How to post a job on Craigslist online (2024)

Craigslist might not be your first choice when you want to post a job listing, but it’s well worth considering this venerable site – it’s still a popular option despite the growth of dedicated job boards.

This site is particularly well-known for hosting blue-collar, temporary, and casual job listings, so it’s an ideal route if you need to hire workers in the hospitality, retail, or construction industries.

There are plenty of advantages to posting your job vacancies on this busy, fast-moving site, but there are some serious pitfalls too, so we’ve explained how you post a job advert and highlighted the keys pros and cons.

If you’d like some more help with recruitment, consider our feature on the best free job boards, the ten best ways to recruit talent for your business, or our verdict on 2021’s best job sites.

• Also check out our roundup of the best online courses
• Craigslist vs Glassdoor: how do they compare?

How to post your job advert

It’s easy to get started – create an account and verify your email address, and you’re ready to go. Head to the Create a Posting button on the top-left of the site and you’ll have to choose a location for your job listing. Be as specific as possible because it’ll give you the best chance of attracting relevant candidates.

You can specify whether you’re hiring for a conventional job or a short-term position, and then you need to choose the category of the job – from accounting and admin to security, science, and web design. There are more than thirty options, so you’ve got plenty of choices.

Once that’s done, it’s time to create the advert. This is simple: insert the title, pre-written job description, and the postcode, specify whether it’s full- or part-time or a contracted position, and insert the compensation and company name.

The job-creation form allows some minor customization. Recruiters can choose direct contact or if they want to use Craigslist’s more secure email relay system, and the advert can indicate if remote working is an option or if relocation assistance is available.

At this point, you can use a map to highlight the job’s precise location. You can also add up to 24 images that are relevant to the posting – that could be the company logo, the place of work, or some extra information about your business, benefits, and culture.

Next, you’ll see a draft of your listing alongside the price you’ll need to pay. A job listing on Craigslist currently costs between $10 and $75 depending on the location, with the San Francisco Bay area the only region that currently costs that top price – New York is $45, for instance. Gig and short-term jobs cost between $3 and $10 per listing.

Craigslist is a fast-moving site, and job posts expire after thirty days, so there are some key tips to make sure that as many people see the vacancy as possible.

For starters, make sure you’ve got an eye-catching title – including compensation and perks, if possible, use emojis, and mention any other highlights. Make sure you’ve got great images on the job listing, too. Ensure that as much information as possible is included in the job description – list benefits and information about your company culture, values, and mission alongside the skills and responsibilities of the role.

Consider the time you post. Data has shown that Craigslist job searches rise in popularity from early morning to a late-morning peak, and you’ll have better luck if you post on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.

Bear in mind that there is no free posting option on Craigslist in the US, but you can post jobs for free in the UK.

Consider a paid posting account if you want to get more bang for your buck in the USA. With this account, you get more tools for managing posts, the ability to have multiple authorized users on the same account, and the option to pre-pay for blocks of posts. This is useful for companies who want to use Craigslist in high quantities, and your business will only qualify for this account if it’s already spent $2000 on the site in the preceding three months.

The advantages of Craigslist

There are plenty of good reasons to post your job advert on Craigslist. It’s very easy to list jobs at precise locations on this site, so you can be specific about locations when hiring. It’s simple to post on Craigslist, too – the entire process is straightforward, and you can include as much text as you like alongside plenty of images in the job advert.

One of Craigslist’s most significant advantages is its price. It’s cheap to post job listings here, especially if you’re not hiring in one of the big metropolitan areas that has a higher cost.

It’s certainly true that you can post free adverts on some big job sites, but those free tiers often have limited features and reduced access to applicants, so you end up paying extra anyway. Craigslist, conversely, is affordable and up-front about the costs.

The potential problems

Craigslist does have its issues, though. It’s a fast-paced site, and you can’t pay to boost your posts, so vacancies can disappear beneath other posts quickly, especially in busier cities. It can be hard to make your advert stand out when you can only use text and a limited number of pictures, too.

While posting on Craigslist is easy, you don’t get a huge amount of customization here – other sites offer more tools for personalizing your listings. You don’t get other options beyond the listings, either: plenty of other job boards have social networking features, quizzes, and articles alongside detailed company and salary information, but Craigslist has none of these.

Craigslist has limited integration with more sophisticated ATS and HR products due to its similar nature, and it can be tricky to keep track of your listing and its applicants – everything goes to your inbox or your ATX inbox, and it could easily become overwhelming.

Nevertheless, there’s a lot to like on Craigslist. Its speed, easy posting, and affordability make it ideal for jobs in retail, hospitality, and other blue-collar industries, and it’s also suitable for short-term contracts and gig economy positions.

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Craigslist vs Glassdoor

Craigslist has been receiving criticisms, thereby getting a 3.8 rating. Glassdoor is reviewed positively with a 7.1 rating.

Features: Craigslist has expanded to over 1.5 million job postings among 25 million classified ads posted on the site. In the United States alone, the site gets over 30 million visits. Craigslist is community-focused and has a simple and user-friendly layout for easy navigation. Its continuously growing online community gives you a better reach for a meager fee.

Glassdoor’s “power of partnership” company theme focuses on three key areas: staying on top with target candidates, telling your story to reach qualified candidates, and spreading and gathering information using analytics. Glassdoor is actively maintaining engagement between employers and candidates.

Pricing: For job posts, Craigslist is your platform of choice. This classified ads website adds minimal charges in areas where free posting isn’t covered. These charges can range between $10 - $75. High volume paid accounts are offered payment options, otherwise, it’s essentially a pay-per-click platform for ads.

Glassdoor is different in that there are plans you can choose from depending on your posting needs. These plans charge monthly fees of $219 and $599. If you’re only after the basic features, the free account should suffice. Everything in the free account is included in the paid plans, plus more advanced features.

Conclusion: Companies that aren’t looking to fill a number of posts are better off with Craigslist’s extremely low fees. Glassdoor is an excellent choice for corporations that are constantly scouting for talents.