5 Types of Job Scams and How to Filter Them Out
The number of available job opportunities in the world has never been enough for everyone to get employed and earn a living. For this reason, many people get desperate enough to fall for scams on the internet and other platforms. Before you become one of the victims who fell for these scams, we have five of the most common types of scams you need to watch out for. Given that most of them are disguised as genuine job offers, you will need to have an arsenal of tools by which you can establish the truth value in them. Pay close attention to how we handle them for the ultimate foolproof search for jobs.
5. Emails from Job Boards, Recruiters, or Employers
If you did not apply for a certain job but the email claims you did, that is a clear scam, and you should not do anything more than flagging it to the junk mailbox. If you posted your CV on a website such as LinkedIn or others and they claim they want to hire you, always verify their email address. If they say they are from such and such a firm, their email address should end in the company’s own domain. Do not be fooled by people asking for sensitive information about your bank account or your life yet you just met them through your email. Rather, call the actual company and ask them about such a program or interest in hiring you. If so, ask them if the information needed is the norm or not.
4. Fake Jobs Supposedly from Actual Employers
If you receive an email from Google or Samsung saying they need your details to hire you, do not be too excited to pick up the details and mail them straight away quickly. Such big firms do not do hiring on a single notice and quickly give it away if you do not respond as needed. Again, you only need to find the legitimate company and ask them about the employment opportunity in question. Also, look at the email address sending you the job offer. Apple has a known domain, and so do other large and known firms such as Google or Facebook. The type of job should also tell you you could be a potential victim of job scams.
3. Social Media Job Scams
Most social media platforms have fake accounts claiming they offer jobs to the users. While the admin of the social sites have ways of doing away with the fake accounts, fake accounts, and fake jobs are always available on social media sites. Keep in mind that the official websites have known accounts which through they engage with their customers. You visit the websites profile and find out that it is legit and has been an operation for a while, it is not a scam. Also, only use verified accounts given that the known companies have verified social media counts. Anything other than that will lead you to problems. Also, legit firms will schedule an actual interview before asking you anything about your finances.
2. Fake Recruiter Websites, Fake Employer Websites, Fake Job Boards
Such websites will look very professional but require you to register before you can see the actual job postings. Also, you need to give up vital information about yourself before they can hire you. These types of scams are very difficult to spot since they even have the logos for the firms they claim to represent. If you want to find out the actual truth, just look at their URLs. And, before you can give up anything as little as your email address, go to the parent site and find out if there is anything posted on them about the job openings the other site is flaunting.
1. Fake Jobs on Legitimate Job Boards
When you use job boards such as Boj.ph, Craigslist, CareerBuilder, and Monster, you should exercise care as there are a lot of people who use these job boards to post fake job ads. Just be sure that no job opening should ask for your personal and bank details before hiring you. In fact, legit jobs will interview you first, ascertain that you have passed their interview then ask for your bank details. And that, in most cases, should be done in person and not through an email with a funny domain name.
One of the best ways to verify if a job board, email or social account is legit is simply searching for the actual company. If you are on Facebook and you an account claiming that it is the hiring platform for IBM, simply go to the search box for Facebook and search for IBM. If nothing like the account in question comes up, avoid it like the plague. Better yet, go to the company's website and check the Jobs section for the opportunity advertised on any other platform. This way, you will save yourself the pain of losing your identity or cash.
