I have recently been made aware of the fake Job Interview Scam, mainly because I just fell for it.
It is not a unique scam, but I feel that with the modern era of technology it is being used more frequently.
It runs pretty much like this.
You are a new copany, just starting up, and have bought yourself all these great bits of new software but have absolutely no idea of how any of it works.
The software company sets up the basic of basic forms and then your off an running, only you have no idea how to do it or why. You spend a few hours fiddling around with it and can barely get it to print out your name, let alone anything else.
Now, you plan on doing everything else yourself, and you dont really have the money or work load to justify employing someone else, but you know that the IT people will charge you £50 anhour to correct a mistake but wont consider doing any data inputting, which is your job, so what do you do?
Well, what you do is to contact an employment agency and say that you want to hire someone part time and then explain that the first interview will be a bit longer than just an hour, as you want to do a whole run through with any new applicant.
Then when the interviewee arrives you basically get him to input all the stuff you want, writing notes as you go, and try to ensure that you check that every process is fired up correctly and well documented.
Finally, at the end of the interview you say that you are looking for someone to come in basically one afternoon every other week, knowing full well that noone in their right mind will take a job offering such a ludicrously small amount of hours in the day.
End result, is that you have got a whole days worth of work out of someone, plus some handy 'how-to' notes and all for the price of a phone call and a sandwich lunch from around the corner. Not bad, eh!
So, if you want to avoid being similarly scammed, ensure that you know in advance how many hours per week you can be expecting as well as remember the golden rule that no interview should take more than an hour without some form of guarantee or payment upfront.
1 comment:
After a follow-up chat with the girl from the Recruitment agency I might just get some form of fincial payment for the work done, plus the employer is going to at least get a polite ticking off and is unlikey to be able to swing any more candidates from that agency.
In the same conversation she said that her best scam she had experienced was a guy who called for 5 of their best candidates on immediate notice who then proceeded to help him pack his desk - he had handed in his notice and felt he was too important to do that sort of thing!!!
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