Craigslist vs. LinkedIn: Where to Find New Employees
Craigslist and LinkedIn are well-known job ad sites that have stood the test of time. You may have both in sight when posting job ads, but one may suit your industry better. Take a look at how Craigslist and LinkedIn differ so that you can identify which site is more effective in finding new employees for your business.
Industry
Craigslist serves employers seeking part-time or entry-level employees in industries like hospitality, retail, or construction. If you’re in a non-tech industry, Craigslist is preferable to LinkedIn. The top industries on LinkedIn are:
- Information technology and services
- Hospital and healthcare
- Construction
- Retail
- Education management
- Financial services
- Accounting
- Computer software
- Higher education
- Automotive
There are some overlaps in industries between the two sites. For the most part, LinkedIn is for jobs that require, at the minimum, an undergraduate degree, while Craigslist skews blue-collar. This alone should give you a pretty good idea of where you’re likely to find recruiting success.
Cost
Job postings on Craigslist aren’t free for the USA and parts of Canada. The price for posting a job ad varies by location and employment category. For example, posting an admin job in Boston will cost you $45, but the same listing has a fee of $20 in Lexington, Kentucky. You can select multiple job categories to list the job in more locations. All job postings expire after 30 days.
On LinkedIn, you can post jobs for free. But only one job post is open at a time. Posting multiple job openings at a time will cost you. With time, job posts will move down in search results.
A free job posting will last for 30 days, after which you close the job and reopen it at any time. The reopened job will be up on the site for another 30 days.
LinkedIn offers the option to promote your job posts – the total cost is calculated on a pay-per-click basis. The daily price is based on the number of clicks or views received by a post. LinkedIn can charge you up to 50% higher than your daily budget in one day. But the charges won’t exceed your daily budget multiplied by the number of days you’ve set for your campaign. In other words, costs will average out, and you won’t have to pay more than your total budget.
Filtering and screening
Craigslist doesn’t offer filtering or screening options. You’ll have to spend a little more time finding qualified applicants. You can, however, communicate with applicants through the site.
On LinkedIn, you can create advanced search filters to find candidates with specific qualifications and experience. Educational documents on the site show you how to build complex queries and combine search filters to get the desired results. The search filters use Boolean logic with AND, OR, or NOT operators.
So, what’s it going to be?
Hopefully, we’ve helped you understand which job site is better for your business. It doesn’t necessarily have to be one or the other. Posting on both sites may make good sense for your industry and certain job types, helping boost hiring speed. Another way in which you can save time on recruiting candidates is by using our Craigslist job posting service. It frees you of admin work and saves hours of time on bulk job posting. Job posting automation has become the norm – don’t wait to check it out.
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