Ice Cream for Everyone wrote about their experiences in hiring a designer, listing out where they placed ads and what kind of candidates they found. Me the Geek also has a list of specialty job boards for finding programmers, and has a great quote (from Michael Arrington) on why companies often choose to post ads on smaller, niche boards:

The idea is that the best candidates read these blogs, and by definition are up to speed on cutting edge tech issues. By advertising there, you get the benefit of access to those candidates, without the hundreds of unqualified resumes that come flying in from a Craigslist or Monster.com listing.

I like playing devil’s advocate, so I’ll say that while it’s true that sharp people keep up with technology, there are also a lot of bright programmers who don’t read TechCrunch. There are also ones who read TechCrunch, but not the TechCrunch job boards.

A friend of mine runs a consulting company and had his best success on Monster.com, of all places. He mentioned that while he had to wade through a lot of bad candidates, the mere fact that Monster.com cast such a wide net helped ensure he’d find someone. He also felt that if people were looking for a job, they’d be sure to check Monster.com — he didn’t think there would be many viable candidates who ignored Monster and only focused on niche boards.

Anecdotally, I posted ads on ThinkVitamin and Authentic Jobs, and I did get a number of resumes from really sharp-seeming developers. However, they were on average outside the range that I could afford. When I posted on CraigsList, I actually didn’t get as many responses as I thought I would — largely because posting ads was free (until recently), and so your CraigsList job ad would get buried within a day or two by tons of staffing company ads.

So…maybe I don’t get it. Or maybe if you’re on a tighter budget, niche boards aren’t the right place to look. But now that CraigsList charges $25 per ad in Portland, I might get better visibility.