Have you ever received an email from a company you've never heard of? Are the offering you a job that sounds to good to be true? How can you tell which one is a dream come true, and which ones are scams?
Being lured in by internet scammers is something that happens to good people every day. When you are looking for a job, you often have to post your email address in places where it can be easy for scammers to find it or you reply to a fake job advertisement and end up getting email from scammers. It happens to the best of us, no matter how tech savvy we are. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do about it, other than to educate yourself and learn how to spot these bogus job offers so that you don't waste your time, or worse, end up out a nice chunk of money.
Typically, your first contact from a job scammer will be in the form of an email from a company who either doesn't give you their name, or they are a company you have never heard of before. Many times, they will tell you that they saw your resume online and are interested in you as a candidate for a job they have available. Your first red flag will be that the email doesn't sound like it was written by a professional company looking to hire employees. It is hard to say exactly what will be “off” about it, but almost everyone who has ever been taken by a scammer says that the initial email sounded odd, but they gave them the benefit of the doubt.
The problems is more complicated when you want the job they are offering really badly. Even though the email sounds a little strange, you may not want to rule it out completely, because what if it is a legitimate job offer? Stranger things have happened. No one wants to miss out on an opportunity just because the email “sounded odd”. So, how can you spot a bogus job offer?
Here are some things to look for:
- Who is emailing you? - Always look at the senders email address. If you use an email client like Gmail, click the option to “show details”. This will show you the entire header of the email, and you can easily see how it was sent and determine if it was sent to your exact address and if it was sent as part of a group email list. You want to see that the person emailing you is using a company email address. Although some recruiters and small businesses may use a web based email client (rarely), they should provide you with their contact information in the signature of the email. What you really want to look out for here is when the sender is using an email address that appears to be deliberately trying to impersonate a company. For example, “JohnSmith@Gmail” or “JohnSmith@Mycompany” may be legitimate email addresses. However, watch out for “Mycompany@gmail”.
- Poor spelling and grammar – Ok, it is possible that a representative from a company, who is in charge of recruiting new talent, forgot to run an email through spell check and has poor grammar. Honestly, we all make mistakes from time to time. But, when it seems as though it was written by an eight year old, this should cause you concern. Either the sender doesn't have a firm understanding of English or the company hires people who aren't skilled communicators. Either way, it doesn't sound like an offer you'd want to accept.
- Check out the company and their website – Do some research on the company. If you can't find anything, then it probably doesn't exist. While it is true that there are still some small companies that don't have websites, they are still listed in various directories of businesses in the area. For example, not every small restaurant has a website, but they are still mentioned on websites that review local eateries. If the company does have a website, look through their pages to see how established they look. If you still aren't sure, look the site up in WHOIS, to see where it is registered. This will give you a good idea about how legitimate the company is.
- Go with your gut – If you think the job offer is a scam, then trust your instincts. A company that isn't able to present themselves as a legitimate company isn't one you would want to work for, even if the job offer wasn't a scam.
Just keep this in mind -
If they want you to send them money, especially by Western Union – It's a scam
If they want to pay you a lot of money to do a job from home that requires no skills or experience – It's a scam
If they are offering you a job without interviewing you – It's a scam
When you are looking for a job, try to stick with job boards that are well established and be careful of any emails you receive for jobs you didn't apply for.
By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for CSJobsBlog. Along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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