Hawaii's Science, Technology and New Media Community
quick tip regarding Craigslist
I just wanted to share with people the mistake that I recently made so that others don't make the same mistake: (this may be common knowledge)
Unless you have a good reason for doing so, don't put your resume in the resume section of Craigslist. First of all, it's overflowing and I doubt anybody worthwhile checks them. I added mine to the SF/Bay Area CL Resume section yesterday at around 8AM HST and by the afternoon, there around 500 (that's 5 full pages) of listings that were covering mine up. People certainly could do searches, I suppose, but I don't think much good is going to come of my adding my resume.
That's the harmless part. The bad part is that I've probably received 30 stupid emails that have nothing to do with high-tech/software jobs -- just dumb work-at-home get-rich-quick offers and other garbage. Also, two people have called me. One was about a "telecommunications company" and I interrupted him and asked if this involved software development and he said it didn't. He was a little more on track, at least, than the woman who called me and left a voicemail about "an interesting opportunity", which, when I called back, one subset of the conversation was "Have you heard of Amway?" -- she was involved in, possibly creating, something similar but with "improvements".
I guess if you're delusional enough to buy into that crap, you might be delusional enough to think I'd be interested, too, even after looking at my decidedly not-Amway resume.
But yeah -- I'm not happy that I posted my resume in the Craigslist resume section -- you might not be, either.
Unless you have a good reason for doing so, don't put your resume in the resume section of Craigslist. First of all, it's overflowing and I doubt anybody worthwhile checks them. I added mine to the SF/Bay Area CL Resume section yesterday at around 8AM HST and by the afternoon, there around 500 (that's 5 full pages) of listings that were covering mine up. People certainly could do searches, I suppose, but I don't think much good is going to come of my adding my resume.
That's the harmless part. The bad part is that I've probably received 30 stupid emails that have nothing to do with high-tech/software jobs -- just dumb work-at-home get-rich-quick offers and other garbage. Also, two people have called me. One was about a "telecommunications company" and I interrupted him and asked if this involved software development and he said it didn't. He was a little more on track, at least, than the woman who called me and left a voicemail about "an interesting opportunity", which, when I called back, one subset of the conversation was "Have you heard of Amway?" -- she was involved in, possibly creating, something similar but with "improvements".
I guess if you're delusional enough to buy into that crap, you might be delusional enough to think I'd be interested, too, even after looking at my decidedly not-Amway resume.
But yeah -- I'm not happy that I posted my resume in the Craigslist resume section -- you might not be, either.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Leuck on -
This is good advice. I wonder how much the volume has increased over the same time last year.
"Have you heard of Amway?" -- she was involved in, possibly creating, something similar but with "improvements".
Thats right about the time I start referring to myself in the third person and separating each sentence with a loud "Quack!" Most people find this very disturbing and quickly hang up / run away.
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Permalink Reply by alf lang on -
3 years ago a friend of mine in San Francisco was touting how great SF craigslist was for his real estate business. 2 years ago, I was helping a friend set up a way to market a condo rental. Having just seen a craigslist chief-of-something being interviewed in the Daily Show, I suggested to my friend that he post his ad on craigslist. For 3 months, he received hundreds of strange requests, even several "personal" proposals for any duration. Not a single transaction through craigslist actualized. Incidentally, the SF friend, who was touting craigslist 3 years ago, derides it nowadays at any opportunity.
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Permalink Reply by Ryan Hohnbaum on -
Some of my best position were jobs where the company found my resume on Craigslist. In particular, CL SF. In the largest cities of Craigslist adoption (like SF and NY), posting anything will get shuffled to the second or third page by the end of the day. A perfect example is trying to sell a laptop in New York; you basically only get an hour or so before your ad is buried.
Despite your resume getting buried, companies do look and search for keywords simply because it's free. When I've hired for positions, I know that CL is the first place I go. Here are a few tips that have worked for me:
1. Repost your resume daily. do it at a time of day that you think the potential employer would be looking (9:00 might put you at the top of the list on a search ran at 10:00 AM)
2. Post in HTML format. If you are HTML savvy, you can create a web version of your resume which will stand out in the crowd of dull black and white CL resumes. Especially if you are going for something in the online arena, its nice to have a resume that's formatted similar to your .doc or .pdf version.
3. Change the background color! This is a bit of a hack and ties into #2 but is very useful. You can put your HTML in a table and set the background color and borders so your post looks like a document (I've set my background to a manila color to resemble resume paper.) Here's some code you can play with:
"
"[add your HTML resume here]
4. "Anonymize" that e-mail address. Use CL's alias e-mail so all those Nigerian Scams don't scrape your e-mail and spam you for the next 3 months. What better place to build an e-mail list than pulling @xxx.com addresses from CL's resume section? These guys just build scripts to spam you. The latest technique is they send a one line message to your anonymous e-mail and try to get you to reply like "Are you in debt?" Be smart and just hit delete on these messages.
5. Add your LinkedIn profile badge. LinkedIn gives you several options to create a small and non-intrusive button that you can put in the bottom of your resume. It looks slick and gives the potential employer a quick link to your profile which hopefully only says great things about you :)
With any luck you've made yourself more visible on CL and less vulnerable to the spammers. I've attached a snapshot of what my resume looks like on CL (Honolulu) as an example. - Attachments:
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Permalink Reply by Ryan Hohnbaum on
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Looks like my code snippet didn't come out in the post for #3. IM me or tweet me @AlohaNewMedia and I'll send you the HTML table I use to hack the background color.
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Permalink Reply by Ryan Hohnbaum on
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I just re-posted the article w/ the code snippet here: http://alohanewmedia.com/hawaii-online-marketing/5-tips-making-crai...
Ryan Hohnbaum said:Looks like my code snippet didn't come out in the post for #3. IM me or tweet me @AlohaNewMedia and I'll send you the HTML table I use to hack the background color.
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Permalink Reply by Nate Sanders on -
Nice info, Ryan. I was going to post here anyway, as I got a good lead recently from none other than CL :)
I definitely should have used the CL email address anonymizer in the body of my post.
Thanks for the tips.
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Permalink Reply by Roger Dunn on
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excellent post
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Permalink Reply by Gus Higuera on -
Yeah, always gotta be vigilant when dealing with Craiglist. When I was looking for an Apt in Hi I found a great place in Waikiki and contacted the person. I got an email back saying that the owner live in Nigeria and if I sent them the deposit they would Fex-Ex me the keys to the place. Hahaha..do people actually fall for those scams. So yeah, beware of what you post and what is posted.
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Luttrell on -
LOL...This sounds like the evil twin to my recent post about craigslist Hawaii in the Tech Hui web design forum section
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Permalink Reply by Keith Powers on -
Been using CL for over 10 years and have hired many great people from it. Also rented all of my property through it.
Great advice above. Just to add..,
* post early and often- use 10 different emails and anonomize them with CL and just change content of posting enough do it passes filters.
* get a google voice account.. Don't leave it in postings -/- just use it when responding ... Been using google voice # as my main number since grand central launched
* when posting a job adv... Make first pass candidates answer a very detailed 25-50 question survey questions relevant to specific role.. Before ANY phone interviews... Amazingly easy and efficient way to get to best picks ( video responses even better )
Keith
Ryan Hohnbaum said:Some of my best position were jobs where the company found my resume on Craigslist. In particular, CL SF. In the largest cities of Craigslist adoption (like SF and NY), posting anything will get shuffled to the second or third page by the end of the day. A perfect example is trying to sell a laptop in New York; you basically only get an hour or so before your ad is buried. Despite your resume getting buried, companies do look and search for keywords simply because it's free. When I've hired for positions, I know that CL is the first place I go. Here are a few tips that have worked for me:
1. Repost your resume daily. do it at a time of day that you think the potential employer would be looking (9:00 might put you at the top of the list on a search ran at 10:00 AM)
2. Post in HTML format. If you are HTML savvy, you can create a web version of your resume which will stand out in the crowd of dull black and white CL resumes. Especially if you are going for something in the online arena, its nice to have a resume that's formatted similar to your .doc or .pdf version.
3. Change the background color! This is a bit of a hack and ties into #2 but is very useful. You can put your HTML in a table and set the background color and borders so your post looks like a document (I've set my background to a manila color to resemble resume paper.) Here's some code you can play with:
"
"[add your HTML resume here]
4. "Anonymize" that e-mail address. Use CL's alias e-mail so all those Nigerian Scams don't scrape your e-mail and spam you for the next 3 months. What better place to build an e-mail list than pulling @xxx.com addresses from CL's resume section? These guys just build scripts to spam you. The latest technique is they send a one line message to your anonymous e-mail and try to get you to reply like "Are you in debt?" Be smart and just hit delete on these messages.
5. Add your LinkedIn profile badge. LinkedIn gives you several options to create a small and non-intrusive button that you can put in the bottom of your resume. It looks slick and gives the potential employer a quick link to your profile which hopefully only says great things about you :)
With any luck you've made yourself more visible on CL and less vulnerable to the spammers. I've attached a snapshot of what my resume looks like on CL (Honolulu) as an example.
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Permalink Reply by Dawn Wachi Webb on -
Some actually do. I remember an article in the honolulu advertiser about a family moving into a kailua townhome after getting a locksmith to replace the locks. Boy was the owner surprised.
Gus Higuera said:Yeah, always gotta be vigilant when dealing with Craiglist. When I was looking for an Apt in Hi I found a great place in Waikiki and contacted the person. I got an email back saying that the owner live in Nigeria and if I sent them the deposit they would Fex-Ex me the keys to the place. Hahaha..do people actually fall for those scams. So yeah, beware of what you post and what is posted.
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Permalink Reply by Mika Leuck on -
LOL! That sounds like a SNL skit.
dawn webb said: Some actually do. I remember an article in the honolulu advertiser about a family moving into a kailua townhome after getting a locksmith to replace the locks. Boy was the owner surprised.
© 2010 Created by Daniel Leuck.
