Get a Job! … using Craigslist

Unless you have a permanent, full-time technical writing position at a stable company that is never going to downsize or go out of business, you need to constantly be on the lookout for job opportunities. If you're a freelancer, you already know this. Luckily, there are plenty of resources around to help you find jobs and/or contracts and/or assignments.

One of these is Craigslist. Craigslist is a free community-run classified advertisement service on the Internet, started in 1995 by a guy named – prepare yourself – Craig. It gets its money from for-pay help wanted and apartment ads: everything else is free.

To start using Craigslist, go to www.craigslist.org. Since Craigslist is organized geographically, you need to find the nearest included city (450 worldwide). Big cities are on the far right. Otherwise, click your state, and then click the nearest city in the list that appears.

Once you get to the right city, there are two areas to check for employment: "jobs" and "gigs". You'll notice that under "jobs" there's an entry for "writing/editing": they saw you coming. Click that entry, and you'll see a new page with recent listings, and a simple keyword search form. Just to see what a posted job ad looks like, click on any one. You'll notice that it includes a title, the date it was posted, a "job…@craigslist.org" email address, and a description. The email address is how you would inquire about a position, if the ad itself contains no contact information. At the bottom of the description, you'll see some mandatory Craigslist fields that indicate the job's location, whether it's okay to share the job with others, and so forth.

Now, you used to be able to subscribe to periodic emails from Craigslist that would keep you up to date on new jobs in this area. Unfortunately, that service has been suspended for a variety of reasons.

Instead, you can simply browse the ads, or set up searches for your particular areas of expertise.

What about "gigs"? Under "gigs", you'll see a "writing" entry, and the much-vaguer "creative" entry. Click "writing", and you'll see a list of possibilities that aren't exactly jobs. They may be contracts. They may be solicitations for fledgling magazines. They may be practically anything, and they sure are interesting!

Suggestion: If you want an actual job, peruse the "jobs" regularly. If you want to try something different, probably without pay, check out the "gigs" occasionally.

Good luck!