Job ads abound on the internet, newspaper classifieds and social media sites. Many posts on social media such as Facebook aren’t moderated except pages run by dedicated moderators or admins. Con artists and scammers can play on someone's urgency of finding a job. They take advantage of the Pandemic-caused lockdowns and the work from home. These tips can help avoid job scams and zero in legit job advertisements.

Don’t limit your search to online sources

While the internet is the goldmine of job ads, other sources such as networking can prove useful. Your network might include coworkers, friends, parents and siblings. A word of mouth can get you closer to your job and even a career.  One of the easy ways to land a job is through a referral from your friend or relative who happens to work in a company. 

Research the company

Researching the company involves finding information that can tell about its legitimacy. A former employee review can reveal what it's like to work in that company. The following should be on your list:

• URL address (if there’s any) 
• Social media account
• Reviews
• Social media reviews
• Address
• Phone number
• Product and services
• Years they have been in business

Know the signs of job scams

Job scams exude signs revealing their malicious intent. If you can deploy your healthy scepticism radar, you can know the following red flags:

• Inflated vacancies - let’s say, the real number of factory workers are 50, a scam artist can make them 100. This is common on Facebook where some job pages advertise vacancies for mushroom worker vacancies for Canada. They just multiply the real number of vacancies - voila.

• High salary but less experience and skills needed - Common sense suggests that the higher the salary the more skills and experience are needed. You won’t get paid thousands of pesos or dollars just by encoding and pasting texts. High paying jobs demand a high level of creativity and/or expertise. The only way you can get into the quick-rich route is to win a lottery.

• Dubious communication methods - Con artists use unusual ways to dupe applicants. They may use video conferencing tools or just make a phone call  to inform application success even without seeing the applicant.

• Asking applicants to pay first - If the recruiter asks you for a bank deposit or digital money transfer, immediately cut communication and report them to anti-cybercrime authorities and organizations.

• Guarantee employment - Legit jobs don't simply guarantee employment. You have to pass their interviews and assessment before getting the job offer. 

• Uses unofficial emails - Most or all corporate emails use premium emails that bear the name or company name. For example, abcorpofficiall@abcorp.com versus free emails from free domain address - @gmail.com, @yahoo.com and @outlook.com.

• You received job offers you’ve not applied for - Like winning a lotto, if you receive an offer that you haven’t applied for, then it must be a scam. 

• Asking for personal information - Fake jobs will ask for your info such as name, address, social security number, and bank account details. 

Be wary of keywords hinting of scams

These keywords used as phrases or in sentences and paragraphs show a red flag of illegitimacy. 

• Easy job
• Easy money
• Easy work at home
• Envelope stuffing
• Free work from home jobs
• Immediate hiring easy jobs
• Investment opportunities and seminars
• Multi-level marketing
• Part-time jobs with full-time pay
• Quick cash
• Quick money
• Quick money
• Unlimited earning potential

Be wary of grammatical and spelling errors 

Job scams tend to disregard professional writing styles and grammar. Some of them don’t bother to check. Watch out for subject and verb agreement, tenses and spelling errors in job descriptions.

Be sceptic of too good to be true

A ‘too good to be true’ refers to things that are impossible or unsustainable. In the job world, these are jobs that don’t need experience and special skills. It’s all about easy to do, less education and less technical skills needed. In reality, a high paying job requires experience and hard to earn skills.