Take Caution...

I would just advise when replying to ads on places such as Craigslist, that you take caution.

Some ads request that you send your cover and resume to a masked (by craigslist) email address, and I have found that 10 times out of 10, they are usually con's or spam artists.

I would suggest doing what I do, and that is sending an email stating your interest, but requesting that they reply with a valid company email or web address for you to submit your information to.

I have actually received emails back from these spammers that thank me for my resume (tho I never sent it) and want me to sign up on some web page.

Just a woord to the wise.

Craigslist is full of scammers and robo-responders who blanket CL Listings with automatic email responders. They basically scan the listings and send out mass emails about scams that they are programmed to spread. I receive them from time to time ...

Never delete your post until your stuff is sold.

Exactly.

First-time poster, long time lurker! Unemployed for 8 months, nothing compared to some of you, though.

One thing I've learned is to copy the text of the ad and paste into the search engine, and lo and behold the majority of the time the same ad appears dozens of times! Guaranteed scam! Also, it is just best policy to disregard anything that does not say who they are. One that cracks me up is one allegedly for a hotel front desk position which asked to apply in person, yet failed to say where! Failed the Google test, obviously.

Thanks for the post, Kulkulkan ... great info ...

I've been pretty successful in getting interviews on CL. Actually about 95% of my interviews came from CL.

But yea some of the postings are flat out obvious. The whole using the CL email address isn't always true. Actually I get more scam emails from the addresses ending in @gmail.com @yahoo.com and @aol.com embedded in the ad. A pretty decent sized company will most likely have a company email address although there are some small companies that do use free servers. Also a lot of companies use the CL email because they don't want people calling them about the position. Same goes for not listing the company... they just don't want the phone calls.

Two obvious scam-ads are:
Lack of information about location. I used to live in the Inland Empire and the inland empire is HUGE, 100's of miles. Scam artists don't realize this and will just use Inland Empire as the city. Also not even posting a city is always a red-flag. Or just posting the state. Or a different city entirely.

Too good to be true. We all know that a cashier or Receptionist isn't bringing in $25 a hour. Not these days. Also when they mention things like "Use of the company car and credit card. 20 vacation days. Access to the company gym, etc etc " Most likely a scam. Not saying a company won't do this. But they probably won't be mentioning it in an ad.

I noticed that job ads listing every single detail about the job are scams. Especially when the details are the perks of working for that company. Most legit jobs that I have applied for.. the ad was short and to the point.

Another thing is a reply right after you email them.. like within seconds/minutes. Scam. They will always be asking you either do a credit check OR apply using a link. If they wanted you to apply using a link to another website, they would have mentioned in an ad. Same with the credit check. They would have told you before you applied that you have to do a credit check before even interviewing.

On thing I will mention is that some people will tell you not to send your resume right away and to email them first. No no no. You won't get an email back and you just missed out on a potential job. Can you imagine posting an ad, receiving 50 replies, and then returning all those emails just to get a resume? Yea.. not happening. Email them your resume/phone number but leave out the address and names/phone numbers if your references.