School's Out For the Summer

The summer job market is heating up for high schoolers, college graduates, and, of course, scammers. Scammers are using a multitude of practices to pose as recruiting companies, friends of professors, or human resources folks offering work-from-home jobs. What are scammers looking for? It ranges from identity theft and capturing bank information to taking your money and running. Scammers know that in a competitive market, job seekers may be so eager to land a job that they may not be look for, much less recognize, potential scams. 

These scams are so prolific that the FTC posted a warning about job scams targeting students. A password management service company conducted a survey of people who had searched for a job within the past two years. 

Here are their key findings:

• 38% of those surveyed report encountering scam job postings.
• 32% were tricked into applying for and/or interviewed for a fake job.
• 15% had personal information stolen.
• 9% had money stolen by scammers.

Fake recruiter company scams

This scam has escalated over the years. Scammers pose as recruiters for tech companies. The ‘recruiters’ gather easily obtained information such the name of a college or they may reference faculty names to make the connection with the job applicant seem more believable.

Job Boards - Indeed and LinkedIn have increased their fraud detection efforts as scammers are advertising on these sites. 

Large Recruiting Firms - Scammers have been posing as recruiters from these companies. If you receive an unsolicited call from a recruiting agency, reach out to the company directly to ensure you are speaking to someone other than a fraudster.

The excitement of getting an interview may override a person's ability to step back and notice the signs of a scam. In one young man’s case, after applying to over 300 jobs, he finally received an email offer for an interview for a remote job from careers@veollawatertech.com. There is a real company Veolia Water Technologies and Solutions, however, the company's real website address is, www.veoliawatertechnologies.com. Notice the subtle difference? 

The candidate noticed that the email address was a recently purchased domain, but decided to ignore that red flag. No interview occurred, just a direction to complete a questionnaire. And, just like that, he got the job. The rest of the story is found in this Wall Street Journal article.

The millennial and GenX cohorts are online savvy, but they are light on how actual job interviews and interview processes are conducted. It is that vulnerability that scammers use to take advantage of job seekers.

Here are some warning signs for job seekers. Stay away from an ‘employer’ who:

• Requires you to pay money or to give them secure personal information.
• Has their company emails link to a generic e-mail address like Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo and not a corporate or an academic e-mail.
• Requires no interview or previous experience.
• Provides a job offer out of the blue.
• Doesn't list a recognizable department, university, or company.
• Sends you a check to purchase office equipment. If you do, the bank will inform you that the original check has bounced, but only after you pay for the goods.
• Sounds too good to be true.

Don’t respond to unsolicited email job offers. Just like the lottery, if you haven't entered, you can't possibly be a winner. Be wary of texts or emails that ask you to download an app in order to be interviewed. The app could be malware. And finally, steer clear of jobs that have limited details of what the job requires.