With South Africa being one of the major hotspots for job scams, many people miss out on the opportunity to go for interviews out of fear. By using a reputable recruitment agency, such as ours, you no longer need to worry about scams.
The best way to spot a scam is when the company asks you to pay some sort of fee, a recruitment agency will never ask you to do this, which is one of the top reasons to go through an agency. A reputable recruitment agency will never ask you for personal information, such as your login details for various social media accounts, or your banking information, if you get asked these questions, you’ll know this is a scam. Often scam artists will target those who have recently graduated school, as they are new to the job market and most vulnerable to scams.
How to Spot a Scam
If you’re new to job hunting and aren’t sure how to identify if a job offer is legitimate or not, here are a few common ways to spot a scam:
- Recruitment companies shouldn’t ask for money upfront.
- Unprofessional emails. Legitimate companies will have a traceable domain.
- Accounts and sites, these are normally new and are scant on information.
- Tempting job offers with high remuneration with vague details, asking for sensitive information.
- Employers and recruitments use well-known sites for online interviews, they generally won’t ask you to install an unfamiliar piece of software or app.
How to Protect Yourself
Protecting your personal information is of the utmost importance, we have put together a list of how you can prevent yourself from becoming a victim of job scams:
- Do research on both the recruitment agency and the company, anything you can find is a bonus, ask around, search the internet. Caution is always better.
- Make sure the web address includes “https://” at the beginning, not http://, this verifies that the site is both authentic and secure.
- If you remain unsure of a job or employer even after your research, trust yourself. Legitimate job opportunities don’t present a serious risk to candidates.
- No company will ask for your bank, payment, or sensitive information upfront, this normally only occurs after you have been employed.
- Check the review section on the site, look for complaints, people may give reviews that this is not legit and if it is, this may give you an idea of where you will be working.