Spotting the Scams

Up until this past year, there has been no down-side to posting one's resume on the two giant job boards -- monster.com and careerbuilder.com. Lately, I've been hearing a lot of complaints from readers who are inundated with bogus and scam emails from unscrupulous companies looking to take advantage of the vulnerability of the jobseeker. So I decided to run my own personal experiment.

I posted a resume confidentially (so that my personal details could not be accessed) to see what kinds of recruiters would contact me. And I have to say I was very surprised and extremely irritated by the response I got. I was inundated by potential "job offers". Many of them were the money scams that we've all been getting via email...only now these are coming under the address of hiringmanager@monster.com or recruiter@careerbuilder.com which gives them a sense of credibility. This is the type of offer (spelling and all):

ACCESABLE VACANCIES
Closing Date: Open until filled
Position: Investment Payout Manager
Salary: Depends on Work Scope/ bonus & benefits
Duty Location: United States (?)
Description of Duties
Dividend Manager:
What you need to do:
1. Receive Client’s dividends on your bank account
2. Go to the Nearest Money Gram Љ branch office
3. Use Money Gram Money Transfer service to deliver
funds to the client
4. Report to the manager about task finished and
provide him with Money Transfer Control Number you
will obtain in Money Gram’s office.
1. Receive correspondence/packages from our clients.
2. Repackage correspondence
3. Ship the package from the nearest USPS office.
If you are creative, independent, focused, accurate, detail-oriented, professional,
flexible, skilled, hard working, polite, purposeful and want to reach success, then
you will be interested in this position. please follow this link http://xxxxolutions.org/?p=reg
and register, our managers will contact you as soon as possible. *
*please note that only short-listed candidates shall be notified.

The next type of "opportunity" are for commission only insurance or finance companies. The tone of the email is always that there is a recruiting session in the next few days to fill a few small opportunities. These positions are commission only and, in my opinion, provide a much greater benefit to the company than to the commission worker.

The other email I've been receiving in droves are ones where you are "assessed" as a tutor or some sort of professional. Once you are qualified, you start receiving offers to purchase products from other companies. Basically there are two styles -- one, in which they ask for your birth date (this is a scam to watch for as your identity can easily be stolen, as well as you "usual" login name and password), and one which is a pure traffic generator for other companies to hawk you their wares.

Will legitimate companies contact you? Yes. Many companies mine the posted resumes, however, if a company is interested in you, you'll typically get a phone call, along with company information. Some of the financial companies will call you, but it is up to you to decide if you are interested in a commission only type of arrangement. If you post on this type of job board, keep your personal information confidential. A legitimate recruiter will contact you through your email with an appropriate inquiry message.

Please let me know if you've experienced any other "unusual" types of job offers. Just remember...if it seems too good to be true, then it likely is.