If you are being asked to pay up front for any form of job application by a recruitment agent, you should immediately have alarm bells ringing! Recruitment Agents work on a commission basis getting paid upon completion of a successful assignment, and do not and should not be asking for any money up front for applications. There’s a number of scams currently hitting the recruitment market, and taking advantage of job seekers is despicable in every way imaginable.
Scam Jobs
What are scam jobs? There are sadly some dishonest people out there who will try to trick you. They may promise to help you find a job but they will normally make a promise to help you only if you pay them. After the scammers take your money, you get nothing. This is a job search scam. Highly prevalent in India, China and South America, this practice is making its way to Europe and America in more sophisticated measures.
This is why at Careersaas we make sure you only go direct with businesses recruiting. That’s not to say legitimate recruitment agents do not have a place, but with the advances of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, automation of the application is becoming incredibly more efficient both for candidates and companies.
How do I know if a job is a scam?
Knowing whether a job offer is true or not is relatively straightforward as long as common sense is applied. But it happens that victims are usually so eager to be hired and start working again that they do not stop to analyse. Do your research on the person offering the role – checking the companies website, LinkedIn, Google reviews or any other means of verifying a business as you would with say a purchase of goods or services.
Most bogus job offers have things in common. In an employment scam:
- They promise you a job.
- They guarantee that you will earn money.
- They may offer you a government job that no one knows about.
Some easy questions you should be able to ask anyone offering you a role
Where did you get my details from?
Why is the position available?
Who does this role report into?
If in doubt, check the company’s own website to look for the vacancy
Guidelines for recognizing Scam jobs
- Pay attention to the sender.
You should look at the work email of the person sending it if this is the chosen way to contact you. It is relatively easy to identify a corporate email, that is, belonging to a company. If this is the case, check on the Internet that this company is real. If so, you shouldn’t worry. But if it is a personal email or with a strange domain, it should put you on alert, although it does not necessarily have to be a false job offer.
- Identify the recruiter’s contact details in Careersaas
Before you interact with a recruiter, you can use Careersaas to verify the contact details in advance of a reply. With 120,000 recruiters stored within our database, stay connected via our recruiter search.
- Do they ask you for money or to give them your bank details?
Never, ever, under any circumstances, and regardless of the type of job, you should be asked for money in advance or any type of bank information. Sometimes the scammers hide behind a series of procedures that must be carried out to formalise your contract. Be suspicious of this type of argument and, if appropriate, begin the procedure to file a complaint formally with the company.
- What contact information have they provided you with?
In addition to the email, you have to look at the other contact information they can give you. For example, you can search the name of the person or company on LinkedIn, and be careful in case the phone number is a mobile and not a landline. Normally, for the selection processes of companies, personal mobiles are not used.
- The interview is a fundamental and essential part of the process
It will most likely be a bogus job offer if they tell you of the decision to hire you without having had a previous interview, even if by video conference. It is an insurmountable step in any hiring process. Careersaas provides tools for tracking of any job application that you make, so that you can stay on top of your job seeking process.
- Check the conditions properly
When things seem too good to be true, they often are. No one gets money for doing nothing. Do they pay a lot of money for part-time work? Do they promise high incomes for working remotely? If that is the case, check very carefully that the job offer is indeed true and do your research.
- Have you been sent a link or file by email?
If in the first communication with a supposed company, they attach an unknown file to you or ask you to click on a link that they provide you with to know more details of the job offer, this could also suspicious. It is not the usual procedure to have to go through a series of disguised links.
- If you’re requested to make a call
If the advertising company has finished the selection process and they tell you that you should get in touch by means of a special rate telephone number then don’t make the call and request that they call you instead. If they refuse to call you back and the only way to get the job is to call the number then without a doubt, it will be a fraudulent offer.
- Bad wording or an incomplete offer
If an offer is not well written, the description of the offer is vague or has many misspellings; it is most likely fraudulent. An employer will always write a detailed description and make a very clear offer. An offer or initial contact with spelling mistakes in it, means that most probably it has been written by someone that isn’t from your country or someone that is in a rush.
How can I avoid a scam when looking for a job?
- Never make any financial deals with someone who promises you a job.
- No one can promise you a job.
- Don’t pay upfront to get job information., even if they guarantee that they will return the money.
- Don’t make deals with someone who tells you you have to act fast.
- Ignore promises to earn thousands whilst working in your own home, without having to do very much work.
- Research the company using the Careersaas Company Database.