Phishing

Do you know what Phishing is? When you have been looking, applying for mid level, or entry positions for as long as I have, you become a master of selecting jobs that aren't scams. And let me tell you when you do that, you are left with 1 or 2.

Phishing: "In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication." Phishing is vast, and includes many different fraudulent techniques, google it. In the world of job search, often times, and what I run into most, are scammers who list jobs without stating their companies name, location, and if they respond to you in email, they will ask you for personal information to preform 'background checks'.

One job I applied to last week, a $16 administrative office assistant position, selected me to be in the 'final reviewing process'. These people even had a fake website made. But it was very simplistic, and offered no real contact information whatsoever. I also googled the name of the company, of which there were no search results. Now how on earth could a company doing 'major bank investing' have no google search results? FAKE. They asked me to preform a credit check, which they would use as a background check and sent me to an un-secure credit check website. Even though I knew that they wouldn't respond, I sent a nasty email back to the fake email response, stating the evidence that clearly made them suspect, and told them to fuck off.

If you are shooting out resumes, I highly suggest the only personal information you list is your email, and maybe your telephone number, depending on whether you think it is possibly a real job. Also only write "references upon request', protect those people too. If they are a real company you will find out in their return email or phone call, and can give them further information that way. It's safer to protect yourself.

Scammers have been phishing in various ways since the dawn of the internet. And I have found that in the past year there has been an exponential increase, and I've even seen some on the most trustworthy job hunting sites plagued. 'Craigslist' is where I have had the most luck in the past with housing, jobs, and other things, but these days it is 99% phishers. 'Indeed' rarely has jobs I am qualified for, same with 'Kijiji', 'Juju', 'yahoo jobs', and others. And even on those more secure sites, you can see some of the most skilled Phishers, "sign up for this class in medical billing, and you can jump start a career".

I know there has been a huge social backlash and if you google, scam, phishing, or something related, there are hundreds of anti websites, even some trying to take legal action. But in the mean time, when people ask me, "how are there no jobs, look at this big list", I have to explain to them, most of those are fake. Literally there are maybe 2 or 3 jobs a week I could possibly be qualified for and that I apply to. I'm still holding out for the higher paid ones too.

I swear if they recruited all these scammers, who must spend more then a full time work week phishing, those people could be employed in real life jobs, doing real life good things. If you're skilled enough to trick other people, you're probably skilled enough to preform actual job functions at real jobs. They could set up an entirely new corporation of former phishers doing something amazing! Like I don't know...but something damnit. It's like a waste of energy. Yes they have to get your personal information, which can be easy when people are so desperate for work, and when people are unaware of what phishing is, but then they have to steal your identity and hope to not get caught.