How to spot a fake job posting?
Is it legit?- How to spot a fake job posting - 5 Things to look for
We have been seeing some more sophisticated scams out there lately so we wanted to give you a few tools to arm yourself while job hunting on other sites. This is our Entertainmentcareers.net legit breakdown of what the scams look like and what to look out for. We also publish the emails that the scammers send so you can see real examples of how they try and scam people. '
Generally, the scam postings are pretty easy to see and throughout the years we have built a very good screening process using both technology and human eyes to make sure we do not post anything that is not legit. That said, unfortunately, not all sites have these practices and we can see that many other sites out there have fallen prey to this recent rash of scam postings.
Our purpose is not to out those with the weaker security but rather to arm you with the tools to make sure you don't apply to a job that is an advance fee scam or someone looking to steal your identity.
Most of the scam postings come from overseas so they copy and paste job details from several places and you can see that it generally doesn't make sense and they will also specify a higher than average rate or salary.
The scam works something like this... You respond, they will tell you about this great job and then you are to book your travel through their travel agent (or otherwise need to front cash for something that will be "reimbursed" later that will require you to wire money (It is 2022, wiring money is a huge red flag) . They will claim to be FedExing you a check (spoiler alert: the check will bounce) to cover the costs.
5 Things to look at to spot a job posting scam
- 1
- High Pay - When you see a job that is 2-4x the normal day rate i.e. a PA job that pays $300-$500 a day, run away (and report it to the site that it is posted on) - We know that this rate is a red flag whereas non-industry sites etc do not.
- 2
- Oddly formal language or just odd language - Most of what we see, we catch as the wording is simply not right (and in many cases British English), if you see something on a job site that simply looks wrong, google the job details and you will likely see the same job posted all over the US with different cities different company names etc.
- 3
- A list - They will frequently use huge names (Netflix or Google are very popular lately) or claim to be agents for those companies.
- 4
- In Me we trust - Trust your instincts, if something doesn't look right, do the research or simply move on to something else (note:still report it to the site to make sure others are not scammed)
- 5
- Rush - They will generally make you feel like time is of the essence and you will need to do everything quickly
Take a look at some real-world job posting scams