Recruiters step up vigilance as job scams get innovative
Job frauds, an age-old practice that has become rampant - and more innovative - in recent years aren't sparing anyone: from freshers and professionals in small towns to those who were left jobless by the pandemic to even tech-savvy senior executives are being lured by high salaries and foreign postings
Source | economictimes.indiatimes.com | Sreeradha Basu, ET Bureau
A few months ago, a harried IT professional from Kerala frantically called up a jobsite’s helpline, saying he’d been duped of ₹10 lakh. A recruiter claiming to be from the platform had contacted him for a job in Singapore. After receiving an offer letter, he was asked to pay various charges including the visa fee and for family relocation. The offer letter, however, turned out to be fake. The company that made the job offer to him didn’t even exist.
Similarly, a woman with two decades of experience in a major IT services company was approached by a recruiter claiming to be from an executive search firm. He said he had several options for her in leadership roles, provided she got her background verification done. She forked out about ₹75,000 for this, realising only too late that it was a scam.
Job frauds, an age-old practice that has become rampant – and more innovative – in recent years aren’t sparing anyone: from freshers and professionals in small towns to those who were left jobless by the pandemic to even tech-savvy senior executives are being lured by high salaries and foreign postings. Frauds range from work-from-home job scams, fake job sites and fake call centres/consultancy firms to misrepresentation of reputed job sites/companies. They often access resumes of people looking for jobs from reputed job sites by signing up as genuine recruiters. Companies and job sites that regularly face these issues are now stepping up their vigilance. They are actively cautioning jobseekers, launching social media campaigns, ramping up compliance processes and using technology to weed out this menace.
