Key Verification Points Before Responding to a Recruitment Advertisement
Before responding to a recruitment advertisement, job seekers should note the job-hunting scam alerts provided by the Labour Department’s Interactive Employment Service.
- Do not readily believe recruitment advertisements that claim “no experience or qualifications required” yet offer “high pay and good benefits”; instead, consider whether the salary of the vacancy and its required conditions are realistic and in line with market levels.
- During the online job search process, if you are required to provide personal data, consider whether the employer’s request is reasonable and whether there is a risk of excessive collection of personal data.
- Legitimate companies generally do not ask employees to bear any fees.
Beware of Fake Recruitment and Unreasonable Charges
Some fraudsters, under the guise of recruitment, impose unreasonable fees on job seekers under various pretexts and names, such as registration fees, data processing fees, administrative fees and work permit fees.
During job hunting, if you are told that you do not meet the entry requirements for the vacancy and need to enrol in a training course or other programme at your own expense to improve your skills before being hired, you should stay alert — this is likely a fake recruitment scheme intended to defraud you of money.
Protecting Personal Data and Interview Safety
Some fraudsters, under the guise of recruitment, extract important personal data from job seekers, such as identity card, bank account and credit card information.
Fraudsters may, during an interview, defraud job seekers of their belongings or extract personal data, and then steal the job seeker’s bank savings or use the obtained data for unlawful activities. Alternatively, they may claim to be recruiting for online part-time work, promising job seekers that they can earn a service fee or commission by purchasing online game top-up cards on their behalf. Once the job seeker provides the top-up card serial number and password, the fraudster sells the credits and disappears, causing the job seeker to suffer financial loss.
When going to an interview, keep personal safety in mind, avoid attending interviews alone at abnormally remote locations, and pay attention to whether the interview process is excessively casual.
Refusing Unreasonable Demands
Job seekers who find that a job involves multi-level commission (i.e. so-called pyramid selling), and that the goods sold are more expensive than those on the market; or who are asked to pay a large membership fee; and who are persuaded to recruit members (including relatives, friends and classmates) as their downline staff to earn profits, rather than focusing on product sales, should decline the job.
If an employer makes unreasonable demands, you should refuse outright, and certainly not carry out illegal work for the employer.