Despite one million youth graduating every year from various Universities across the Country, most grapple with the issue of unemployment.
This is evident as every time there is a job opening, hundreds of desperate youth line up, so as to get these limited opportunities, with high hopes that something may finally come out of it.
This in turn leads to hopelessness making fraudsters develop techniques targeting these job seekers.
Gathered from various sources, here are five tip-offs that could help you identify a fake job offer;
1.) If the job offer requires you to pay some money.
Fraudsters ask job seekers to pay a certain amount of money so as to acquire a certain job. They might even send their bank details so that those looking for specific jobs can deposit the money.
They will say something like; You will be requested to send a short clip video which will be sent to the director in Ghana. For your clip, you will be requested to pay Ksh1000.
Job seekers have previously narrated incidents where they sent the money as requested but do not end up getting the opportunities applied for.
"A few hours later, I called the same number that I had used to send money to ask where the training would be. I was in for a rude shock. The user was unavailable and so was my money. I tried a couple of times with wider time intervals with no response," Walter, a job seeker narrated to The Standard.
2.) You are asked to provide personal information.
Some scammers will ask for your personal information such as account information, date of birth and so on. They may also ask you to open a new bank account and ask you to send the information details.
This is a scam that job seekers should not fall for. An article published by Balanced careers highlighted that before entering personal information online, one should always ensure the web address is secure.
"The address should be https:// not http://," the publication noted.
It is important to conduct a thorough background check on the employer or organization before sending any personal details.
3.) If you receive a job that you did not apply for.
The scammers will state that they found your resume online and thought you were perfect for the job. They will excite you by saying that you made the cut and you are among the finalists.
Most of these calls are usually from scammers.
4.) If the job is sent from a personal email.
According to a publication called CareerAddict, any job that is sent from a free e-mail account like google.com or hotmail.com should be considered as fake.
The scammers know various companies that most job seekers would be interested to work for, therefore, some of them use similar names to notify them about the job.
If your gut does not feel right, it is always good to do some research so as to find out how true the job is, as most of the legitimate businesses use their domain names.
5.) If the emails are badly written or social media pages are fake.
Most emails sent by scammers are not usually well written. Therefore, if the email contains spelling mistakes, punctuation or grammatical mistakes, then this could be a sign that the email is from a scammer.
For social media pages, most fraudsters will use pages that have less following despite the organisation's popularity.
Avoid applying for jobs from such social media accounts. Use search engines like google to check out the company and try to determine the authenticity of the advertised job.
