As the world is flourishing with many number of industries, there are lot many opportunities for people to get into good employment opportunities.
People tend to get fantasized by huge paying job vacancies through the Internet, advertisement hoardings and lot many ways.
The real question is whether it is fake or true.
And there are numerous job recruiting firms around the world with fancy advertisements which promises job with high pay scale and lot many benefits.
It is tough to find whether it is true or fake. There are many fraudulence websites with fancy names throughout the Internet.
Recruitment Scams – How to Avoid Them?
A job scam is something where the fraudulent group portrays themselves as a recruiter posting a good job offer with a huge pay scale. They try to loot huge amount of money by two methods.
One method is they ask to pay some amount of money as an advance and another method is theft identity. In this they approach people with a resume from a job portal and try to get your confidential information and use it for theft identity.
Whatever methods the scammers approach, their main intention is to get a huge amount of money and escape.
And nowadays, the fake recruiters use many tricky techniques which made it very difficult to identify the real one from the fake recruiter. As the job opening keeps increasing, more fake recruiters also have increased enormously.
Out of 10 job offers there is approximately only 4 legitimate opening and rest are fake openings posted by the fake recruiters.
Job Scam Warning Signs:
Acquiring a job in this highly competitive market is undoubtedly a tough task but not something impossible. Job seekers try hard to gain the job by performing well in the interviews and also doing whatever is required to get the job. Some of the ways are referrals or joining through some consultancies etc
Though these are a few easy ways that help job seekers, there are also other recruitment scams that one should be aware of. One should be able to distinguish between job scams and real job offers. As every coin has two sides, internet fraud is not something new. These people mainly look for job seekers as their prey and promise them with the best of offers for a job.
Believing in them can result in losing your money and also your identity information which they can use in an illegitimate way. The only defending step you can take is to avoid all such shortcuts and prepare well when going for the interview.
The other way is to identify the job scams through some of the signs and report them the right way to the officials, through Citizens Advice consumer service on 08454 04 05 06. Some of the common internet scam signs are,
Internet Job Scam Warning Signs:
- Being so Good to be True
- Handing you the job offer right away
- Great pay
- Unusual job descriptions
- Emails send by them look unprofessional
- Interviews call through messaging
- Asking for your personal information
- Not able to find any results on net upon research
- Ask you about the bank details or the credentials for fund transfer
- Asking money for getting hired
- No proper contact information
- Emails are not sent from the company allocated mailing service
- Finally, believe your GUT feeling
Common Recruitment Scams and Frauds:
One common type of fake recruiting scam is targeting people who seeks job overseas. Here fake recruiter approaches the job seeker with an attractive offer in overseas where they promise to take care of work permit, travel visa, and other allowances.
Once they receive the cash they move apart totally with no identical traces in the internet nor with the name of the organization physically. Here are the few tips to identify the fake recruiting or job scams:
How to Identify Job Scams?
1. Strictly, No to money!
Never pay money to any type of job offers. Remember this, no company would ask the job seeker to pay money as an advance to give a person a job.
If in case, it is expecting to pay then for sure it is a fake offer. And also no company would expect to pay cash for training their employees.
As at end of the day, once after training, they would be using the skill learned for the organization. So, for nothing they would expect to pay money.
2. No trace in the market or Internet, then rethink:
Try to do some research on the company. If there is no website, be cautious about the company.
If there is a company website, then try to cross verify it on the Google search with email addressees, contact numbers etc. If things do not match, then rethink about the company’s offer.
3. Suspect free email accounts:
In the present scenario, all the companies will have a corporate email account. If any company approaches you with free email accounts like yahoo, gmail, live or hotmail it is likely to be a fake company.
Legitimate job openings from a recognized organization will mostly have corporate email id’s. Do not go for free email accounts and try to keep a note in the beginning with these types of small things.
4. Cross verify the details with google search:
Once after receiving details from the recruiter, do complete research on the Internet to know about the company. Try to cross check the details provided to you with the details in the Internet.
There are chances where fake recruiters might use fake organization name to make money from the users on the name of job offers.
5. Always check scam lists:
Make sure you cross verify the name of company with organizations like ‘Better Business Bureau‘ and the ‘Federal Trade Commission‘ to see if the organization has been fake recruiters.
This will help you to avoid the offer the moment you receive the job vacancy mail or a message.
6. No offer letters without interviews:
No organization would recruit an employee without an interview. You might receive an email stating that your resume is very well qualified for the vacancy and hence, they wish to hire you. This kind of emails is undoubtedly a fake job offer.
No company would choose an employee without a telephonic or a face to face interview. Never accept or reply to such kind of emails which is purely a fake recruiting scam.
7. No work from home for a full time seeker:
Generally, work from home is given only for an experienced candidate. That too it cannot be expected for full whole job period in the beginning only. Nobody would trust an employee and allot jobs right from the joining for work from home.
Never trust those kind of offers sent to you through emails. As it looks so easy to work and relaxing, people easily fell for these types of scams.
8. Random job offers:
Getting random job offers which you have not applied for, can never be true. Nobody would come and give you a job offer which you have not applied for in your career.
It is always a hypothetical incident. Never trust such kind of fake job offers.
9. Huge pay scale sounds good but can be fake:
Always think twice when you are offered pay which is more for your experience. Crosscheck your pay scale offered to you with the pay scale standards to proceed further.
If it is beyond expectation, think twice because money is not that cheap in the world. This type of job offers might surely be a scam.
10. Never share your confidential information:
Nobody would look out to know about your credit card credentials, or your debit card details for approving your job offers. Never consider such type of fake offers as it is purely a scam.
Do not also share your social network id or number to know more about you. They might also look into your contacts and misuse your personal information.
11. Take a deep look at the grammatical errors:
Corporate people will mostly never make grammatical errors. They are being hired by the human resource department especially for such kind of job.
So there is no chance of committing such silly mistakes. Hence, do not trust such kind of grammatical error filled emails.
12. Cross verify URL’s:
Fake URL’s are very common mistake found in scam recruiting websites. Cross verify the URL whether it is true or fake. Most of scam recruiting websites use fake URL’s to show themselves as big corporate.
How to Spot a Recruitment Scam?
As the number of students passing out every year is getting higher, the requirement of jobs and the competition to get one also rises. In such a crucial stage of one’s life, it will be unfortunate if they fall in the hands of recruitment scammers.
These people will be having several ways to trap the younger job seekers who mostly will follow, as they say, to get a job. The main motive of them would be to get all the confidential information and money from you. Due to the lack of employment and ups and downs of the job market, candidates looking for a job are always high. This gives the scammers a chance to trap the candidates and make them a victim of a hiring scam.
As per the survey done by ThisIsMoney.co.uk ,
“As many as 15% of adults in the UK have been contacted with the suspect offers, research from Financial Fraud Action UK found. Of those approached, six per cent have accepted the offers, rising to 13% of the unemployed, 19 per cent of students and 20 per cent of new entrants to the UK.”
What are common scams?
Mentioned here are a few types of common recruitment scams, one should be aware of.
- Advance-fee fraud
- Reshipping fraud
- Premium-rate phone scams
- Pyramid schemes
- Money laundering
- Work from home
Biggest Lies Recruiters Tell You:
1. You are lucky enough to get through with this meager amount:
Fake recruiters might have asked for some huge amount to clear your interview process. But still they might portray that you are very lucky to get with such least amount. Be aware, all they need is your money. Try to get out of that mail to avoid further devastation.
2. Your resume is over qualified for us:
No recruiters will openly feel or accept your over qualification by just looking at your resume. So never get excited by hearing these kind of cheesy lines. They will surely be some fake websites to make money from you either as an advance or by means by identity theft.
3. You will be ready to fly in few months:
Getting into a foreign land can never be a process which only matters just around 30 days. There are many rounds to clear right from your passport approval to visa guidance.
So, do not bet flattered by such kind of fancy lines from the fake calls from scam websites. Be careful, and avoid them the very beginning to not get motivated.
4. You just have to fill only a form to accept the job offer:
This is also one fake line used by the recruiters to cheat people. Remember, no recruiter would want a candidate without knowing his capability or skill set. So do not get attracted by these kind of rubbish assurance to get a job. This will surely end up to a fake website.
Nothing in this world will come as easy as people think. This very well can be applied for getting a job as well. Never fall for fake recruiters to get into a job very easily. Scammers will always try to make money in all ways possible from people who are ready to lose to get things easily in life.
Never try to learn these kind of lessons from fake recruiting scams. Before getting into any kind of job offers, cross verify all the points given above and then proceed. On that note, Good Luck.