Set up the ultimate job search monitor in 5 steps

Craigslist.org has more jobs than any other destination online. Save time by using Feedly to set up an RSS dashboard that instantaneously feeds you exactly the kinds of jobs you are looking for.

How to set up the ultimate Craigslist job search monitor

1. Set up a Feedly account

Feedly is a customizable dashboard of RSS feeds. It also has Android and iPhone apps. Head over to www.feedly.com/‎ to set up your free dashboard.

2. Create a job search feed

On the lower left side of Feedly, click Create New Feed, and name it something like Job Search Monitor.

3. Get Craiglist search URLs

Now it's time to head over to the Jobs section of Craigslist for your city. In the search field enter some criteria of what you are looking for, such as; industry, title, location, etc. You will notice that each result creates a unique URL address. For example, a search for Denver sales produces this URL: https://denver.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=Denver+sales
What's cool is that as new jobs are added that match this search description, this URL page will update to show the new results instantaneously. Identify 3-5 search phrases that target the job, industry, and description of what you want.

4. Get Craigslist search RSS feeds

Now you have to get the RSS feed that corresponds to this search query. Craigslist is trying to make this a little more difficult on us but it's still pretty easy to hack, you can generate RSS feeds from a URL with a tool like RSS.app.

It will look something like https://rss.app/feeds/pQq65VeOetMx466I.xml. Create as many RSS feeds as you need.

5. Add the job feeds to Feedly

Now go back to your Feedly dashboard and click Add Content in the upper left-hand corner. Copy/Paste the RSS feed into the field, and it will show up directly below the field that says Discover Feeds, click on the feed, and the jobs listing will then show up to the right. You are almost there! Click the green button that says Follow. Now for Title enter a short description of the feed (Denver tech sales), and add it to a Collection named something like Job Search Monitor. Click add and voila! Now a real-time feed of the most recently added properties matching the search is going to be in your Feedly dashboard.

While this might sound a little complicated to set up it's actually pretty easy to do and it saves you a huge amount of time over searching through Craiglist's jobs section. It takes literally just a few seconds to glance at your Feedly dashboard and see the new properties posted in the last few days or hours. This also works in the Gigs or Services sections of Craiglist.

IMPORTANTLY: Respond immediately to postings that you are interested in. Craigslist's jobs section gets a huge amount of traffic so you can be sure that a lot of other people will see any job that you are interested in. The faster you can contact the employer the better your chances are of getting it. If a listing contains a phone number always call that directly after sending your resume.

Dirty Trick

If you see a particularly good job come across your job search monitor you may want to minimize your competition. After you respond to the posting you may want to flag (upper right of the posting) it so that Craigslist deletes the posting. Flag it from your browser, then use a website like Pagewash.com to block your IP address and flag it again, you may also want to flag it from your smartphone browser or a friend's computer to ensure it gets removed.

Time to Completion: 30 Minutes to set up, several minutes a day to monitor.

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