For the first time in several months I let my Craigslist ad expire.  I kept the ad looking for models, and when it worked I found some very good people.  But even for free, keeping and maintaining an ongoing ad was a time sink I could no longer afford, especially given the overall poor response the ad consistently received.

Guy Kawasaki sees some value in Craigslist, but I question whether the effort really pays off.  I got most responses when the ad was at the top of the list, naturally, which meant when I renewed the post I could expect a dozen or so replies.  Most were throw aways; people with one or two word replies, or people with no resume, headshot, etc.  Others were simply confused about what art modeling actually is, and with apologies to exotic dancers everywhere, it's not stripping.

So I could immediately toss half the responses.  Of the other half, those who responded to my contact to set up an interview sometimes showed up on time.  I'm not too patient with Portland's sense of timishness (you know, showing up at 10:30 for a 10:00 meeting and thinking you're on time, like, it's still 10ish and all) and in the end I found about 1 in 20 responses from Craigslist were from people with an understanding of the work, and the ability to be someplace on schedule.  Not a good ratio, nor a good way to spend time chasing the next drawing or photo.  Add to that the number of responses has been in steady decline the past few weeks, and I attribute that to the ad going stale.  All potential models who look at Craigslist have already seen it, and either passed or replied.

Thankfully, I get by mostly on references now, as well as community websites like Model Mayhem or OMP.  Which means I can finally bid farewell to Craigslist.