XFIRE’S DIARY: Job Scams and I – How to detect a fraudulent recruitment arrangement

MY CAREER DIARY

with

XFIRE

I am a graduate of one of the public universities in Nigeria, and I currently work in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. I am sharing my experience under the pen name XFIRE.

Today, there are many scammers that play on the desperation of unemployed graduates. They front as recruitment agencies or organizations, thereby hoodwinking many innocent graduates. Some open fake websites of notable organizations to dupe ignorant job seekers. Some claim to be training consultants and organize ridiculous and non-recognizable training programs to deceive job seekers.

I remember there was a particular ‘job opening’ during my NYSC by a fictitious company (I have forgotten the name). They were looking for various people from disciplines (IT, financial, social sciences, pure sciences, engineering, etc) with non-specific job descriptions. A lot of us applied, and we wrote an ‘online’ test. Everybody I knew ‘passed’. After my success, they sent me a mail, congratulating me on my success. They stated that I was being considered for a trainee engineering position with a monthly salary of 80k (which was a lot of money to me and other struggling corps members like me then), and that I should come for final screening with a registration fee of N1,500.

Immediately I saw the mail, I knew there was something fishy. Why ask me to bring money for a screening? Unfortunately, hundreds of job seekers fell for it and were duped. There are very simple ways of identifying a job scam. You could read them online but I will just identify a few of them:

1. The job always appears non-specific, and they require all shades of professionals.

2. You get the job almost immediately, or after very light screening exercise.

3. You are sometimes asked to provide confidential information, such as your email password, or your bank account number.

4. In many cases, they use very generic emails like yahoo, gmail, etc. This is not to say there are no real jobs that use such email, but most standard organizations have a standard website and unique email account for HR/career/job purposes. I am always careful about jobs that you asked to submit CV’s to an individual in a company, especially if such information is not obtainable or verifiable from the company website. I often see a lot of unverifiable broadcasted messages on bbm and whatsapp asking job seekers to submit CV’s to an individual in a company e.g. xfire@xyzcompany.com. Well, it never hurts to submit your CV but quickly run away if your money or confidential information is being sought.

5. They can also be full of grammatical errors. This may be because many of the scammers are not well enlightened. Or some are too anxious to make finish the ‘deal’.

6. They often tell you the salary even before getting the job. This is to serve as bait and to ignite greed and anxiety on your part. Except for advertised lecturing and government jobs with standardized pay grades (CONTISS, etc), no standard organization will reveal their pay structure before giving you an offer. Standard organizations will negotiate with you only after being selected for the job.

7. The easiest way to detect a scam is that they ask for money. Sometimes the amount they ask for may look insignificant but when you consider the large number of applicants, it becomes significant. No private organization willing to recruit you will ask for money for any purpose – it’s definitely a scam if they do.

I am aware that some government agencies such a Nigeria Immigration Service, INEC, military organizations, NCAA, Nigeria Police, etc demand money from applicants. They call it all sort of names such as ‘registration fees’, ‘scratch cards’, ‘application fees’ etc. Personally, I think this is totally unfair on the part of government agencies and it’s just pure exploitation! I hope the government is taking drastic measures against it!

There was a time it was all over the news that there is a lot of job racketeering in MDA’s (ministries, departments and agencies) – people paying huge amount of money to secure jobs. This is entirely illegal and obtaining jobs like that may not last.