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A couple of friends of mine decided to 'walk a mile in their shoes' and became hiring managers. Craigslist is a wonderful thing, especially since it is very cheap to post a job listing. My buddies put out a very generic job posting for the types of jobs they were looking for. It was a way to gauge the heat of the job market, to see the competition, and mostly to see what it was like. Their hypothesis was at least 100 resumes. And being good scientists, they posted in a lot of big metro areas.

14 total resumes came in, 7 from India. In 10 major US metro areas, and this posting lasting a cumulative 3 months among the areas they got 14 resumes in. 5 Cover letters. 3 of the guys were ok, and hirable.

It was a shock. They thought they were in a really hot market and the competition was fierce. That must be the reason they get no calls back. Nope, not at all. At least in the Craigslist sphere, there were no job hunters to speak of. Personally, I don't know what to make of the data either. Lots of jobs were posted, but no-one was there and answering. The only thing that came to mind was that MOST of the craigslist postings were fradulent, just like my friend's.

The job market is stranger every-day.



The only thing that came to mind was that MOST of the craigslist postings were fradulent, just like my friend's.

This is the basic assumption, yes. It's why most of us don't job-hunt on Craigslist.


Ok, so where do we all job hunt, and how can we do this again? The info there is of great value for applicants.


I typically find a company I like, then send them an email expressing interest.


Myself as well. Also, just driving over and handing them a resume has worked really well for me. I did this to 12 companies and got 3 interviews. Best ROI yet.


LinkedIn? Hacker News hiring threads?


Eh, not really a programmer, more of an engineer. LinkedIn is not my field.


Isn't craigslist about the bottom of the barrel in terms of job advertising? I'd be pretty sceptical applying for a job posted there.


Why? Identity theft? Where are good places to job hunt then?


I would just expect a person posting a job on Craigslist to be out to scam me or have no idea of how expensive software is. No one wants to waste their time filtering through the postings asking them to rebuild facebook for $100.


See, now I am not in software. I'm a hardware guy. I like the less desk bound jobs and have been lucky to get to do them for a bit. That said, I still have no idea where the job postings actually are.




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