The Big Friendly Giant
Launched in 1995, Craigslist has been around for two decades now which makes it one of the oldest job boards around; and when you open up their homepage, you can tell! Craigslist has opted to keep a simple blue on white design reminiscent of the 2000s, with all the necessary information displayed in a list form. The same simple design is applied to the job listings which makes the website rather colourless and tedious to read. Nevertheless, Craigslist comes in 14th position on the list of websites most visited in the United States, and 60th worldwide, recognized first and foremost for its classifieds. And if you want the more serious job offers to stand out, you can try clicking on the display button in the left-hand corner and picking the “gallery” option which will include the logos or photos associated to the different adverts.
You might have heard of Craigslist for the wrong reasons…
Craigslist gained some bad press over the years due to sex scandals and even dangerous activity linked back to the personals. Recently though (in 2018), the website made the decision to take down that particular section following news regulations concerning websites’ liability in such matters. The good news for us is that these new laws might also impact the publication of inappropriate “job offers” in the employment section. We can’t say for sure what effect this will have on who actually uses the website, but based on which social networks influence the site’s activity most, Craigslist appears to be more popular among the slightly older generations rather than the up-coming youth (Facebook is responsible for 47.74% of the activity from social networks, whereas Instagram only contributes to 0.83% of the activity).
But Craigslist cares about connecting people
At the beginning, the aim was to connect locals with other locals, which is why Craigslist has a large number of sites that put you in contact with people in the same area as yourself. This particular approach makes Craigslist great if you are looking to hire some within a small community to fill a job opening quickly. However, the number of job offers is going to be far less on the German or French versions of the site than on the American one. In fact, 96.19% of Craigslist activity takes place in the United States. So, if you are hoping to attract a wider range of candidates, it can be slightly confusing – and constricting – to choose a specific location when advertising, and not very successful on a global scale.
And keeping it casual
Some of the features are particularly user friendly: a candidate has the option of applying through the website or using their own e-mail address directly, the job offers are easy to share with friends and browsing the different adverts feels like reading through one’s e-mails. Unfortunately, somethings probably shouldn’t be too easy: anyone can put the thumbs down on an ad and, since there’s no login, there’s no stopping someone from say, boycotting the competition. From the looks of things though, you’re not expected to take yourself too seriously on Craigslist; they even have a “best of” button at the bottom of each advert in case you want to nominate hilarious, bizarre, poignant or memorable posts for their best-of-craigslist list.
When all is said and done, it really depends on what you’re looking for. People turn to Craigslist for the simplicity, the convenience and the freedom. If you keep an open-mind, you might just find exactly what you need for your future job openings.
For both employers and job seekers, Jobboard Finder is the first decision-making tool for recruitment campaigns and job searches. If you want more information about other job boards, we have over 950 job boards from all over the world on our website.
Author: Ali Neill
As the job board tester and blog editor for the Jobboard Finder, Ali works on job boards from all around the world and keeps a close eye on the recruitment trends thanks to a number of sources, including the website’s social media pages.
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