Dive Brief:
- Legitimate recruiters must now contend with the near ubiquity of job scams preying on applicants. According to a report from Monster released Monday, nearly half of job seekers said they’re skeptical of most outreach they receive due to a constant barrage of scam offers.
- Ninety-five percent of job seekers said they’ve encountered a suspicious job offer, and more than half said they’ve been directly targeted. The most common methods of contact include email, text and “unsolicited recruiter outreach,” with job boards and networking platforms not far behind.
- The scam saturation is occurring in an already difficult environment for both recruiters and job seekers, as both groups rely heavily on artificial intelligence and hiring becomes ever more targeted toward specialized roles and skills.
Dive Insight:
Fraud in the hiring space has been a consistent issue plaguing recruiters and job seekers in recent years.
In 2022, the FBI sounded the alarm on fake job candidates using deepfake video technology to hide their identity while attempting to secure remote work opportunities — likely in an effort to steal sensitive customer and client information. Some infiltration attempts have been successful, as in the case of North Korean nationals who posed as informational technology workers and embedded themselves in American companies.
Last summer, Gartner warned that by 2028, as many as 1 in 4 job candidate profiles may be fake.
Monster’s early March survey of 884 workers showed the problem is just as prevalent on the other side of the table. Nearly all respondents agreed today’s market makes workers more vulnerable to scams, although, according to Monster, job seekers are getting better at identifying fake offers.
Job seekers said common giveaways that an opportunity was a scam included communication happening only through text or chat, job offers without interviews, promises of high pay for little work, poor grammar or suspicious contact information and companies that were not readily identifiable.
While job seekers may be improving at scam identification, many still reported consequences to Monster. One-third said they’d lost time looking into or even applying for fake opportunities, nearly one-quarter reported ongoing stress and anxiety, and almost another quarter said they’d shared personal information, like an email address or phone number.
Legitimate recruiters can distinguish themselves by posting on established job sites, avoiding the collection of sensitive information up front and seeking in-person interviews, a source from a digital safety platform previously told HR Dive.