Job Seekers, Be(A)ware…!!!

by Suhas Rajput 

A fresh graduate walks into a company with an excitement of his first day at job with a great designation and pay package, as mentioned in the offer letter he has with him, is being asked to walk out of the company as the offer letter he has is fake and not the real offer made from the company which he thought he would begin his career with. Have you ever experienced such a situation in your life or seen across among your friends? Then you are probably one among hundreds of such job seekers who have been duped by miscreants playing with the careers of job seekers.

With tightening job market, job seekers today are ready to walk an extra mile to start their career with a top notch company. Blame it on the present economic slowdown or a surge of youth entering the employment arena, which makes it competitive daily and which would only increase in the days to come. In such situations, job seekers tend to get attracted to organisations or companies assuring jobs with great companies by paying huge amount. Such organizations position themselves as official recruiters or recruiting partners of the company, they would hire for. In a very recent instance of fake hiring, a group of members designate themselves as officials of a global company conducted interview sessions in Bangalore and offered fake selection letters to a dozen of candidates. These candidates were initially lured with fat salaries and were also convinced to pay huge sum of money into their bank accounts before calling them to a particular location and conducted a fake interview selection process. And, it was too late for the candidates who reached the actual company with the fake offer letters to realize they have lost their money behind a fake recruitment racket. As reported by many agencies, such instances are on a rise like never before.

Modus Operandi:

There are a various ways through which organizations reach the job seekers, such as through e-mail, advertisement in newspaper, online advertisements, freelance recruitment consultants, etc. A very common channel used to reach to candidates in recent times has been the electronic mail and a majority of such mails pertain to Automobile, IT, BPO, KPO and Manufacturing sector. It is extremely difficult for job seekers to make out the authenticity of such fake offers, as they make use of the actual company address, contact details and web address in their advertisements which makes many of the candidates fall prey to them. The soft targets in majority of the cases have been the job seekers coming from rural background and who don’t have access to information. And in many cases, the job seeker from rural or semi-urban region fall into prey with such miscreants and end up paying huge sum of money for their dream careers. Such instances are on a rise, even with a majority of companies have been running various campaigns on their websites and inform candidates on such fraudulent practices by unauthorised people. Many companies also reach out to colleges / universities informing the college authorities and making students aware on such wrong practise in the market and caution them about the same. Good number of companies are taking such initiatives and have been spending extensively to reach out to candidates and keeping them informed about their actual recruitment policies and procedures. To quote one, Hyundai Motor India recently spent around fifty lakh rupees as a part of the campaign to educate job seekers and making them aware to such malpractices in the recruitment industry. We can also many companies coming out with advertisement (especially in the employment section of national news papers) giving information on such wrong practices in the recruitment industry and the precautions one can take beforehand.

Tips for Job Seekers

Whenever we come across such information, through any of the channels around us, the job seeker can identify the authenticity of such information by calling the company and enquiring with the concerned person in the recruitment team. The same needs to be done by calling the company on the contact numbers mentioned on their official website and not the one shared in the mail. The job seeker may be told to deposit money in a particular bank account, which would be refunded after the selection process with nominal charges deducted, or may be told that the amount asked for is against the training cost or administrative charges. Such demands by recruitment agencies are a clear indication of bogus selection by a third party and not by the company itself. It is extremely important for us to understand the fact that no company would charge a huge amount for recruiting people for them. Job seekers can also be cautious, when they find any individual or company who guarantee jobs against payment of a sum of money, as jobs can’t be guaranteed until and unless the job seeker undergoes the recruitment process and its only and only his talent and skill which can bet a job. There would be recruitment consulting agencies which would charge consulting charges from the job seekers as a part of their services rendered, but even such agencies can’t guarantee a job, but can assist the job seeker towards preparing him for the job. It is essential for the job seekers to be aware of the selection process of a company which they are applying for and can consult any individual who is or was a part of the organization and get things clarified on the selection process.

With information reaching you at a lightning speed, we are certainly overloaded with it but it’s extremely important to be aware of malpractices in the recruitment domain and also keep other aware of the same.

Suhas Rajput

(Training & Placement Officer, Karnatak Law Society, Belgaum)