A reader offers a rare moment of clarity on the job market as it pertains to online job-seeking services. I wouldn’t know a thing about searching for positions nor, frankly, hiring. I have people that deal with both (though my headhunter landed me here, as CEO of Jobknobber, so I may have to deign to pick up the phone to at least find a new one of those). In any case, I admire this young fan’s vitriol, even if I have no way to judge his claims:
“I friggin’ love it when a good publication the the Wall Street Journal writes a puff piece on something that they should be turning a critical eye to. “Looking For a Job? Try Craigslist” screams a headline from the career journal page.
We know Craigslist is a classifieds killer, and that brand of assassination isn’t limited to old cardigans and last-generation video games consoles. No, it’s for jobs too. Let me tell you something in all seriousness: in my 8 years as a hiring manager I almost exclusively hired from CL — even when I interviewed candidates from elsewhere, like sector specialty sites, the response and responders were a class above. And the ads are cheap cheap cheap (I’m in San Francisco, where job ads have been $75 all along; not sure about other cities).
Whatever hotjobs, monster, and all those other complicated job banks think, too much technology is just that: too much. This is job stuff; we want simplicity, not signing up for alerts and trying to shoehorn ourselves into some f-cking sector or another that doesn’t quite fit.
So why am I pissed at CL? Well, there’s little monitoring. Little accountability. Community flagging does not work. I’m ready to move on in my career, and I’ve been looking. Hard. Crafting cover letters carefully. Spending good time on them, like I know hiring managers like candidates to. Almost every job I’ve applied for on CL in the past week has been a scam that redirects you to Monster. You spend all this time only to get an email auto-response saying that you need to register for Monster, then, once signed up, reference job X, which doesn’t end up existing.
After the first time, I was upset. Second time, I was pissed. Third time I figured, ‘Why the fuck isn’t Craigslist, which is undoubtedly making money hand over fist, in direct proportion to the job listings money that newspapers have lost, doing a little due diligence in making sure folks that have, say, three adds flagged and removed can’t post ads again? I’m at the end of my rope!”
There you have it — the frustrating world of job hunting via Craigslist. Sounds like it’s good for employers that are dealing in good faith, and online job banks with silly names that are dealing in bad faith. Not so good for the “end-user” when there’s no backup from the people offering the product.
Again, my personal knowledge in this is tenuous — any readers care to back him up (or tear him down? Craigslist catfight, perchance?
Posted by jobknobber 
