General – Paul's Tech Talk

The Dark Side of Job Hunting: Are You Being Tricked by Fake Interviews?

PaulJuly 23, 2024

Job search by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free

The Rise of Fake Jobs Listing!

There is a rise of fake jobs and even companies who have no intention of hiring anyone. CBS news did a talk about this on their website but I’m certain people still don’t know about this. It’s where companies. I am sure it isn’t being done all the time but i do think it’s something companies are doing that I have seen in the past. I’ve seen companies who do the interview but can’t find that one perfect candidate because they don’t want to have to train the potential employee.

I’ve heard all the excuses why the company wouldn’t do this but I suspect that companies are doing for one reason or another and are using potential interviewers as a way to gather data and also to try to find that one special candidate.

Job Interviews and red flags!

The real issue is understanding the red flags that are being done to tell you that it might not be an actual interview. They will do this for reasons like they want to learn from the interviewer on what it is like. I’ve had this one job where they reposted the job on LinkedIn before they even had a chance to interview me. If this happened to you then it is likely going to be like this, but it isn’t the only way to identify a company that might not be actually hiring anyone but doing this for other reason. Another way to identify if the company is having issues with employee retention is to check out the company careers page and see how many jobs are open in the company. This won’t tell you if this is a red flag but it will help you understand the chances of this interview being a real or if they are just going through the motions.

Impact to Job Seekers!

The real problem is that it impacts the job seeker by having them hope they get the job and it might be a real job but it really takes a lot out of the job seeker by doing all these interviews. If the job seeker sees a job that was reposted even before the job seeker goes through the interview process this can curb the enthusiasm and make the potential job seeker not to show the energy they are looking for in an interview. This is just a few things that will impact a job seeker from finding a job by them having too many interviews.

I could go into details about the job interviews, I’ve done that seemed like they were just going through the motions and that is one way to identify that it might not be a real job interview.

It’s really important to bring this to their attention if you think they are just going through the motions because you should make them consider that your time is valuable just like their time and maybe that will show them how interested you are to getting the job.

Have you had a job interview that you thought went really well and you got a denial letter? Why not comment and tell me your story. I’d love to her your experience on the subject matter.

The Shocking Link Between Rising Unemployment and Fake Job Listings!

PaulJuly 5, 2024

Unemployment is on the Rise!

As you can see this is the current unemployment rate from the BLS reports. If you want to dig deeper, you can but the real concern is that it has jumped from 3.5%( Last June 2023) to 4.1 This year. That’s a .6% rise in a year and it’s not going down. Unemployment is going up and if we look at the unemployment rates from 2006 you can see once it started to rise, it went fast upward. This seems to be the something that will happen again. We might not get up to 10% but we will get past the 6% to 7% rate and it might even stay there for some time. I’d say maybe a 1 or two years. The Feds might have to do something soon to prevent this from going higher than that this year by introducing rate cuts in the coming months.

Fake Jobs and Scams are on the Rise!

Ghost Jobs, and Fake Jobs are being posted on every job board around just to bolster the companies moral and keep employees happy. I’m even seeing more job scams getting into my email box and I even documented some of the ones that I have seen in the past few weeks. Here’s a small list of them:

I’ve talked about some of these are more in the past and I’m really concerned with where the job market is right now and what companies are doing to the job seekers and potential new employees. Is it morally right to go through the process of interviewing candidates if they aren’t going to hire you and is it even right to put up those jobs if you aren’t really hiring. I’d says it is but I am sure others would disagree with me. I understand the concept.

Job Interviews

I’ve got a job interview with a company in the next two weeks and they have reposted the job on Linked-in. That seems more than smells of something rotten but I will patiently wait and see what they do when I go through the interview. I am dubious that they aren’t going to hire me but I have to make an effort to do that. Another company which is local is interviewing me and wants me to come back in for an “IT Support Analyst” position, which I don’t understand but I will go and do the interview with someone else for one reason or another. Is the job market so bad that companies are being ultra picky on who they will hire and who they want to join their team? I would say most likely yes and it’s really one of those things we will have to see in the coming months. The pendulum has swung to the employers side and we are just going to go through the motions of trying to find a job and go through more excessive interviews to get that one job we are looking for to being able to survive the impending recession, which we may already be in.

Have you had any fake job stories you want to talk about, why not leave a comment and tell us your story. I’d love to hear your experiences on the subject matter and maybe it will help others avoid the same mistakes.

The Surprising Advantage of Being Talkative in Job Interviews!

PaulJuly 2, 2024

Photo by kaushik26795 from PxHere

Be Yourself in an Interview!

Understanding is the best solution to being good talker in the interview. There are many who are saying you shouldn’t talk that much in an interview. I tend to think this isn’t really a good approach unless you want to come off as one who doesn’t want to be engage with the interviewer(s). Some would say, that you should just be yourself and I think that is good because if you are comfortable with the interviewers than it comes off as good fit for the job. If you come off as nervous or uncomfortable then you may come off as not the right fit. You might not know it or not but having the secret to keep quite maybe is the one thing that didn’t get you that one job. You should be actively listening but you should also be engaging and be ready to show them that you are the right fit for the job.

Showcase your Knowledge, Passion and Expertise

One of the biggest advantages of being talkative is that you show your passion and experience in during the interview. Some manager’s will like it and others will not, It just varies from one person to another. Some managers will want you to be concise and to the point because they are way busier and maybe don’t have the time to do the interviews. Read the room and understand when they are ready to go. Showing you have a passion will in one way or another provide them the assurance that are the right fit for the job because they don’t want to hire someone who will hate their job and just do the bare minium. Building Rapport is also good because they will want to know that you can do the job and put the customer first. Also let’s not forget that if you have the ability to build a connection with the interviewers because they will get to know you even more and They may see that you have a lot to bring to the company, which could lead you to having a job offer come your way.

Authenticity and Positivity

Both words are nouns but they have some great advantages as you are interviewing. You being authentic can help them see your personality and even see your values while at the same time measuring if you will be someone that people will come to acknowledge and being personable with. It’s only human nature to want to create connections and be social, so there isn’t anything wrong with being authentic and personable towards the interviewer(s). The real aim is that you shouldn’t talk way to long and you should keep your answers short as possible but you should also actively listen and respond to questions or show them you are the right candidate in one way or another. Just remember to address the potential concerns that the interviewers might have and by doing that you are also showing that you are concerned with their feelings.

Stories help make it memorable

Remember to be authentic but also come up with stories that will showcase why you are a good fit for the job. Understanding the job description and knowing what they are looking for can go a long way into being memorable. They created the job description for a reason and we should be mindful of that while interviewing with them. It’s definitely a two way street when it comes to job interviews, You get to know the people and make a connection with them and also learn more about them and see if the boss is someone you would like to work with in projects and other ways. Ultimately you will be working with this manager and you’d have to decide if they will be a good influence on you and vice versa. No manager is the same and as such you can tell from the interview if the manager does a lot of micromanagement or if they are more free spirited which can be a great plus in any work environment.

Have you had experiences where being talkative helped you in an interview? Share your stories in the comments below! And don’t forget to subscribe to my blog for more career tips and advice.

Layoffs in Silence: How Companies Are Downsizing Without Public Scrutiny

PaulMay 22, 2024

The Rise of Quiet Layoffs in 2024!

Companies are laying people off without news of some of this. The Job market seems to be going through some of the hardest times the last few months. As of this post I’ve been unemployed for several months and have yet to find another IT job after putting out over a 150 applications. The real problem is that the Government is saying we have all these jobs available but I have yet to see these jobs that are so common. This process is so the company can downsize their workforce in a discreet manner to avoid any Public Relations negative press.

The Ethical implication of Quiet Layoffs

The uncertainty of quiet layoffs are creating an atmosphere of fear and mistrust among any company that does this. It makes the employees undervalued and even anxious about their job security which can also make it harder to get more people to trust what will happen next. The idea that you can apply for any of these jobs is also at question because we really don’t know if they are hiring or just looking like they are hiring. Companies will show they are hiring to keep the employees thinking they will have help soon or they may do this if they have contracts with other companies to look like they are trying to find someone and say they can’t find them. All these are valid ways that companies are being unethical. There ae note northing ideas that this can be debatable and can even argue the necessity of tough economic times while others can see this as an unfair practices. Companies need to consider the long-term impact of these practices on their brand and employee relations.

Silent Hiring and Quiet Layoffs

Companies are taking way longer to interview or even get back telling you that you weren’t selected for one reason or another. Companies are making it harder to get hired by having applicants jump through so many hoops or interviews. It seems to be the one way to get applicants not to complete the process and they can claim they didn’t find someone to fill the job. It is also entirely way to prevent from having to pay anyone and still look like you are hiring people for employees and clients of yours. This makes it seem like nothing is wrong but in reality it is a problem and the dynamics of transparent communication can make it even more difficult at times. It however isn’t going to go away anytime soon until enough people start speaking up about this and reporting these types of layoffs. Remember to keep your resume up to date right now and know you aren’t alone in finding a job in this tough job market. The searching for a job has been the hardest thing to do in the last few months. I’ve heard some people needed to apply to over a 900 applications just to get hired to a job.

Prevailing winds of Job Scams being on the Rise in 2024

PaulMay 14, 20241 Reply

Identifying Potential Job Scams

I recently got an email from a what looks to be from a Froelich-Engeerscarrer.com. I wanted to share with you how to identify that it is most likely just scam and not even replying to these types of emails.

Email that I received:

Hello Applicant,

I hope this email finds you in great health.Froelich Engineers, Inc,welcomes your application for the Remote IT Support Specialist position on LinkedIn. Your impressive qualifications and experience have attracted our curiosity, and we would like to invite you to an interview.

We believe you have the potential to be an essential member of our team, and we hope to learn more about you. As we discover more about you via the interview, you will have a better understanding of our organization.

If you choose to advance with the interview process, please respond to this email with a simple “YES”. We’ll contact you about the next stages.

We appreciate your interest in joining our team and look forward to hearing from you.

NB:If you receive this message before please ignore.However if didnt kindly respond

Best regards.

Thomas Trosten (thomastrosten@froelich-engineerscareer.com)

As you can see there are several red flags in the message because of not quite English. Here’s what I noticed of the bat with this email. ONLY asking you to reply with a YES instead of sending a calender invite to video chat. Also the spelling in the DIDNT and no spacing in the first paragraph between the period indicates this is a mail merge or some kind of email.

Investigating the company and Domain

When I get these types of emails and am curious to see if they may be real or not, the first place I go is looking up the domain they are supposedly sending from. Froelich-engineerscareer.com:

After checking with the domain tools website this was just created a few days ago. So that’s another good red flag but the real red flag is that on the main website. They say this on their careers page:

Scam or No Scam!

Being that they are using bad English and that I they aren’t using the right email address and even that domain they are sending from is just days old, I would have to assume this is a scam and that it isn’t real and that you shouldn’t trust anything they say if they contact you about a possible job. It’s more and more looking just like a big phishing or money scam that they are trying to do and you should avoid these types of email scams that might come your way.

Always check the company you are getting solicited from before you even consider taking the job. They are doing their own research on you and you should be able to do the same research back to see if they are real or just fake jobs trying to fool the many out their who might need a job. Don’t ever stop researching companies as you are applying for them.