HOW TO IDENTIFY A FAKE RECRUITMENT OUTFIT

with

Nasir Kolawole

Moruf Kolawole Nasir

(Experienced HR professional)

One of the many hurdles fresh graduates have to scale through in their quest to getting job is that of fake recruitment outfits. Unfortunately myriad of graduates fall victims of these fraudsters every day. This is, in no small means, affecting the job of Human Resources Professionals, as job seekers occasionally find it difficult to differentiate fake from real recruiters. To help exposed these dubious practitioners, below are some yardsticks.

1. CHARGES: The first indicator of a fraudulent recruitment outfit is charges. Irrespective of the nomenclature given to collecting money from you, extortion is extortion, either at the beginning of the process, middle or end of the exercise. As soon as you notice any kind of charge in a bid to getting you job, make a U-turn. Some of them hide under the guise of being outsourcing firms and that they run their business with the ‘token’ charged their clients (job seekers). Far from it. REAL outsourcing firms don’t make a dime from job seekers; they make their monies from their clients-employer.

2. LENIENT SCREENING PROCESS: Apart from the usual unprofessional ‘man-know-man’ screening for ‘special’ applicants, in any recruitment screening process where you have a walk over, where everything is waived, and at the end of it, the recruiter still offers you the job, be cautious as such recruiter is a likely suspect of fake agency.

3. MEANS OF APPLICATION: The means of application for job says a lot about the recruiter. You can get to tell a serious recruiter from a fake one through how their adverts expect you to apply for the job. You shouldn’t expect anything serious from a recruiter who requires you to apply for an opening through SMS. Similarly requesting application through any other unconventional way is a sign of fake recruitment outfits. That is not to say all recruitment outfits that require you to apply through the conventional ways are genuine, some of them try as much as possible to imitate the normal recruitment process only to lead you to a point where your moral is at its peak and then demand for some money with pleasant description.

4. CONTENT OF THE INVITE: There is a minimum requirements in the content of any interview invite: The name of the recruiting/employing firm, the position you are being considered for, the location of the interview, the time and date of the interview. Whenever any or some of the above is missing in any job interview invitation you get, please be double sure before you head to such destination. Many job seekers have fallen prey of kidnappers in a bid to earn a livelihood. But with these, you are at least 50% sure of not getting into the wrong hand. That is not to say some scammers won’t scale through this test and that some genuine companies won’t fall short of this minimum requirements due to the ignorance of the person in charge of their recruitment. But with this and other points being considered you are sure of not going wrong.

5. UNPROFESSIONAL CORRESPONDENCE: For those who are used to receiving mail from the Internet scammers you will agree with me that one of the ways of identifying that scam mails is through their blunders. They are prone to bad grammar or careless typos. Same thing is applicable to fake recruitment outfits. Because they are not professionals, their correspondences are always fraught with blunders.

6. YOU DID NOT CONTACT THEM THEY CONTACTED YOU: For recruiter to contact you, you must have some special skills, knowledge and experience that is next to none, this is headhunting, but in a situation where you are just the usual job seeker out there and some funny ‘firm’ come with the story “we found your resume online” they either offer you a job right away or invite you for their final interview stage right away; in such situations, shine your eyes.

7. SHABBY ENVIRONMENT: Trust me environment says a lot about an organization. If a recruitment firm or company claims to be a going concern and legal in its operation, one will naturally expect some level of serenity in their location of operation, but in a situation where the office is not too different from village Head-Master’s office, there is cause for concern. It is likely such entity is not operating legally, or hiding under legality to extort unsuspecting innocent citizens.

8. PRODUCT OR SERVICE MARKETING: Any firm which tells you that marketing a product or service (in whatever guise) is a pre-requisite for offering you a job is likely enslaving you so think twice before embarking on such mission. Even if the job you are applying for is for the post of a marketer, ask if there is no probation period in their employment policy and why you have to start working before getting hired.

9. FACELESS OR BAD IMAGE: This being the last is by no means the least; in fact it is one of the key determinants of fake recruitment firms. As soon as you gain access to ANY information about your prospective employer (be it the name of the company or the address of the company), Google it straight away and use the information to know about the company, trust me if they are scammers you will get hint about them on the internet and that should be an eye opener for you to tread with caution, and if throughout your search you still did not get any information about them, then the likelihood of such recruitment firm being fake is high, you can then apply the other yardsticks raised above.

Always remember “In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn”.

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