Beware scams in online job hunts
Patricia Kitchen

ONLINE employment scammers are getting more sophisticated.

These phony employers are setting up dummy websites to make their operations look more legitimate. They’re refining their virtual interview techniques to make candidates less suspicious. The scam itself — such as getting you to agree to transfer funds in and out of your own bank account — is likely relegated to the small print in an employment contract.

Those details come from Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a research and consumer education organization. According to her, "The risk landscape has really changed."

But so, too, has a job hunter’s ability to push back and ask more questions, while legitimate recruiters become sensitised to candidates’ desires to guard private information.

Some employers are even eliminating the request for personal numbers on a job application. Some allow temp candidates to fill in applications online, but they don’t ask for personal numbers until the face-to-face interview, says Nancy Schuman, vice- president of marketing.

Still, those looking for employment continue to be taken in by scammers, says Dixon, who hears from an average of two people a week who’ve been burned in some scheme, such as those transfer ruses in which the victimised job applicant winds up laundering stolen money through a bank account.

Scammers tend to prey on those who seem naive about online usage as well as others looking to return to the work world in a home-based capacity. Still, Dixon heard recently from a man with a master’s degree in finance saying he was taken for a huge amount. And yes, she says, he felt humiliated.

Other ruses to watch out for: Would-be employers who say their company pays only through direct deposit. They insist that, to speed the first paycheck along, the applicant must fork over a bank account number — now.

The nice sign-on bonus. Those phony employers have been known to call later to say that a cheque for the wrong amount has been mailed and couldn’t you please send them a cheque right away for the difference in money?

Dixon says instances of fraud are much easier to document than identity theft, when a crook hijacks your information and uses it to open credit card accounts, for instance. To guard against that, consider the following:

nTake care in posting resumes online. First, read a job board’s privacy policy statement on how resume and registration information is stored and shared.

nIf you do post a resume, consider making use of job boards’ cloaking functions that can conceal your contact information. Employers who find you through a skills-and-experience scan can have the job board contact you about the opportunity, and you choose if you want to reveal your identity.

n In any case, when you do provide contact information, it’s best to give a cell phone number, not home number, and an e-mail address from an account you set up specifically for the search. Besides, you could provide your degree information, but not necessarily the school name and graduation year.

nWhy? Because thieves can replicate your identity with just snippets of information, Dixon says: They piece together what you divulge with what they learn from sites such as alumni web pages.

nMake sure the recruiters you work with are reputable and not the kind to spam your resume to the rest of the universe — including posting it to websites without your knowledge, says Allison Hemming, president of a staffing firm. That’s for two reasons: First, it keeps your resume from being perceived as a wallpaper, thus making you a less interesting candidate. And it keeps your resume out of the hands of those with ill intent.

nTo find responsible recruiters, she suggests you ask friends and those you meet at professional association events. And when you start working with a recruiter, be sure to let him or her know that you have some ground rules for sending your resume out.

nDo a search of your own name to see just what personal data may already be online: things you had nothing to do with posting.

nYou can do a search on Google or through a site such as ZoomInfo.com, which aggregates all public online information on more than 27 million people. You can create your own professional bio there, and you can ask that anything you deem too personal be removed from the site (though it will remain on the original source site).