How to find hidden cannabis jobs on craigslist

craigslist debuted online in 1996, making it one of the oldest community websites you're likely to encounter. In the 30 years since, craigslist has been known as a go-to place to find a free couch, purchase sold out concert tickets, and find a job, among many other things.

craigslist used to be one of the first places you'd go to find a job online based in your local community. Personally, my two longest tenured jobs came out of craigslist in 2011 and 2017, respectively. These days, craigslist isn't first on many people's list for a job hunt, but it remains an active source for local jobs--especially among small businesses--because unlike more prominent career sites these days, it's free for a business to post a job ad on craigslist.

Cannabis companies are among those businesses posting free ads, but because craigslist has protections in place to keep individual pot dealers from using craigslist to find buyers, it can be difficult to search for legal employment opportunities. In other words, when you search "cannabis" on craigslist, you'll see this:

"no postings"

But how can that be in Seattle? There are dozens of cannabis dispensaries in the area. That's because craigslist simply blocks results for words like "cannabis," "marijuana," and likely a ton of other federally illegal products and services. 

Trust me, the jobs are there. Here's how to uncover hidden jobs on craigslist:

First, navigate to your local craigslist hub's jobs page. I will be using Seattle as an example: https://seattle.craigslist.org/search/jjj#search=1~thumb~0~0 (jjj = jobs)

Type "cannabis" or whatever keyword you're searching for in the search bar, but replace the last character with an asterisk (*). In this context, the asterisk is known as a "Kleene star" and represents any number of unknown characters. In other words, a search for "cannabi*" on craigslist is actually a search for "cannabia" and "cannabib" and "canabic" and "canabanana," and so on. This will uncover the word "cannabis" without craiglist blocking it.

See?

Go try it out if you're looking for a local cannabis job, especially in retail or cultivation.