Of course, as I did with my apartment hunt, furniture search, and volunteer opportunity perusing, I turned to trusty craigslist.com for openings.  With the job market as it is, it can be discouraging to have your only responses come from scams – work at home scams, money-laundering scams masquerading as tutoring opportunities, etc.  Craigslist.com has a flagging system where, with one click of your mouse, you can flag a posting with no reason needed (honor system) and it gets removed until the author reposts.  I flagged my first posting today and it was very gratifying.  I emailed craigslist with another potentially fraudulent posting (back in my show-some-mercy days last week).

I’d like to share the couple of things I learned in the hopes it might help those others of you out there in a similar boat to me: out of a job, looking for one, wishing to hear back from creditable companies rather than scam artists.

Here are five trends I’ve found in scam postings:

1) The posting is very vague, generic, and/or brief.  Most likely, it’s not real.  For instance, one posting listed this for a receptionist/personal assistant position:

“The Receptionist/ Personal Asst job duties will include but are not limited to:
answering multiple phone lines,
greeting clients and internal employees,
general office support,
filing, copying, stuffing envelopes,
travel planning,
correspondence.
MS Office skills, especially Outlook, needed”

That was the extent of the posting – one of the shortest postings I’d seen and it had no identifying information as to what the company was called, where it was located, the environment, requirements, etc.  It turned out to a work-from home data entry position that required me to buy software.  The turnaround time on my application to being “hired” pending me giving them my college transcripts and bank name was about 30 minutes.

2) The pay seems too good to be true.  I definitely fell for this one.  Here was this tutoring position that was offering $45 to $55 an hour when others (like Sylvan) were only offering $14!  Now that’s certainly not to say that every well-paid job is a scam, but high-paying jobs paired with number one (brief and vague postings) are likely a recipe for something less-than dream-come-true quality.

3) The return email undermines its credibility.  If the posting does not have a domain name that makes sense to the company – for instance it is an aol.com account to reply to, but in the posting, it reports that it is “one of the world’s largest” or the “nation’s most recognized” whatever; how would that company not have its own email domain name? i.e jobs@worldsgreatesttutoringcompany.com, etc.  That should have your red alert going off.

4) There is no online presence for the company.  You should always google the company name listed, if it is even given.  Often, if it is a scam, you will find that there is a deceptively similarly-worded company.  Or the company name is very vague and could match up with several other companies online.  A reputable, established company will have some sort of online presence that you can find.  For instance, I saw one company listing itself as Prep to Excel and when I looked online, I found a great company called Excel Prep, that I mistakenly thought was the same.  I wrote the cover letter, did my double-checking, then realized that the two names did not correlate properly. I submitted anyway, and sure enough, the response I got was very strange – it struck me as some sort of money-laundering scam.  When I re-examined the posting, I realized that I’d hastily skimmed over it as it was poorly written.  Which brings me to my fifth and final point, which most of you probably already know.

5) The posting is poorly written or does not demonstrate a strong command of English.  Now if they’re upfront about this, perhaps you can forgive them (personal assistant to such-and-such foreign businessman), but even so, I’d be wary if I were you.  Think about it: you’re an employer, you want to attract the best candidate, are you really going to hastily type up a job posting and just throw it up there with no one else to proofread it for you?  Unlikely.  I’ve worked as a supervisor and know that if you’re worth your salt, your company’s leadership pours a great deal of effort and energy into presenting a professional and attractive front to recruit candidates.  And even if they’re legitimate and don’t go that extra mile…do you really want to work for a company that is sloppy and unconcerned with your impression of them?  Scam or not, that strikes me as an unsound business practice.  Employer’s are unyielding in their demand for your cover letter and resume to be professionally-written, error-free documents, and we, as potential employees, should hold them to a similar standard.

In conclusion, we are certainly in tough times and for one of the few times in my life, I’m beginning to wonder if I will ever be gainfully employed again.  That said, let’s not fall for the scam artists who prey on honest job applicants looking for an honest day’s pay.  If you see a sketchy job posting, find the contact information and get some verification that they’re legitimate.  I’ve learned that applying sight-unseen has resulted in me sending out a couple of resume’s containing all of my contact information that I’d much rather have back.

Cautionary note: this posting is based on personal experience and reading craigslist’s information on flagging fraudulent posts.  There are some postings that may fall into all five of the above-listed pitfalls and still be legitimate.  Personally, experience has told me to stay away!

Some related links:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Job-Hunting–10-Red-Flags-that-the-Job-Post-in-Craigs-List-may-be-a-Scam

http://www.arwentaylor.com/craigslist-job-scam-internet-solutions-corporation/

Hope this helps!

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