist by paying the fee, proofing the copy, approving the post via email, and finally publishing the post.
Having finished up that task for the day, the secretary takes a few minutes to consider what else she has to do, perhaps organizes her desk a bit, and does the regular innocent piddling around that most people do after they have focused on something for even a short period of time. All of a sudden, voila, a response to her job listing appears in her inbox.
Now consider the situation if this first craigslist reply is actually relevant, well-organized, and has few if any flaws. A good guess is that the secretary will remember this response, and since she is the gatekeeper passing qualified applicants' submissions on to the higher ups, the strategy works in your favor.
Obviously it won't work out exactly like this all the time, but there are plenty of other general hypotheticals which will show that being one of the first respondents to as many job listings as possible, will increase the odds of getting called back . Remember that it may take a week or two to get a call, but being one of the first qualified respondents is sure to put you at the top of the call-back list, even despite a couple deficiencies in your resume.
