Guy Kawasaki’s Rules of Hiring with Craigslist
Guy Kawasaki recently wrote an interesting post on how to get a job via Craigslist. He posted a job ad there for a position at his new startup, Truemors (at least I’m assuming that’s the case!)
The experience is revealing in a few ways:
- He was able to get a good number of high quality candidates.
- People applied quickly, but the people they hired applied later in the process. The quick movers most likely didn’t customize their applications enough to stand out.
- How you apply is as important as anything else. Guy points out that the best fit for the job was someone that applied in a way that no one else did. That candidate took the time to stand out and apply specifically for the job in question.
Guy’s now written a follow-up post: How to Not Hire Someone Via Craigslist.
The most important recommendation that Guy makes is this:
Sell. Almost every help-wanted ad focuses on buying, not selling—that is, the qualifications that candidates have to meet and the fences that they have to jump over. However, in the war for talent, this is ass backwards. This ad, for example, should mention things like “award-winning shop,” “work alongside famous designers,” “interesting projects for Disney, Apple, and Audi.”
That’s spot on. I’ve often thought about taking 10 or so job descriptions, removing the companies’ names and replacing them with other names. Would you really be able to tell the difference? Does anyone sell effectively through their job postings?
That’s spot on. I find that Joel Spolsky has done an adequate job of turning things at least for developers with the Joel Test scores that are included on a lot of the job postings at the jobs.joelonsoftware.com board. It may not appear so at first glance, but at least ten of those twelve points are selling points for developers. They may not be the part that will convince the job applicant, but they are definitely selling points.
Thanks for writing about Craig’s List and recruiting. I used Craig’s list to hire my last admin assistant and it was fantastic. We have posted sales positions (I specialize in sales, marketing and technical support in the laboratory industry) and have not had a successful hire. Right now we are focusing on our technical support positions within Craig’s list. Too early to give a definitive summary but we have our fingers crossed.
Chris - I definitely like what Joel has done with his 12 point system as well. If nothing else, it adds a bit of interest and differentiation from the smattering of other niche tech job boards out there.
Peggy - Thanks for commenting. Like any job board, Craigslist is going to attract a certain crowd. It sounds like it’s not well suited for sales positions though…
We’ve had a lot of success hiring on Craigslist. It is a part of my daily tasks. Some positions do better than others, but after all… it’s free right?
We started getting a higher response rate with JobAdMaker.com because of the better looking layout design and ability to add your logo and “Apply” button link.
@Cindy: Thanks for the comment. Craigslist isn’t free in all cities, but generally, I think most companies do post their ads there (especially when it is free.) I’ve heard mixed results.
JobAdMaker.com looks interesting. Do you have any case studies / examples of it at work? How many job boards allow HTML like that?