Every tried to recruit on Craigslist? It's like picking up the Saturday paper and hitting garage sales all morning long. Results may vary by neighborhood, and it's less than predictable. At one house, you pick up some new golf shirts still in the package, next stop - used socks in a garbage bag... for free...
Craigslist is the same dynamic in the employment space. It's hit and miss, city by city, and also job by
job. I've had great success with posting certain positions in specific metro areas, then I run the same pitch in a different metro area - and nothing happens. And I mean NOTHING...
If you've taken a spin around the job boards on Craigslist, you know one reason for this trend is there's a lot of junk posted there. After all, the price is right in most metro areas - it's FREE. The only barrier to posting is the effort - to take the time to list a position on the board. That leads to a lot of multi-level marketing and work from home opportunities, most with a random-sounding hotmail address to reply to. That drives a lot of professionals away.
Craigslist's response to the junk level? Weed out the freaks by charging for employment ads. From a recent Sacramento Bee article:
"The free ride on Craigslist is coming to an end.
The popular classified-advertising Web site -- and scourge of newspaper publishers everywhere -- said Thursday it will charge $25 for help-wanted ads in the Sacramento market starting Nov. 1.
Craigslist said it won't charge for odd jobs or "gigs." Nor will the fees apply to real estate, merchandise and other advertising categories. A $25 fee for help-wanted ads is also coming to Orange County, Chicago and Portland, Ore. This will bring to 11 the number of markets where Craigslist charges for employment ads. In addition, Craigslist charges $10 for certain real estate ads in New York.
The fees don't represent a change in philosophy for Craigslist, which is a for-profit corporation but styles itself as a quirky nonprofit "community." Rather, the San Francisco-based site said the fees will weed out the "duplicate and illegitimate ads" and make the remaining listings more effective."
$25 is a bargain to remove the clutter. I just wish Craigslist was more of a capitalist organization and charged for employment ads everywhere. The result would be a more viable product and ultimately, a nice option in addition to the big boards like Monster.
A couple of weeks ago I was leaving the office and saw one of our managers sitting on the curb, waiting to make a transaction from Craigslist. He was selling a leafblower, and had set up a time to meet a woman to trade cash for the aforementioned yard equipment. I saw him the next morning and guess what? Turns out the woman didn't show.. That's a shocker - a female leery of coming to a parking lot to pick up a leafblower from a free posting... He's a good guy, but the lady probably thought about the child abuser stings on NBC and opted to pay full price at Lowe's.
Same deal with candidates. Craigslist - charge me for postings, please!!!
Kris,
Great point. The Angry HR Exec wishes he could use Craigslist and expect results. However, employment ads are still free here, and as a result it's just a morass of crap.
$25 would be a bargain indeed.
Posted by: AHRE | October 23, 2007 at 10:36 AM
I definately agree with you in terms of job-postings. Compared to the cost of posting on Monster, HotJobs, etc. it's a very small price to pay to make your job posting more viable. Our most appealing candidates (from Craigslist) have come from the postings we pay a mere $25 for. There may be less postings overall on the site, but in my eyes that's a plus - not so many bogus ads.
I would most certainly keep the other postings on the site free - who wants to pay just to give something away. That woman should have told the guy up front if the meeting place wasn't safe enough in her mind.
Posted by: Elizabeth | October 23, 2007 at 12:04 PM
If craislist charged, no one would use it.
Their are plenty of for profit recruiting services you can use, if you don't like the freedom and free for all nature of craigslist, you don't have to use it capitalist pig.
Posted by: asdf@humnuts.com | April 13, 2009 at 12:53 PM