Classified Ad Expert: Hiring Via Craigslist Is Now 100% Suckier

Everyone knows that Craigslist is the first place you go to post a new job, right? It's so cheap and easy, and the responses just roll right on in. More responses = bigger talent pool = success, right? According to some, WRONG. Tony Lee, executive vice president of Adicio, says that recruiting via Craigslist is not all it's cracked up to be. Now, keep in mind that Adicio is an online classified ad company, so they've got, shall we say, a bit of a reason to make this claim. But a lot of what Lee says makes sense. Every Craigslist job posting is inundated with applies, and given the demographics of the typical Craigslist visitor, that influx of applies has created a backlog of work. Instead of receiving 30 applications for a position, among which one or two may be worthy of an interview, companies of all sizes report receiving hundreds of replies within 24 hours of each posting. Yet the number of qualified candidates who apply remains the same or has fallen for many positions, recruiters say, which translates into multiple hours spent reviewing an overload of resumes searching for the needle in the haystack. Another issue is (appparently) the reverse chronological order in which posts are displayed, because, Lee says, after 24 hours or so your job ad is pushed off the page and you have to pay again to top-post. This we're slightly dubious of: do you really want to hire someone who doesn't know how to use the search (or, heaven forbid, the "More results") function? But, it is certainly true that Craigslist's user interface for both job seekers and job posters is more spartan than a job board like Monster or Careerbuilder. Lee ends with a shoutout to newspapers, saying that newspaper classified ads "remain a strong source of qualified applicants who live in that market." Heck, we don't know where he got that idea, but we're happy to hear somebody's still optimistic! So what do you think? Where are your candidates coming from, Craigslist or newspaper classifieds? Or somewhere else? Tell us in the comments.

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Classified Ad Expert: Hiring Via Craigslist Is Now 100% Suckier

Rachel Kaufman

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Rachel Kaufman