I’ve written about job scams and phishing schemes before but thought it needed revisiting…
I have a day job, but I’m always on the lookout for bigger and better things. I’ve continued to be amazed and appalled at the number of job scams I see on what you would think are legitimate sites: LinkedIn, Indeed, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor and of course Craigslist. They are simply flooded with them–at least 50% I would say.
Scammers want to obtain your information and may end up using it for fraudulent purposes or sell it to unscrupulous marketing companies. It happens so much that there’s a term for it: phishing.
But, what’s really frustrating is that I’ve contacted LinkedIn in the past with information about jobs on their site that were most definitely scams. Nothing at all was ever done about them. I never even got any word back from LinkedIn at all. The companies were allowed to keep their job postings up. So, while the whole world is busy busting Facebook for everything under the sun, many of these other sites are getting away with far worse.
I have to say that my own experience with Facebook has been pretty good actually. I had a stalker for years that was bothering me. He would create all these fake profiles. It was insane. Facebook was on top of it though and everytime I reported him the profiles were deleted in quick time.
To be fair, some job sites like Glassdoor will post your review, good or bad, for any company and for the world to see. The job posts themselves don’t seem to ever be taken down though. After all, they are paying customers. Money talks. That’s just a fact jack.
Anyway, since there seems to be little policing on the part of many sites, great care needs to be taken when we give out our information. Do not, I say do not ever apply to jobs where the poster has chosen to remain anonymous. Just don’t do it. That’s an old school practice that should have never been acceptable in the first place. Check out a company well before applying.
For more information on spotting job scams I found this helpful post on TINYpulse.com.
The scammers are getting smarter and many even create fake websites that may look legitimate. Here are some tools to check out the legitmacy of a website.
Google has a free website checker
Norton has one as well: https://safeweb.norton.com
You can also check out this post from CNet on How to check if a website is safe
Good luck in your job search!
Ain’t that a truth. When you constantly apply for a job, whether it’s for something better or just simply need one, some bullshit is always going down, like not hearing back, or a company giving little or no information about a position or themselves.
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Unfortunately yes. 😕Thanks for visiting.
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Daunting description, JoAnn, of the perils that lurk around the bend.
Securing my current job, in comparison, was “old school,” positively ancient. The position was advertised in the local paper (remember those?), I called the number, and arranged for an on-site interview, etc., etc.
Knowing now what will attend the net job search, though – gulp! Great, just when I was thinking of moving from beneath my rock…
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I love technology but I also kinda miss the old ways of doing some things and job searching is definitely one of them. Most everything is online now and it tends to be far less personal.
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Interesting post, JoAnn, Most of the scams and blatant self-promotion that I receive comes for LinkedIn. They really need to do a better job of monitoring their site.
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Yes they do. 😕
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I would have thought that a poster cannot stay anonymous on job sites … they don’t seem to check up on their “paying” customers …
Thank you for sharing this important information!
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They should definitely make it a requirement that they correctly identify themselves, for sure. Thanks for visiting. 🙂
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I had no idea!
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I just posted about my own experience with a scammer a couple of weeks ago. It’s scary how easy it is for someone to scam people. It really doesn’t matter how smart or careful you are. It’s great that you are sharing. The more people are made aware of how scammers are operating, hopefully the less opportunity scammers will have to take advantage of people!
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It is scary. The scammers keep getting better at their game and it can be extremely difficult to spot them sometimes. Plus relatively few of them are caught and punished so there isn’t too much to stop them.
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