My name is Sean and I just finished high school. I'll be off to the University of Mary Washington in the fall but until then I plan to make the most out of the next couple of months, starting with this cool little internship. That being said, don't get too attatched; I'll only be here until June 10th. Until then, read and enjoy. By the way I live and breathe movies; I reviewed them for my school paper and I own 100+ DVDs. This means I might be throwing some obscure references around here and there, so consider yourself warned.

The butt of many jokes and infamous for its reputation as the meeting place of choice for slick hucksters and deviant sleazebags alike, Craigslist is mostly considered the shady backstreet bazaar of the worldwide web. Because of this, most people will only use it as a last resort or ignore it completely as a potential job-seeking tool. This is unfortunate, as Craigslist has (albeit infrequently) proven a fairly useful finder of decent local jobs, odd though they may be.

It should be made clear now that Craigslist may not be the ideal choice for college graduates (it couldn’t hurt to aim your sights a little higher), but for college-bound 18 year olds like me, it’s a safe bet it will be your first and only place for your job hunt.

For anyone in my situation who has just finished or will soon finish high school and is headed for orientation in August or September, the name of the game this summer is (or at least SHOULD be) making and saving as much money as humanly possible. It has been made very clear to me that money disappears very rapidly in college and the fifty bucks you have in your sock drawer may not cut it. While you could take the traditional route of scouring the classifieds and milling around your local shopping mall in search of “help wanted” signs, a better job-finding option might be just a click away.

Here’s a real-world example of what might happen: a very good friend of mine is attending VCU in the fall and financially he’s already ahead of the game. Since late last year, he’s been working two jobs. One is for Select Media, a company providing magazines, candy and the other stuff you see in the checkout aisles to stores like Home Depot and Best Buy. His job consists of going to the storage area in the back of the store, taking the boxes of magazines, etc. and placing them on the racks by the store’s checkout. For this he gets $11 an hour and he works anywhere from 5 to 17 hours a week.

The other job is for Long & Foster Realty. He drives a company van to different properties for sale in a certain area, checks the signs out front (changes “for sale” to “under contract”, etc.) and checks the houses to make sure they are ready to show. This gets him $13 an hour and he gets between 20 and 30 hours of work in a week.

If he works the bare minimum of his hours in one week, he walks away with $315. In about a month, he’ll have $1260 saved up. Granted, this does place him below the poverty line, but it’s not bad for a first semester in college. FYI, he found both of these jobs on Craigslist.

What people seem to either forget or just plain not know is that legitimate companies like Select Media or Long & Foster will put listings on Craigslist, not just people in need of dogsitters or the aforementioned sleazebags. Also, the companies who place listings on Craigslist are often flexible with their hours. This is great for rising freshmen like us who may have other jobs or already scheduled family get-togethers out of town.

Just so you know, the example I gave you is by no means a guaranteed result of using Craigslist, and the money you’ll be making may not leave a lot to spare. However, for those of you who don’t have to pay rent or anything like that (which I should hope isn’t the case), it might just get you on the right track.