Craigslist. An Ode.

I spend a lot of time on New York City's Craigslist. An inordinate percentage of my waking hours is spent combing over the posts on the Craigslist job boards, hoping that one of these posts is my ticket to a full-time job or to a second part time job. I'm young enough not to know how the restaurant industry found front of house staff without it. And I've got enough time on my hands to take pleasure in reading about jobs I'll never get/want/know existed.

When encountering the sheer number of posts on Craigslist, it is more important for the job-seeking underemployed soul to fathom how many more readers there are than posters. Based on a promising post, I applied to work part time at the front desk of a mommy-and-me toddler music program on the Upper East Side (where else?). The job mainly consisted of answering telephones, and hanging up people's coats. A job where I could sit down at work!

It seemed perfect. Until I got to the group interview- with 10 other candidates. And the employer told us they were doing 2 group interviews a day. For 3 days. 10 x 2 x 3 = 60; or 59 reasons the job probably will go to someone else. I actually enjoyed the interview, despite being painfully aware of how badly they were wasting my time. In the main playroom, I sat in a semi-circle of nervous underemployed people, all of us with our shoes off. We talked about our favorite cereals- I bonded with "Frankenberry, when you can find it." as I am "BooBerry, when you can get it." (If you don't know the joys of the General Mills monster cereals, please seek it out. ) We talked about our experiences with kids, our problem solving skills, our connection to music. I think I did pretty well. I was comfortably the most articulate speaker in my group. Of 10. Out of the 60 they interviewed.

But it taught me a valuable Craigslist lesson: There are far more readers than posters. I left knowing I'd never hear from or think about them again. Until I came across a posting of theirs on Craigslist this morning. They're expanding to Dubai and are looking for an intrepid early education developer.

I will leave you all with some of my favorite job posts from Craigslist from recent weeks. If you find any amazing posts, send them my way or post in the comment section.


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