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"If ever there were a go-to place for, well, everything, Craigslist might just be it. Founded in 1995 as an email list of events happening in the San Francisco area,\u00A0Craigslist\u00A0has grown to be one of the most well-known websites for free classified listings and community forums. From housing to garage sales to personal ads to, of course, jobs, craigslist has it all \u2014 including scams.\nBecause Craiglist was never set up as a job search website, its job listings have both pros and cons. On one hand, small businesses and startups love Craigslist because it\u2019s a free, easy way to list their open jobs. On the other hand, scammers love Craigslist because there\u2019s no oversight except for community moderation, so as long as no users flag their scam job listings, they can prey on unsuspecting job seekers.\nIs it possible to find legitimate jobs on Craigslist? Yes. But you\u2019ve got to know how to spot the red flags in order to sort the good from the bad. The following are five red flags to watch out for.\n1. No Company Name:\u00A0It\u2019s really common on Craigslist to find jobs that don\u2019t include the company name, because Craigslist doesn\u2019t require a company to include their name. In fact, they make it very easy for companies to post anonymously, so many do. This prevents job-seekers from doing research on the company they\u2019re applying to, and limits your ability to find out whether the company is one that you\u2019d want to work for and whether it\u2019s a scam.\n2. No Unique Email:\u00A0Many job postings request that you respond to one of Craigslist\u2019s automatically generated anonymous emails (for example, \u201Cc4fvg-3372107@job.craigslist.org\u201D), which unfortunately means that you have zero idea who you are actually sending your resume to. Even if there is a company name in the posting, many scammers will use an anonymous Craigslist email, so that you think you\u2019re applying to the company they mentioned even though you\u2019re not.\nIt is ideal to see an email tied to the companies domain name, such as\u00A0jsmith@company.com, so you can research the company\u2019s domain name to make sure it\u2019s legitimate. To see what you\u2019re dealing with, do a Google search for the company name and go to their real website to see if the same job is listed.\n3. Jobs with \u201CNo Skills Required\":\u00A0Because the form to post a job on Craigslist is so simple and \u201Cfree form,\u201D with no set fields requiring job information, many employers keep things really brief. That could be just unfortunate, or it could be because the \u201Cemployer\u201D is not really an employer at all, and that they\u2019re primary goal is to get contact information from as many people as possible for scam purposes.\n4. Check Cashing and Wire Transfers:\u00A0Some of the most common job scams on Craigslist are \"mystery shopping\" jobs in which companies ask to send job seekers large checks ($2,000 for example) which can be deposited into their bank accounts. It seems easy enough \u2014 the job seeker gets to keep a percentage of the check as long as they wire the remaining funds back to the company through Western Union.\nBut the checks are always counterfeit, and once the bank discovers the error, the job seeker is out $2,000 and the scam company walks away with the wired funds from the job seeker's bank account.\n5. Asking for Personal Information:\u00A0Some job scams are simply phishing for personal information, either to steal job seekers' identities or gain access to their banking and credit card information. If you're searching for jobs on Craigslist, never give out personal information like bank account numbers, social security numbers or even your home address. Provide only your email address and phone number as contact information on your resume.\nWhen job searching on Craiglist or any job search site that doesn\u2019t pre-screen its listings to eliminate scams, the golden rule is to trust your instincts. If a job just doesn\u2019t seem right, whether it has one red flag or 10, don\u2019t apply to it.\u00A0\nSocial Media Job Listings\nEvery week we post a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we publish a huge range of job listings, we've selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!\n\nDigital Project Manager at Weber Shandwick in New York, NY\nSoftware Engineer at Yelp in San Francisco\nSocial Media Journalist at TMG in Washington, DC\n\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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