The Danger Of Fake Jobs & Fake Job Recruiters

Job seekers are interviewing with online recruiters that pressure job candidates into giving sensitive and confidential information. Using fake job postings and targeting specific individuals for fake job interviews have become a tool for spying and identity theft.



Scenario One:

The target is lured by the position, salary, benefits or other enticements and in the interviewing process becomes comfortable and becomes less guarded about the details of the work they are doing at their current company.



Answering seemingly harmless questions about plans, programs, environment practices, people, marketing strategies or even technologies can lead to derivative intelligence. Derivative Intelligence is the gathering of mole intelligence from unknowing victims who voluntarily give pieces of information that can do an individual or a company financial harm. Using this technique, work projects, timelines and events that may be disclosed during a job interview could destroy competitive advantage for a corporation.

According to News Release Wire a un-named recruiter said this tactic has been and still is used in Silicon Valley where the competitive environment is extremely intense among technology companies.




Scenario Two:

By creating phony job ads, identity theft scammers hope to fool job hunters into sending them personal information (called phishing) such as filling out an online application that asks for social security numbers and or state identity numbers. Phony job ads often use familiar-looking or convincing company logos fakes and marketing slogans and provide links to fake web sites that appear to be those of genuine corporation. Many legitimate corporations may ask for this information but make sure you thoroughly research the company prior to providing this information. One red flag include charging a fees for services they never intend to make good on. Typically, after a few days the thieves close down the scam and disappear.



On the other hand, many scammers will go in hunt for personal web pages and resumes on public job sites. Once they find what they believe to be an easy target, the con artist will send an email pretending to be a job recruiter. The email will announce that the receiver is an excellent prospective candidate for the XYZ company and that the receiver should reply with a resume and or personal information right away to schedule an interview.



The scam is continued into a phone interview where they will than try to gain their victim's confidence to get personal information. With information such as a name, birthday, city of birth and city of residence a scam artist can locate the remaining needed information to steal an identity. A lot of this information is not required before an in-person interview or even until you have been offered a job with a company.



Tips For Online Job Hunters

1) Never provide any non-work related personal information such as your social security number, credit card number, date of birth or home address, through e-mail, and now it’s often suggested not to include it on your resume.

• No job needs your credit card number
• It’s illegal for employers to ask how old you are
• They may want a job candidate who lives near the job site so do indeed list the city and state you live in. The home address and social security number isn’t needed until you are officially hired.

2) List your resume on a job site that allows only verified recruiters to scan them and uses a privacy policy. Use the first suggestion as a guideline.



3) Verify a prospective employer, recruiter, and or recruiting agency through another source such as the Better Business Bureau or even your local phone book. Try to contact them by phone and visit them in person if it’s a local company.

4) If a prospective recruiter or employer requests a background check, agree to do so only after you have met with them at their company location during regular work hours.

5) You should never have to pay for "exclusive" job leads or for a job itself. Beware of anyone who asks you for money in exchange for finding work for you. There are social networking groups that specialize in specific industries but members are paying for a membership with a basket of benefits such as job leads.


6) If you are paying for job placement services, use a prepaid credit card such as Green Dot. If you do use your regularly used credit card or bank direct payment program don’t start any financial trading until you have been to the place of business in person and have researched the prospective recruiter or job agency.


7) Does the e-mail address feature the company's name? As in JohDoe @ APlusJobServices.com Is the address or locations inconsistent with the area or zip code?

8) Instead of using links from the ad or email, check out a web address by highlighting, copying and pasting the url with www in front (www . APlusJobServices.com)

9) Create an exclusive web-based e-mail address and account for job hunting only.

10) Trust your instincts

Always remember: If it sounds too good to be true it usually is.