Thank you to all of the users of the app who have helped us achieve this – we couldn’t have done it without your support! What would you like to see in future app releases?

Browse, Post, and Manage your Classified Ads with the Free Kijiji iPhone App

The best mother’s day gift is quality time.

Moms spend so much time making sure their families are fed and looked after – take the opportunity to return the favor, and let her put her feet up and relax! Here are a few meal options to create a special Mother’s Day.

Who doesn’t love breakfast in bed? Plenty of trays are available on Kijiji, which make it easy to surprise mom with a morning treat! Not a skilled cook? Look for fresh fruit and veggies from local farmers and prepare a delicious fruit salad to serve with yogurt or granola on the side.

Family brunch! Pancakes or French toast are simple and easy to make for a larger group. For a memorable experience, look after all the details to create a nice environment. Get fancy and press the table linens and decorate with some freshly cut spring flowers for mum, or, buy some plants to pot or plant, which will last all summer (or beyond).

Pack a picnic! There is lots of picnic gear to choose from Kijiji. Grab an old tablecloth, prepare a smorgasbord, and treat your mum to a lovely lunch among trees and flowers. The basket itself makes a great gift for Mother’s Day (remember to carry it to and from the destination, and do all the clean-up).

Share in her interests. If your mom has a special hobby, Sunday is a great time to share it with her. If not, there plenty of other ways to spend time together:

Go for a garden stroll! Mother’s day is an ideal time to view the spring flowers in bloom. If the weather is clear, it’s a perfect time to go to a botanical garden, or a city park with gardens, depending on what is available near you.

Does your mom love to give back to the community? Check out local volunteer opportunities in your community.

Does your family enjoy playing sports together? Play a round-robin of badminton or tennis, or, if you have a large family, try organizing a team activity.

Don’t have the funds to take mom to the spa? Pamper her at home by giving her a manicure. If you don’t have the set up, you can find beauty supplies on Kijiji (be sure to disinfect any second hand materials).

If you don’t have a big budget to spend on fancy gifts, spend your time planning and preparing a special day for her and the family. A handmade card and a lovely day spent together is really what Mother’s Day is all about.

Always deal in-person. This can be tough, especially if you are planning a long distance move, however, the most important thing to keep yourself safe from internet-based fraud is to ensure that you see the space before making a commitment, and never ever send money online. If this is not possible, ask someone you trust to check out the physical space. Don’t ever use wire transfers, Western Union, or any other service that won’t enable to put a stop on the funds if necessary.

Beware of involved tales. Does the landlord claim to be an African missionary that needs someone to house-sit? Do they say they are posted on an oil rig for months? Big red flags – most land lords are looking for a good tenant for the maximum amount of rent they can get, and aren’t going to spend precious time writing involved stories about their personal situation or making excuses as to why they can’t meet you. It makes more sense for someone seeking a long term tenant to get the value of the rent than it does for them to deeply discount the property for a quick turnaround. If they actually are abroad or can’t meet up for whatever reason, they will have someone who can meet you in person and show you around – possibly a family member, real estate agent, or a handyman who looks after their unit.

Know the market value. If similar properties in the area are posted at significantly more than this one, don’t be excited, be suspicious. While good deals are out there, scams typically will state a price that is so good that it gets prospective tenants excited and forget to ask questions. Newly renovated luxury apartment in a hot location for a low price? It is tempting to act fast, but keep your guard up – if the price seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Great space, prime location, luxury finishes at a low price? Very suspicious!

Too much detail on the condition of a building? Fraudulent posters have been known to copy descriptions from for house for sale ads from around the web. If the rental listing has many details on building condition that would only be relevant to a buyer, not a tenant, keep your guard up.

Asked for in depth personal information before meeting? If you get an email requesting a lot of personal information, such as your SIN number, age, gender, banking information, and job, be aware that this could be an attempt to harvest personal information. A letter of employment is a standard request with many landlords, but be suspicious if they want information far beyond that before they will even agree to meet you.

Avoid cash deposits. You want your transaction to be traceable – ask for ID, sign a contract, and write a cheque if possible. If a landlord asks for cash in absence of a written agreement, this is a major red flag.

Kijiji is full of great landlords and prospective tenants, and we hope that you have a great experience finding a new home. If you see any ads that you find suspicious, or that raise the above red flags when you are corresponding, please let us know by flagging the ad or sending us an email.

It is expected that applicants will have a web presence, and doing searches on candidates is common practice with recruiters and hiring managers. Don’t go changing your name on all your social networks and putting your profiles on lock-down just yet – demonstrating that you are social media savvy can be a great leg up on your competition, and an absence of a web presence can seem suspicious. So, how can you plan ahead to ensure that your social media profiles will be an asset rather than a handicap when looking for work?

Keeping it clean is easier than cleaning it up. Adjust your privacy settings so that anything that others tag you in won’t appear to the general public. Whether you want to have it set to friends only, or approve the tags individually is up to you – the key is to ensure that search engines won’t be able to show this content.

You don’t have to remove every picture where you have a drink in your hand – having a social life is normal. However, any pictures that imply binge drinking, or any illicit activities should be outright deleted.

Hard partying a theme on your social profile pictures? Get rid of it!

Avoid Drama. It can be tempting to use social media as a place to get on your soap box and rant about work, social life, or family – but resist the temptation! Publicly searchable rants about any sort of relationship drama will make you appear unstable. Recruiters and hiring managers are not looking to add someone who will add drama to their team, so overly dramatic or emotional posts should be removed or posted with privacy controls. Any interpersonal rants should not be public.

Complaints about jobs, bosses, or colleagues should be avoided at all costs – they have no place on social media.

Avoid vulgar language. Though you may use obscenities when conversing with friends, avoid it on public posts on social media, and particularly on twitter. You may think that it is only one tweet – but it is difficult to predict which tweets will be indexed by any of the twitter indexing sites and appear on the first page of a web search (at which point, they are difficult to have removed). Save yourself the headache, and avoid using any terms that might get you into trouble during your hunt for career opportunities.

Your average recruiter or hiring manager is generally just looking to ensure that candidates are not a flight risk or a potential detractor from the brand. Take a look at your profiles, and if you see anything you are ashamed of, get rid of it ASAP. Social media can be a great tool to find work, just make sure it isn’t working against you.

Highlight the fact that you are graduating recently. Expectations for experience will be different for someone fresh out of post-secondary than it will be for someone who has been working, so be sure to take advantage of this.

List any relevant experience. You may have yet to get on the job experience, but if you have been studying a related topic, be sure to mention applicable courses. Don’t list every course you have taken – just restrict it to the ones that might be of interest to a recruiter or hiring manager. If you are a part of any groups, associations, or volunteer in a capacity related to the field, be sure to include that as well.

List or showcase group projects. If you produced outstanding work, made a tangible product, or are a great team player, don’t neglect to show the results you achieved while working as a part of a team on your resume or CV (after all, that’s what you will be doing in a job).

Don’t restrict yourself to listing extra-curriculars. Do you have personal initiatives that you pursue outside of a structured environment? Maybe you have a blog on the field that you are working towards entering, a personal passion, or a side project or business – don’t be afraid to share these details, as they will make your resume come alive for the reader, and give them a sense of you.

Showcase your passion and dedication. Try thinking about your resume as a self-portrait – aim to have it show you as a smiling, dedicated professional, and let your personality shine through. Don’t deviate from the resume format, but include touches that will give the reader a sense of you. Are you someone who loves humor? Include a hint of this where appropriate. Remember, companies aren’t only looking for someone with the skills required for the job; they also want people who fit with the company culture. Re-read your resume and ask yourself: based on this resume, would I want to work with me?

Tailor your resume to the audience. Consider the fact that the reader is likely spending less than a minute reading your resume, so keep it concise. Create different versions of your resume for different types of companies. As the current generation of young people enters the work force, it is evolving, however, different types of companies are changing at different rates. A start-up staffed by 20-somethings is going to have a very different company culture than a bank, so make sure you understand what type of company you are applying to when you craft and post your resume.

Be sure to check out our general resume tips for more ways to improve your odds on your quest to find a great job to launch your career.

Did you know that approximately 96% of the materials in an average mobile device can be recycled? There are valuable precious metals, such as gold, that were once extracted from the Earth that can be recycled to make new products rather than mining for more.

So how much gold can be extracted from cell phones? 150 grams of gold go into every tonne of cell phone circuitry. To put this into perspective, one tonne of mobile phone circuit boards can produce the same amount of precious metals as 110 tonnes of gold ore.

Before you think about throwing your mobile device in the garbage, consider the environmental impact of your decision. Recycle it! There are over 3,000 drop off locations across Canada. Alternatively, why not be a local environmental hero and sell your cell phone on Kijiji and expand the product lifecycle?

The Environmental Impact of your Cell Phone Infographic

Teach children how to recycle to promote a sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle.

Clean up a city park, ravine, beach, or other outdoor public space. Many areas get cluttered with litter during the winter, which provides a great opportunity to talk to kids about littering, while giving back to your local community.

Build a composter. More than just an awareness building activity, this is something that you can incorporate into your daily life to live green, as well as teach kids the value of green living. You can find plenty of raw materials, such as wood or barrels, on Kijiji.

Plant a vegetable garden. Not only will it result in delicious veggies, but will also provide ample opportunity to explain why eating local is best for the environment, and how much more local can you get than your own backyard? If you are new to gardening yourself, there are plenty of gardening supplies available locally.

Don’t have an outdoor space (or have kids that would rather not spend their day getting dirty)?

Create crafts using only used or recycled items. Collaging pictures from old magazines onto an old box makes a special personalized keepsake box.

Up-cycle! Find some fabulous used furniture in need of some TLC, some sandpaper, and some paint or stain, and show how with a little elbow grease and time, it can be made to be even better than new.

Teach your kids about recycling. From explaining your local waste sorting systems to explaining how to have a sustainable lifestyle through buying used and up-cycling, there are many topics that you can go over with your family to help reduce your carbon footprint.

Bumping up an ad moves it to the beginning of the category by resetting the post date, so it appears to be freshly posted. You can now also view the rank of your ad in its category, as well as the number of visits.

The updated free Kijiji iOS app

The updated free Kijiji Android app

Let us know what you think! Are there any other features you would love to see added to future releases?

Income. If your kids aren’t at the stage where they have started to make their own money, you could encourage some activities that would illustrate the hard work that goes into generating income. A lemonade stand is a nice activity for younger kids, while older ones could set up an entrepreneurial activity that might pay more – cutting grass, walking dogs, or babysitting are all great options, and laying the ground work for making some money is as easy as posting an online classified ad, and putting up a few posters around the neighbourhood. Little will do more to illustrate the value of a dollar than having to work for it.

Purchases. Most people, young and old, dream of certain big ticket items. Maybe for a 5 year old it is a certain toy, maybe a 16 year old is wishing to buy a car. Ask your kids what material items they want most, and help them devise an action plan to make it happen. In the case of the car, we recommend showing them the difference between the cost of purchasing a new car off the lot and purchasing used cars that have been driven and depreciating for a few years. Not only will the used option have a lower purchase price, it will also be more affordable to insure.

Saving. It’s never too early for kids to start saving! It is ideal if they can be involved in the planning for their future in addition to saving for material purchases. Post-secondary studies come with a hefty price tag, and it is ideal if children can be actively involved in putting away funds to fund their future. Talking to your kids about the costs (but ultimate benefits) involved in continuing their education and set up a savings account or RESP that they can make contributions to.

Cost of Living. Many young people are oblivious to the actual cost of living, or maintaining the lifestyle that they are accustomed to. Try searching rental listings in your local area to show older teens what it would cost to move out on their own. You can have them write down what additional costs they would require (such as a cell phone, internet, electricity, and heating), and having them subtract it from what would be earned working full time in a minimum wage job.

It can be difficult to show kids the value of money and stick to a budget – what do you do at home to ensure your children grow up understanding how to manage their money?