By Ousman Seckan
While the social media has ease the way we search and find jobs, it has also brought several challenges for job seekers. One of these is a fake job advert. Sometimes jobs advertised on-line and even in newspapers have been found to be fake. The fraudsters capitalize on desperate situations of job seekers, especially young graduates and defraud them of their meager resources. As the number of university and college graduates soars in the Gambia, so be the demand for jobs. In this article, I have explained five ways to detect fake job adverts.
- Poorly written advert
Writing unambiguous and concise job descriptions is quite significant in communicating to a pool of would – be employees. However, one way of spotting a fake job vacancy is that it contains series of spelling and grammatical errors. As a job seeker, it must linger in your mind that serious recruiters take time to write job descriptions carefully – citing every responsibility the job holder will assume. Given the stiff competition among credible companies and organizations, they cannot afford to write job adverts full of grammatical blunders. In that regard, if you see job adverts that contain such errors be suspicious, and do your background check before sending your application.
2. The salary is too attractive
As a job seeker, note that fraudsters have recently come up with new tricks to defraud innocent people of their resources. They will sometimes be quick to offer you huge salary that is beyond imagination just to lure you into their plot. They will tell you stories and even share footage to make you believe that you can start earning big within days or weeks if you accept their job offer. You must understand that those are false stories and images carefully designed to flimflam you – so to speak. Therefore, do not fall for their compelling write-up and talk.
3. No eligibility criteria
Most of the time fake on-line job adverts do not require any criteria. This should raise many questions to you as a job seeker in as much as you are desperate for a job. A genuine job vacancy will require a candidate to have some skills and education. Each time you see on-line that a particular job does not require any criteria, find more about it before applying. It is important to note that in this day and age most job vacancies will require applicants to have at least some skills, education or experience.
4. Demand payment for registration before employment
A genuine recruiter does not ask for payment from job seekers instead he/she has a mechanism in place to recruit best candidates and have them paid for their services. Each time you see a job advert that asks you to pay for registration or deposit a certain amount or even buy a certain product of the company in order to be granted job, please avoid it. Never apply for such a job!
5. Company Lacks reference material
When you Google the company’s name, they usually do not have reference materials such as website, LinkedIn or direct contact email. Many a time, the sites do not exist. However, where they exist, they are either new or poorly built. The moment you spot the issues mentioned, you should be smart enough not to fall for their tricks. A careful background check should be done whenever you have doubt about the authenticity of job adverts.
About the author
Ousman Seckan is a freelance journalist and blogger. He holds an Advanced Diploma in Journalism and Communication.You can follow him on: httpts://wwwfacebook.com/ousman.seckan.9678 or https://www.linkedin.com/in/ousman-seckan-a0122319a/ or send an email to: ousman.seckan@gmail.com