Seasonal Employment Creates Fake Jobs

Seasonal employment, especially during the holiday season, is a welcome guest for thousands of unemployed Americans across the country. Even though unemployed workers will be taking advantage of the season employment offers, there are companies or individuals out there who will be taking advantage of those job seekers. For instance, if a job advertisement seems too good to be true, then it probably is too good to be true.

The country’s Better Business Bureau claims that 75 percent of retail companies are planning to hire the same number of holidays workers as they did in 2010, but the remaining 25 percent plan to hire less employees. More job seekers will fall victim to fake employment advertisements this year because of the high competition for work and fewer seasonal jobs available.

“People are desperate and that’s the problem. When you act on emotion you’re not being logical and you tend to make illogical decisions and mistakes,” said Kathy Graham with the Better Business Bureau.

Graham said that each year, more and more people become victims of false employment advertisements during the holiday shopping season. The majority of cases involve the false employer asking for an applicant’s social security number of a payment up front

“They shouldn’t be asking for that; they shouldn’t be asking for your credit card number and they shouldn’t be asking you to write a check for anything. Those are red flags,” said Les Echols, Director of Project H.O.P.E.

“If they say ‘for a fee we’ll help you’ – no, there’s enough recruiters out there that will help you find a job and the company pays the fee, not the individual,” said Art Pellerim, Human Relations Manager at RBC Bearings.

Job seekers can keep themselves safe when searching for seasonal employment, helping them figure out the legitimate jobs from the fake jobs.

“Do your research and make sure you know who these companies are and that they’re reputable,” said Echols.

Legitimate job listings feature contact information for the company, plenty of information about the company, and should also have a company website listed in the advertisement. For some jobs though, the safest way to land a job is the traditional way.

“You need to dress up, you need to show up in person so there’s real human contact there because you don’t know who you’re giving your information to on the other end of that computer and you can very easily lose your identity, your whole life savings… everything,” said Graham.

One of the traditional methods is to attend a job expo, where you can meet face to face with employers.

“The whole meet and greet kind of thing. I actually get to meet the person and give out information about the job and get some kind of contact up front that you wouldn’t normally get online,” said Pellerim.