Opinion Piece: How to avoid recruitment fraud

Recruitment Fraud a Guide for Job Seekers and Employers

Recruitment fraud is undeniably on the rise. These criminal activities disrupt the recruitment process for organisations and individuals, causing reputational harm and financial losses. The goal of employment fraud is simple: Scammers want to lure candidates into sharing their personal information (leading to identity theft) or paying out money, or both. This paper outlines some common types of recruitment fraud and provides suggestions on how to avoid or prevent them from happening in the future.

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Advice for Job Seekers

Try to understand some of the most common types of recruitment scams. This guide will help you uncover fraudulent recruitment activity and avoid getting caught in it.

Boiler Rooms

Boiler rooms are fake companies that deceive people into working for them. They typically offer legitimate jobs, often in sales, there is usually a recruitment process and a promised salary for the job. However, issues arise later. "When people start and they think they're going into a sales role, they find that perhaps the accommodation or the costs they're incurring are greater than the salary. To pay for it, they have to hit targets and then find themselves stuck. Generally, boiler rooms target vulnerable people to release savings for investments that aren't real," as stated by Keith Rosser in a CIPD podcast.[i]

How can you avoid this?

A careers advisor once told me, "If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is." If a job offers an amazing salary and bonus scheme, be careful and always research the company to which you are applying. Visit the Companies House website to check if the company exists and see if the people conducting the interview are on LinkedIn. Google the company on Glassdoor to read public reviews.

Fake Recruiters

As a job seeker, you may be contacted by someone claiming to be considering you for a position. You will be asked to fill out a questionnaire and may be interviewed over the phone. You may also be referred to the employer's website for further information. After completing the screening process, you will be told that you've been successful, and the job is yours. At this stage, the employer may need to conduct a background check, and surprisingly, they may ask you to pay for it. This is a common tactic used by fake recruiters to extract money from you before disappearing.

Some fake employers want money for administration fees, and they may want to organise your travel to interview offering you a discount on the train, but when you pay you discover there is no train and no interview. Some recruiters may ask for your bank details so they can put you straight onto the payroll.

Fake recruitment is also happening on a global scale. Some job seekers have thought they secured work in another country. When they paid the employer for administration fees or gave their bank details for relocation expenses, money was taken and then of course no job ever existed.

How to avoid this?

Be cautious of any recruiter who asks for money upfront. Recruitment consultants do not take money from job seekers and employers do not take money for recruitment. The cost of background checks including SC or eSC checks are generally paid by the employer, not by the job applicant.

Exercise caution when sharing banking information with recruiters, ostensibly for payroll purposes. This type of fraudulent activity is frequently on an international scale, and unsuspecting job seekers have found themselves duped into believing they have secured employment in a foreign country, only to suffer financial losses with no genuine employment prospects.

Identity theft

Some recruiters will pinch the name of a real recruitment consultant who is working for a real recruitment company. They are looking to start a conversation with you and to rope you into a recruitment scam. If you are in any doubt, call the recruitment company and check if the recruitment consultant is really an employee.

The blame game

In a less likely scenario, I had an interview with a small furniture retailer, and the day after the interview, the company accused me of stealing ￡500 worth of goods while I was on the premises. They claimed that since the shop was empty that day, I must have taken the goods. The company also demanded repayment within 24 hours, threatening to involve the police. I chose not to engage with the company, and nothing came of it.

Other recommendations

Take charge of your CV and record where you sent it. Avoid openly sharing your CV on platforms like LinkedIn or job boards as you cannot be certain who will have access to it. If you do use LinkedIn remove address details and contact information. If a recruiter or head hunter contacts you, investigate their backgrounds on LinkedIn and verify the existence of the companies they claim to represent. In addition, consider calling the company to confirm the legitimacy of the job opportunity you've been contacted about. If a recruiter asks you for money or bank details do not give out this information no matter how nice the job may sound. Usually, job seekers do not pay for recruitment costs although in limited circumstances this might be a legitimate request. Jobs Aware provides the following advice:

If at any stage during the process, you are concerned about the information you are being asked to provide, ask why the information is required and make inquiries as to whether this is a legitimate request.

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Passports

As part of the onboarding process, you may be asked to scan and send a copy of your passport. The most secure way to do this is to upload it directly onto a recruitment portal. Some recruiters will ask for an email, you can ask them to delete the email after use for extra security.

Timing

It is not unusual for a potential employer to ask for a copy of your passport. In the legal profession, it is quite commonplace to conduct an identity check right at the start of the recruitment process.

Many professional recruitment companies will now ask for the passport as proof of ID, even before a face-to-face interview, again to reduce the chance of identity fraud.

There have been cases, particularly in the IT industry where computer programmers in the UK have paid programmers in India to do their work, identity checks are used to prevent this type of hidden outsourcing. ?Hiring Managers need to know who you are and what you look like at every stage of the recruitment process so do not be surprised if there is more than one request for the photo page of your passport.

More help

Visit Jobs Aware for more information about how to spot a scan and for guidance on providing information to a company.

https://www.jobsaware.co.uk/

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Report any cases of recruitment fraud to CIFAS

https://www.cifas.org.uk/contact-us/i-want-help-or-advice-on-scams

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Advice for the Employer

Keep in mind that one out of every ten job seekers are now targeted by fake recruiters. As a result, your job applicants may be defensive at first. Asking for too many personal details upfront could lead to losing a candidate, so it is best to build a relationship before subjecting people to lengthy processes.

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Provide Advice

Publish details of your application process so that candidates can understand how you hire and what the recruitment process entails.

When advertising a job, include a publication date and a contact name so that people can see if the job is live and check that the recruiter exists, on something like LinkedIn. This will give people confidence that they are looking at a real job hub and not a clone.

Meeting face-to-face

If a candidate doesn’t trust a company or its process they will most likely withdraw at interview stage. Some reasons for withdrawing include:

·?????? The job doesn’t sound real. Perhaps there is something different or unique about the job, you can ask people if the job specification looks satisfactory.

·?????? Lack of professionalism. If candidates find spelling mistakes in job descriptions, they may question the professionalism of the recruiter and withdraw from the process.

·?????? No obvious reason. If you keep losing candidates for no apparent reason then you can try the mystery shopper experiment. Ask a team member to submit a CV under another name so they can experience the recruitment process firsthand. This might uncover problems in the recruitment process.

Good hiring practice

Put job offers in writing. Prepare job offers quickly and send detailed information by email and by hard copy. If the job description lacked information then send a statement of work so that candidates know exactly what is expected of them.

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Report problems

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SAFERjobs?is a non-profit organisation created by the Metropolitan Police to raise awareness and combat criminal activities that may be attempted on job seekers, people working with the recruitment industry, or through services provided by the recruitment industry. SAFERjobs ?aim is to protect job seekers and Agency Staff from exploitation.

Reassure Candidates

HR professionals can now register with SAFERjobs as legitimate and safe employers. They currently register around 50,000 companies a month.

Join CIFM, this organisation has the UK's largest cross-sector fraud sharing databases,?Cifas?is a not-for-profit organisation working to reduce and prevent fraud and financial crime.

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[i] CIPD Podcast, Episode 133 Cyber Security: recruitment fraud

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