A Complete Guide on Craigslist Job Posting—Process, Pricing, and Comparisons

Founded by Craig Newman in 1995, Craigslist started as an email distribution list and quickly became a web-based service devoted to jobs, online sales, housing, community service, gigs, and any other type of personal or business ads.

Today, Craigslist operates in over 700 cities from more than 70 countries around the world. It’s a popular job board, especially among blue-collar workers and companies that offer less senior positions in the United States and Canada.

While there are some cities abroad where you can post a job for free, in the United States, a Craigslist job posting isn’t free of charge and depends on the location. 

In this article, we’ll show you:

• What Craigslist offers to employers
• What the job posting process looks like
• How much Craigslist charges to post job ads
• How Craigslist compares to some of the best job boards

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Job Posting on Craigslist—an Overview

Craigslist is a popular website for finding personal ads and job opportunities, especially in the U.S. Once you publish a job post, it’s active for 30 days, and you’ll need to repost it if you want to receive more applications. Although there are over 200 million visits every month on Craigslist, it’s hard to gauge how many users visit the website to seek job opportunities.

It’s a great job board if you’re offering a role for which the location is essential, whether the employee would have to work from the office or the service you provide is localized. 

The platform offers a free resume database search based on location. For example, you can find a list of all resumes uploaded from accounts in a specific city and filter your search to find those you’re interested in. 

Still, the website offers all types of personal ads and is not a dedicated job board. Therefore it lacks some of the functionalities that other job boards offer. For example, Craigslist doesn’t have an internal applicant tracking system, and you’ll need to manage applications by yourself. The platform also lacks screening questions and candidate-matching tools. 

Another issue many users have reported is that Craigslist often labels job posts as discriminatory or against its policies and doesn’t show the listings on its website. The company offers little explanation, and customer support is unresponsive or of little help.

Although you could post jobs for free on Craigslist, that is no longer the case as of 2016.

While Craigslist’s not a free job board, the prices are highly competitive compared to other paid job-listing platforms. If you’re from the continental United States, Alaska, or Hawaii, you need to pay between $10 and $75 per post, depending on the location. Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands are the only U.S. territories you can post for free.

Features and Highlights of Job Posting Ads on Craigslist

Check out the table below to find a brief recap of Craigslist’s job posting opportunities and their key features:

How To Post Jobs on Craigslist

Posting a job ad on Craigslist is a straightforward process. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

• Visit Craigslist’s homepage
• Navigate to the city you want to publish the posting in and click on it

• Click on the Create a posting link in the top-left corner of your screen

• Select job offered or temp job offered (depending on your company’s needs)
• Press Continue
• Choose one or more categories (the total fee rises with every added category)
• Press Continue

• Enter the following information:
  • Posting title
  • City or neighborhood
  • Postal code
  • Job description
  • Employment type (full-time, part-time, contract, employee’s choice)
  • Select what of the following applies (none or all):
    • Direct contact by recruiters is okay
    • Non-profit organization
    • Internship
    • Telecommuting okay
    • Relocation assistance available
  • Job title
  • Compensation
  • Company name
  • Contact info:
    • Your email address (you can choose whether you want applicants to see your address)
    • Phone number (optional)
  • Location info (you can choose whether you want to display your street address)
  • Select if it’s okay to highlight this job opening for persons with disabilities
• Click Continue

• Select a precise location on the map or leave it unchanged and press Continue

• Add up to 24 images (the first one is the featured image)
• Press Done with images

• You will see a recap screen from which you can edit your post, location, and images. Press Continue or Publish

Once the process is finished, Craigslist will send you an email with a link to log in to your account and publish the post—you’ll need to provide billing information before the post goes live.

How To Create a Craigslist Account

To publish your job posting and add billing information, you will need a Craigslist account. If you don’t already have one, you can make it by:

1. Visiting Craigslist’s homepage
2. Navigating to the city in which you want to publish the posting and click on it
3. Clicking on My account
4. Entering your email address in the Create an account section
5. Pressing Create account

Craigslist will email you a link you need to visit to complete signing up. When you click on the link, you’ll be able to create your password or create an account without a password.

How To Post Job Ads to Multiple Cities at One Time on Craigslist

Craigslist doesn’t have a quick solution for posting a job ad in multiple cities. If the position you’re offering is not tied to a specific location, you’ll need to publish posts manually in different cities.

Each new post will have to be paid for, and if you want to publish all across the United States, your total fee will stack up quickly. If it’s a remote job that can be done from anywhere, your best bet is to choose a different job board.

Craigslist Job Posting Template

Craigslist doesn’t have any ready-made templates for various positions like other major job boards do, and you get greeted with an empty text box where you need to write your job description.

If you’re posting on Craigslist, especially if you’re offering a more senior role with stricter requirements, you’re bound to end up with hundreds of applications from unqualified candidates. While this is something you can never altogether avoid, you can lower their number significantly by writing a detailed job description.

Use this section of your job posting to go into detail about the role and what exactly your candidates should expect from you as the employer. Be thorough about the responsibilities of the position and the requirements candidates have to meet to be considered. The more detailed this section is, the more obvious it will be to underqualified candidates that they won’t make the cut, and the majority will get discouraged from applying.

You should also add information about the salary and benefits of the job. This will help you attract top-quality candidates applying for the benefits that make you stand out from other companies. While you may want to keep the salary a secret, all the best job description examples are upfront about this information, and they perform the best.

Get Our Job Description Template for Free

If you’re having a tough time coming up with a job description that will pique the right candidate’s interest, check out our job description template database. You can copy a template for free, adjust it slightly to meet your company’s needs, and you’re good to go. We have hundreds of templates for various positions and industries, such as HR, digital marketing, PR & communications, and SEO marketing.

Craigslist Job Posting Cost

Although it used to be free to post a job ad on Craigslist, there are now fees included for all cities in the United States. The price for a job posting ranges from $10 to $75, depending on the location in which you’re posting (i.e., what city you choose). The price is calculated by the number of job categories. For example, if you’re posting in a $20 city and select three categories, your total fee will be $60.

Craigslist accepts only Mastercard, Visa, and American Express credit cards as payment methods.

Unlike job posting, the resume search feature is free.

How To Search CVs on Craigslist for Free

Jobseekers have the option to upload a CV to their account and write about the services they offer. If you don’t want to post a job listing but want to find a professional in your area through Craigslist, you can search its resume database for free and contact potential candidates this way.

To search resumes on Craigslist, you need to:

1. Visit Craigslist’s homepage
2. Navigate to the city you want to publish the posting in and click on it
3. Click on the Resumes link in the bottom-right corner of the page

1. Enter some keywords (e.g., a job title) and select filters (optional) to narrow your search
2. Press the Update search button or click on the magnifying glass

Craigslist Job Posting vs. Other Job Boards

While it’s not free, Craigslist job posting is inexpensive compared to some job boards that can charge you hundreds of dollars.

Still, you can find free job boards with a greater user base and more customized functionalities specifically designed for recruiters than Craigslist.

We’ve compared Craigslist to the following job boards:

1. Indeed
2. LinkedIn
3. Dice

Craigslist vs. Indeed

Indeed is the most popular job board in the United States, with over 250 million unique monthly visits. You can use it to post a job listing for free, but you’ll need to sponsor it if you want to reach more people and receive a substantial number of relevant applications. The platform also charges you for a resume search, unlike Craigslist, which does the same for free.

Still, Indeed has other recruiter-friendly features that Craigslist lacks, such as company reviews, candidate matching, and screening questions. Check out the table below to see more information about the two platforms:

Craigslist vs. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional social media platform that also acts as a job board. It’s the most popular job-listing platform in the world, with over 300 million monthly visitors. LinkedIn also caters to a broader audience, with Craigslist being popular predominantly among blue-collar and junior office jobseekers.

Since it’s a social network, employers that use LinkedIn also benefit from the option of reaching out to passive talent, i.e., people that are not actively seeking a new job.

It lets you post a job ad for free with promotional options. Unlike Craigslist, it has an ATS and customizable branding options, but it lacks a CV database that Craigslist lets you use free of charge. Find out how the two platforms compare to one another in the table below:

Craigslist vs. Dice

Dice is a niche job board that focuses on IT and tech professionals. It has fewer visitors than Craigslist, but you can use it to source candidates looking for roles in your industry specifically. Compared to Craigslist, Dice comes with a hefty fee of $495+ per job posting and charges for resume searches. The price of a resume search is available upon contact.

Find more cross-referenced information about the two platforms below:

Craigslist Job Posting—Frequently Asked Questions

We’ve compiled a list of the most frequently asked questions regarding posting jobs on Craigslist. Check out the answers.

Do You Have To Pay for Craigslist Job Posting?

Yes. While a handful of cities overseas still offer you the chance to post a job ad on Craigslist for free, posting a job listing in all U.S. cities comes with a price. Depending on the area, the fee ranges from $10 to $75.

What Is the Best Day To Post a Job Ad on Craigslist?

If you’re in a larger city with more significant web traffic, your job ad can get buried in a couple of hours, and most won’t even see it. If you want to reach as many people as possible, post earlier in the week. Monday mornings (around 11 a.m.) are when people search for a job on Craigslist the most.

What Cities Are Free To Post Jobs on Craigslist?

In 2016, Craigslist started gradually introducing payments for job postings. While selected cities overseas and in Canada (e.g., Calgary) still offer free job postings, in the United States, you need to pay $10–$75 for a job posting. 

If you find a list of U.S. cities where it’s free to post a job ad, keep in mind that it will be outdated. Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands are the only U.S. territories where you can post a free job listing.

How Long Does a Craigslist Job Posting Last?

Once you publish your job posting, it will be up for 30 days. After that, Craigslist will remove it, and if you are still seeking a new employee, you’ll need to repost the ad—and pay again for it.

What Are Some Alternatives to Craigslist?

Craigslist is worth your time if you’re looking for an employee in your vicinity that offers manual labor or has junior qualifications. Most experts don’t use Craigslist for job hunting, and you’ll need to look elsewhere to hire such candidates. Craigslist is also inefficient in offering remote or freelance job opportunities.

If you want to post your job listing on websites that offer something different than Craigslist, check out the following:

• Google for Jobs
• Juju
• CareerBuilder
• Facebook
• ZipRecruiter
• Careerjet
• Snagajob
• Ladders
• Mashable
• Monster

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