Scam Jobs

As if the job world isn’t hard enough to navigate, many job seekers now have to worry about falling victim to scams. These people target us with flashy ads and outrageous offers that are usually too good to be true. But whether they’re looking to steal your information, your money, or even you, they can be outright dangerous. Some job search engines try to stop these kinds of postings, but many of them fall short. Here are just a few of my experiences with scammers.

One of the scarier ones that I experienced targeted me as a teenager. In high school, many of us would get texts and Facebook messages from people posing as modeling agency recruiters. The woman showered me with compliments and told me I had a career in modeling! She asked me to meet her at an address in town to take some head shots and get me started. But when I looked up the address that she sent, I saw it was in an odd, mostly empty lot of shopping centers on the edge of town. Unfortunately this is the reality, so I feared the worst. If I go meet this stranger at a random address, will I be ambushed? When I pressed for more information, careful to not give away anything personal, she inevitably started dodging questions until she stopped replying completely. When I looked closer at her profile, I noticed that it, too, looked odd. Very new profile, unnaturally staged and airbrushed pictures, and no comments from friends or family on any of her posts. We’ve all seen those kinds of phishing profiles. Now, this is not to say that all teenage modeling agencies are scams, but people have to be smart and conscious of red flags when they receive job offers.

Red flags are things that don’t seem right. Things like bad grammar and misspelled words in a job posting, dodging questions, and promises that sound too good to be true, are all common signs that something is wrong.

Just a few weeks ago, I was contacted by an elaborate scam job that almost fooled me. I had been applying to jobs left and right, so I sometimes forgot the job descriptions by the time the companies responded. I received an email from an insurance company about a data entry job that I’d supposedly applied to. Here’s the email I was sent, verbatim except for the blocked out names:

Dear Ciara,

How are you today ? Thank you for applying with ########. This is to inform you that we received your resume/cover letter regarding your job applied with us as Data Entry Clerk but unfortunately the position has been taken but will be open again by 27th June. I have a personal assistant position with our CEO/President Bill ###### whom is currently on a business trip in Toronto, Canada which you can attain now and transition to the Data Entry Clerk by 27th June after your interview with me as you are the only qualified and credible applicant for the job and surely I can guarantee you the position when it open with a proper recognition.

Letter from CEO/President

Bill ######

I am looking for someone who can handle my personal and business errands at his/her spare time. Someone who can offer the services listed such as receiving calls and reporting back to me what information you got from clients, replying emails and printing invitation for exhibitions, shopping for gifts and materials,bills payments and monthly donation to foster homes as well as receiving payments from clients when am not around. You will work on the average of about 5 - 10hrs per week and I will start by paying you $500 per week which will rise to $600 depending on how effective you are, the job will start from the moment you start running errands. This job is temporary and could possibly be a permanent one for you based on how you deliver your duties, we will talk more when am back and you can take part more in my successfully growing business. All expenses and taxes will be paid by me including your weekly salaries and bonuses .Once again, I will provide clear set of instructions for each task I needed done as well as the funds to cover them mailed to you by my financial adviser with a certified payment check.

Note: This position is home-based and flexible part time job, you can be in any location, work from your home doing all the activities and doesn't affect your present job if you're employed at the moment.

DO CONFIRM ACCEPTANCE OF THIS POSITION BY PROVIDING THE BELOW DETAILS. SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO DECLINE THE OFFER, KINDLY SEND AN EMAIL STATING THAT, SO THE APPLICATION CAN BE KEPT OPEN FOR ANOTHER PERSON.

Full Names(First and Last):

Current Mailing Address(Physical Address) :

Apartment # :

City, State, Zip Code :

Cell Phone Number:

KINDLY SEND AN EMAIL WITH THE DETAILS TO MR BILL ###### PERSONAL EMAIL : bill@######.com

Thanks and do the needful.

Crystal #######

Human Resources Director

This email had several red flags to me. Not only did they want to offer me this position without so much as an interview, but now they wanted me to be a personal assistant to their CEO? On top of that, the horrible grammar, the extremely high pay rate, and the demand for all of my personal information right away made me think twice.

I looked into the website, seeing if I could validate these names, this position, and this company in general. I found a very professional website for the company, complete with pictures and names of those people. However, I couldn’t find any contact information for this HR director, and I also couldn’t find any job postings for this company at all. I forwarded this message to the one email address I could find for this company, asking if this is a legitimate message. Low and behold, I never heard back from either of them ever again.

A few weeks later, I received a message from the job posting site I had applied through warning me that that job posting was a scam. They took down the posting, and let all of us know that that company had posted fake applications to scam applicants into giving away personal information. It’s great that sites like this try to screen for these scams, but they can’t catch everything.

These days, people have to be very careful when applying to jobs. There are countless articles out there on identifying these scams, and it is unfortunately more common than ever. The best thing we can do is spread the word about them, post the emails just like I did and check in with the companies when you are unsure. Help other job seekers to spot them, and always be cautious when meeting people or giving out your information. It might not be a candidate that they’re after.

Interview Questions

I want to start a segment on some of the interview questions that people have heard during their job searches. I’ll lay out some of the most common interview questions I’ve heard. Then, I’ll answer them honestly like you’ve always wanted to. No advice or scripted answers, just the same answers that you usually give in your head, out loud. If you can relate to any of these, feel free to comment and share some of your stories!

Can you tell me a little about yourself?

“I know I’ve already read your cover letter, resume, and application,

 but please tell me everything about yourself for the third or fourth time so

 I don’t have to think about what questions to ask.”

How did you hear about the position?

“Our HR department wants us to keep statistics, so I’m required to 

task this question. Yes, even though I can see what website you applied through...

 and even though you answered this on the application already.”

Why do you want this job?

Because I need money to pay my bills.

What are your greatest professional strengths?

Correct answer: I enjoy taking on the workload of 2-3 people,

 forgoing benefits, and staff pizza parties!

Tell me about a challenge or conflict you've faced at work, and how you dealt with it.

“Are you crazy?”

What's a time you disagreed with a decision that was made at work?

“Are you going to follow to the directions I give you? Or are you going

 to incite a riot every time I change something?”

How would your boss and co-workers describe you?

“Seriously, are you crazy?”

If you were an animal, which one would you want to be?

If you looked up meaningless, “edgy” interview questions in a Buzzfeed

 article, which one would be the least likely to warrant a relevant response?

Where do you see yourself in five years?

“Will you pledge yourself entirely to this company, even if we 

won’t commit to giving you time off or benefits until 6 months in?”

Do you have any questions for us?

This is your opportunity. Flip some of these silly questions around on them. 

Assert dominance.

That’s all for now. I’d like to showcase more questions like this in the future, so please send me the craziest questions you’ve been asked in an interview!

Interviews require questions to be asked and answered, but it’s a little silly that every employer uses the same handful of questions. Even better are the articles that dictate exactly what answers you’re supposed to give. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose if there are “correct” answers? Is this an opportunity for you to get to know me as an employee and person, or is it a test with rehearsed answers? I’m sure interviewers mean well, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t groan inside every time I hear them.

What would your honest responses be?

Est. Completion: 2 Hours

I read an article that said most people will abandon a job application if it takes more than 20 minutes to complete. “That isn’t so bad,” I thought, remembering some of the applications I’ve submitted that took 2 or 3 times longer than that.

Technology has made the filling out of applications easier in some ways. Our browsers can auto-populate details like our address and phone number, we can ask the system to populate our work history for us using our resume (a system that almost never works), and a lot of job searching websites will even fill them out and send your information with the click of a button! So why are people still finding applications that take nearly an hour to complete?

Maybe it’s the systems that they use to collect applications? For most companies, you have to make an account before you can complete an application. This means you must create a username, password, enter in your information (no this will not automatically populate to your application), and verify your email before you can even start the application. Hopefully you will remember all of that log-in information for each job you apply to.

Maybe it’s the questions that many of these applications ask? Many of them have begun to ask typical interview questions, like “Why do you think you’re a good candidate for this job?” or “Can you describe a time when you disagreed with a co-worker?” You are expected to type up at least a few paragraphs of an answer for these questions, more than an interview would require. I used to keep my answers saved in a word document on my computer to speed up the process, just like my references and my work history. I can’t imagine what they’d ask in an interview at that point, they have all of my answers right there already.

From my experience, the worst culprits are competency tests, personality tests, writing assessments, judgment tests, math tests and the like. All before you’re asked to interview. These tests are now required for many applications on popular job searching sites. Now I understand the thought behind these, they allow employers to assess an applicant’s skills easily and efficiently. They are intended to prove that the candidate can perform the duties of the position while usually allowing them to test in the comfort of their homes anxiety-free. When you think about it that way, it’s not a bad idea.

But, as with most hiring techniques, they don’t usually work that way. For example, an applicant can spend an hour going through all of these tests to prove themselves, but meanwhile they wouldn’t be considered based solely on their resume. Maybe only 2 years of experience rather than 5, or a Bachelor’s degree but no Master’s, either way they would not have been selected for an interview anyhow.

On the other hand, having all of that data probably doesn’t make the hiring process any easier. Now hiring managers not only have resumes, cover letters, applications, and references to go through, but they also have several test results to score, too. I have never hired somebody, I will confess, but I don’t see how these tests do anything other than add unnecessary work and slow down the process.

In completing these tests, we’re also assuming that they are relevant for the skills we would be performing, right? Not always so. My personal pet peeve is when these tests go on to ask you questions about procedures within the company. Let me give you an example. I once filled out an application for a drug store / convenience store that took TWO HOURS to complete. There were extensive personality tests and judgment assessments, all for an entry level job at the cash register. Given, having good judgment and knowing how to handle customers are absolutely vital skills for any front-of-house job. But those traits could have been evaluated in a 30 minute interview, not a 2 hour online test.

Anyways, I’m going through this test, and all of the sudden the questions start to depart from simple “what would you do” scenarios. Now they’re straight up asking questions that would completely depend on the management and procedures they had in place, which I don’t know BECAUSE I’M NOT EVEN INTERVIEWING FOR THIS JOB YET. Here’s a paraphrased example of the questions it would ask:

You’re approached by a customer while you’re updating prices for items in the store. There are no other employees around, but the customer would like help at the register. What should you do?

a. Call a manager to help the customer at the register while you finish pricing.
b. Call a manager to help finish the pricing updates while you help the customer.
c. Help the customer at the register, but close the store until you’re done so that other customers do not become confused by the prices on those items.

I have personally been under management that would advise a, b, or c (yes even that one). How am I supposed to know what the policies are at your store? Maybe the manager prefers not to deal with customers, maybe they would want the shorter task so they could get back to work, maybe they’ve had incidents before with customers taking the pricing marker and discounting their items. I don’t know!

So what does all this mean. For me it usually meant that if I was even the slightest bit unsure that I 100% met the qualifications for a job, I wouldn’t proceed with an application that took any longer than 20 minutes. The truth is, the longer that applications are, the more you wonder whether or not the opportunity is worth the time. Will I spend 2 hours on this application only to never hear back? Will I fail their personality tests and be turned away despite my 10 years of experience? Would my time have been better spent applying to other positions? But most importantly:

If this is the time commitment that they expect for the application, what will it be like to work for them?

For employers, how you treat applicants is a direct reflection of how you treat employees. If you expect them to spend that much time on an application and jump through hoops just to click “submit,” I will assume that you think your work force is expendable. That you have the “too bad, there’s 10 people behind you” kind of mentality and don’t care about providing reasonable accommodations to workers. If you ask all your interview questions before you have a chance to meet us, I will assume that you’re looking for good answers – not necessarily a good employee. So be careful with how many tests and questions you use on your applications, they may weed out the best candidates for the job.

The Job Hunt: For Beginners

Virtually everybody has had that first job, usually as a teenager. You’re so proud, you’re finally contributing to the community and society in a real way. You’re important, you’re free! That is... once you finally find someone willing to hire a 14-year-old with no experience.

I was unusually young when I first tried my hand at the job market. I was around 12-13 when I filled out my first few applications - typical jobs that you’d expect at that age: ice cream shops, grocery stores, tourist shops downtown, etc. It turned out to be a lot harder than I’d expected. Gone was the era of stopping by businesses and asking to hand your resume to the manager like I’d been taught. Even the “mom & pop” shops referred me to their corporate website and refused to talk to me. But, I kept trying. I didn’t have the connections to start up a lawn-mowing business or a lemonade stand, just family members as references and a determined attitude.

After the first few summers went by without any luck, I started getting discouraged. All of the kids my age in movies and television shows have these cool summer jobs! Making friends, earning money on the side, embarking on classic summer job shenanigans, why couldn’t I find anything? Well, child labor laws are largely to blame for that. Don’t get me wrong, child labor laws are necessary. But the unfortunate downside is that very few people would bother to hire someone under 18, let alone 14. Most laws put strict and often backwards limits on the hours we could work and the tasks we could do. For example, I could work until 11pm on a school night, but I wasn’t allowed to take out the trash. I was in charge of the welfare of children, but I couldn’t work more than 4 hours straight. So why would someone hire a person with all of these restrictions, even if they are allowed to pay them substantially less than minimum wage? Don’t even get me started there. Most places would happen upon my age and reject me right then and there, sometimes in the middle of an interview.

The places that did interview me? Most of them were nuts. You don’t have any experience to go off of when you’re hiring young people, so most of them put candidates through odd personality exercises to see if they “fit the brand.” This ice cream shop I interviewed at asked me to sing Row Row Row Your Boat as loudly as I could in a shop full of people. I guess I wasn’t eccentric enough to serve ice cream, so I didn’t get that job.

Finally, at 16 I landed a job at a resort water park as a lifeguard, which still took 2 rounds of interviews. And let me tell you, I was not qualified to administer first aid, serve as a first-responder, or watch over small children's lives at 16. I was terrified most of the time. Also, 16-year-old girls in Baywatch style red one-pieces and creepy, middle-aged dads did not mix well. I would have preferred to work at a mall store or a smoothie stand, something with less responsibility and baggier clothes. But alas, that’s the only job I could get at that young age, and I was grateful.

Your first job is always rough, and at some level it’s supposed to be! It builds grit and maturity, and it’s a great starting point for jobs later on. But between stringent corporate policies and nutty managers, it’s a lot harder than it looks in the movies. These days even small, kid-friendly businesses like dog walking are dominated by apps that require you to be 18+, so what are they to do? Stick to your allowance, and ignore the casual “when I was your age I worked in a steel mill” stories from your relatives. That was a different time, and they’re to blame for the crazy child labor laws anyways, so the fault is on them. ;)

My Job Description

For my first blog post, I might as well lay out the mission and the circumstances in which I’m starting this.

This blog is not a platform for me to whine, complain, and yell about the job hunting experience today. Rather, I hope to accomplish a few things:

1. I want to provide a forum for people who are going through the same experiences - to express their concerns. I cannot be alone in this, and I don’t want others to feel that way. We aren’t losers who struggle for months to find even entry level jobs, we are overcoming some major hurdles.
2. This will also work as a great way to show your friends and family the experiences that millions of us go through in the job hunt today. Things have changed dramatically, and maybe reading my posts will encourage them to cut you some slack. We are trying, we really really are.
3. Finally, just like pay or working conditions, the more we share our experiences the more likely change is to happen. Who knows, maybe employers will look at how their processes affect workers and make positive changes. Honest conversation about what exactly job hunting today entails can also educate younger job hunters about the journey that lies ahead – but hopefully it doesn’t stay this way for long.

Additionally, here are some ethics of mine in writing these posts:

• I will not use any company or employee’s names. I may describe the work that they do if the context demands it, but only as much as is necessary to tell the story. My intentions (seen above) do not include bashing these employers, they have their own struggles when it comes to to today’s hiring processes.
• I will not embellish or lie about these experiences. That’s silly and it doesn’t further this cause.
• I will not tolerate shameful commenting on these posts. I encourage people to share their experiences, but I will not have people shaming or down-playing others’ stories. If you think that they are silly or that we brought it on ourselves, fine. But I bet even you can relate to a lot of this, so just don’t bother. Again, it doesn’t further this cause.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s why I’m starting this. I have recently been bamboozled out of a job that the employer promised was mine. My husband and I started looking for jobs in larger cities than the ones we were from - searching for bigger and better opportunities. We loved our town, but we saw the cap that it would put on our careers if we stayed. After a few months of looking and saving up, I got a job through a staffing agency at a government office in Philadelphia, PA, so we quit our jobs and moved to the city of brotherly love. 

Once we moved in and got settled, I got a call from the staffing agency saying that my background check had been rejected. There was a very small and insignificant blight on it, which I had discussed with the hiring managers at length before I accepted the job. They assured me repeatedly that it was fine, that I had already passed the clearances that I would need to pass, and that it wouldn’t be a problem. Low and behold, when it did turn out to be a problem a month later, the company told me that because they only hire for government agencies, there was nothing they could do to help me. Every other job they were filling would reject me for the same reason. “Oh well, sorry.”

So, having moved several states over for this job, I was thrust back into the job market. At least I had a degree and a solid work history, right? Wrong. Things are looking up, but it has been a struggle for us to get on our feet after that happened. So I continue with the job hunt, hoping that someday this move will have been worth something. My husband is having a worse time than me, he will be the subject in a lot of these stories, too.

With all of this experience being slammed by companies and ghosted from applications that I’d spent hours on, I figured I might as well put it to good use. I found a lot of blogs with advice for job seekers, but none of them were really truthful about the horrid experiences of those searching. No advice here, except to KEEP GOING. That’s all I’ve got, because at the end of the day, very little of the process is in your control. Most of it is pure luck, so don’t get discouraged about your resume or cover letter. Keep going, and check in with us from time to time to vent and air out your concerns about the hurdles and challenges you’re facing. You are not alone.