Craigslist job postings. Real or scam?
I’ve been applying to jobs posted on my local craigslist. Some of them seem to be right up my alley but they are blind ads, so I have no way of knowing the actual company. I don’t mind that so much. If they want me for an interview, they’ll tell me who they are then and I’ll have a little time to find something out about the company.
Unfortunately, pretty much every e-mail I send has been replied to with another e-mail asking me to go to a web site to complete the application process. Even though the web sites sometimes have different names, they all have the same form to complete and all end up at the same place: http://career-network.com. You fill out some very basic information and are given options to find out more about starting a business, getting more education, or getting help with your credit. You are given the option of saying no to all of these, and I decline them all. It’s my understanding that this type of advertising allows the site to be free for employers and job seekers. You then upload your resume, even if you’ve done it multiple times in the past. (You all do know not to include your SS# in a resume, don’t you?)
After jumping through these hoops, you are then told that your resume is being sent to the employer and your application will be updated within 24 hours. The next day, you get another e-mail telling you to finalize the application process. When you go to “your” home page, you see all the jobs you’ve applied for and the status. If any are pending, you click on them and go through the same basic questions and refuse the optional offers. Eventually, you get to a page where you are asked to enter your references. They seem to send out e-mail to your references almost immediately and it appears that they need to complete one for each job you apply to. If you apply for 5 jobs in one day, your friends and colleagues will get 5 different e-mails that take them to the same online form for each job.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve completed 13 of these applications and have yet to hear from an employer. I haven’t really noticed any increase in spam and my friends and colleagues aren’t complaining about the many reference requests. Still, I can’t help but wonder if I’m wasting my time. Is this some kind of data mining scheme? Are there real jobs behind these craiglist ads? (Each ad and each followup e-mail are worded differently and really do sound legit.) Have you had any experience with this? Good or bad? If you’d rather not leave a public comment, please use the contact form or send me a tweet or direct message at http://twitter.com/cindyburns and I’ll DM you back with my e-mail address. THANKS!
Tags: career network, craigslist, employment, job, job search, resume, scam
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February 5, 2009 at 10:05 am
Yeah. It is a data harvesting scheme. Try to find out the actual companies hiring and go through their process. ALL companies direct hire (that’s the purpose of H_ – I wouldn’t waste time on the bogus (which they are) career sites. They do harvest information for a variety of reasons- and they make a lot of money off of it – essentially exploiting the down economy and job seekers. I hope they all get to meet Satan someday! LOL
February 5, 2009 at 10:18 am
I would love to find out the actual companies doing the hiring. Any advice on how to go about doing that? Are the ads real or bogus?
February 5, 2009 at 9:36 pm
The job may be real- but the thing is the kind of companies you refer to basically try to mediate – I’ve found numerous example where if you search the actual subject and post title- you will find it has been posted on Monster, or Careerbldr or some other job board. The best way I’ve found to determine if the job is VALID is to see if I can found the actual employer posting it by searching the info in the ad itself. And if you are using Craig’s to find jobs- about 95% of the ones posted that do NOT have a valid company name are NOT valid jobs – people constantly complain how much spam they have. There may be people that do find things by sending out their info carte blanche- but I don’t because I find that sitting in someone’s “database” isn’t productive. I rather assess the job and follow up with a valid company or contact. BTW_ Just posted an article with LOTS OF HELPFUL stuff for job seekers. Maybe check it out.
February 26, 2009 at 12:41 pm
The job market is so bad that we are backed up from tons of submission directly from people applying directly our website. We get calls from referral services every day (which we ignore). With the amount of resumes we get directly why pay to use a referral services. When we post on Craig’s list, we use our real company name and a link to our company job site.
October 9, 2009 at 10:11 am
I too had the same experience however when I saw the part about receiving info unrelated to a job posting, I got out of the website. Today I received an email saying they reviewed my resume (I didn’t upload one) and wanted to tell me about a position I might be interested in. The pay looks good but I believe it is bogus. I want real companies with real jobs!!
February 1, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Thanks you all have been real helpful.
I was not sure about the postings and wanted more information before applying.
Now I have it.
March 18, 2010 at 11:15 am
Is there any thing you should say to find out if the job is real I wrote one saying due to scamers please take the time and tell little more about the job, company name and location. do you think this is approiate
March 24, 2011 at 7:58 am
I am very unsure about craigslist. I have applied for numerous jobs this entire week and I have not even got one response. In the past the same has also happened.I had someone respond to me only to find out it was a money order scam and they where not offering a real job. I do apply for modeling work and I have received honest callbacks from people.In my opinion they should shut craigslist down because so many people have had complaints and awful experiences including myself.
April 21, 2011 at 3:20 pm
When responding to Craigslist job ads, G mail filters a lot of spam, I just recently learned. I have gotten some job interviews from the list but I found employers who use it to be very cheap and only questionably professional.
July 20, 2011 at 4:30 pm
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December 10, 2011 at 9:00 pm
true