Is this how recruiting works now?

August 16, 2024 9:03 AM

TL:DR summary: Got a job offer with minimal input on my side and seems a little too good to be true.

I've been with my current employer for a dozen or so years - I enjoy the work and the team, but our industry has changed a lot since the onset of COVID and we haven't (in my opinion) done enough to remain competitive. We have a plan to turn things around but I'm getting more anxious that we may need to fold before we can make it happen. We're a small company without much room for growth for me.

I've been actively looking for and applying to jobs but haven't gotten any nibbles. Earlier this week, I got an email from a recruiter at a healthcare company indicating that I've got the profile they're looking for in relation to an opening they have. The role would be similar to what I'm doing now and I'm guessing they found me on LinkedIn. I've been full-time remote in my current role since inception and this would be a remote role as well.

The email included a link to a Google doc to complete an assessment for the position. It also indicated that this would be the entirety of the interview process and they'd be making a decision based on my responses.

The assessment was 12-15 behavior based interview questions and took me about half an hour to complete. Recruiter asked me to email back when I completed the assessment and he then thanked me for submitting them.

Yesterday, he emailed me that they were in the final stages of reviewing the applicants and hoped to make a decision by today. And lo and behold, I got an email this morning with the offer. It included info about a five day online training program to provide an overview of the responsibilities and will be assigned a dedicated team and supervisor, a training team will be available to guide me, and so on.

I've searched the company and they exist and seem legit (as far as I can tell). The Talent Acquisition person who has been emailing me does not have a LinkedIn profile, which seems strange. The company has a presence on LinkedIn and I see the job posting listed on there.

At this point, I've talked to no one in person. I'm likely underpaid in my current position but this new offer is almost double my current salary. Company is headquartered in California and I'm in the Midwest so perhaps for parity purposes the salary is higher to keep things fair? I get the sense it's a tough job market these days, so don't want to turn down a big step up, but my scammer senses are ever so slightly tingling.

But, like, it seems a little too good to be true? I haven't interviewed for a job since landing my current gig, so I know that things likely are different now.

I think my next step is to write back to my contact and ask if I can speak to someone about a few questions I have about the job and see where it goes from there. Curious if anyone else has been hired similarly and I'm overly cautious.

posted by Twicketface to Work & Money (13 answers total)

This seems broadly similar to a scam hiring thing I was subject to a few months ago. Surprisingly little input from me, a good offer (but not so good as to be fully implausible), the company definitely existed but the person I was working with wasn't listed anywhere. I was skeptical but went along until they sent me paperwork asking for my bank info (for direct deposit) before any other paperwork, including any information about onboarding or schedules or anything. I stopped responding and got one follow-up email "reminding" me to complete the paperwork they had sent (which, again, was just bank account information at this point) and then never heard from them again.
posted by SeedStitch at 9:09 AM on August 16

The way this scam tends to work (assuming it's not just straight up identify theft) is that you'll get stipend via check for "Home Office Supplies" or whatever that will "accidentally" be too large, and your "employer" will ask for you to send back the extra amount by Zelle/Paypal/whatever. Long after they have your money, your bank will tell you that the "stipend" check was invalid.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 9:21 AM on August 16

Definitely a scam. The person you're interacting with probably doesn't work with the company, although the company exists.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 9:23 AM on August 16

Thanks, all - glad I went with my gut. I left a VM with the 800 number on the site asking if NAME is a recruiter there so will see if I hear back but not holding my breath. Thankfully, I've sent no information about myself other than my name/email so far.

Appreciate it!
posted by Twicketface at 9:26 AM on August 16

Basically what Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme said; the Scams subreddit has a wealth of info about this kind of thing. You could post or search there and see if anyone has had the same interaction with the same recruiter.
posted by inexorably_forward at 9:27 AM on August 16

No, this is not how recruiting works now. You are being scammed. Don't waste any more of your time on this.
posted by phunniemee at 9:33 AM on August 16

... got an email from a recruiter at a healthcare company

Look very carefully at that email, does the email address domain exactly match the company website?
Even if it does, do you get the same website URL when googling the company name?
posted by Lanark at 9:37 AM on August 16

It also indicated that this would be the entirety of the interview process

Yeah, no.
posted by Melismata at 11:11 AM on August 16

It can be hard to tell anymore. My wife got recruited by two different companies on Indeed to fill a special ed position as a contractor at a school just down the street. One was in-person work, the other was remote (again, *same* job at the school just down the street). The administrator at the school was aware of the one recruiting company, not the other. The first thing the recruiter/contractor asked for was her bank info. She asked, “How do I know you’re legitimate?” He just laughed and said, “Good question. I don’t know.” Anyway, she took the in-person job and is working there, so apparently it *was* real, but we still have no idea if the other offer was legit!
posted by jabah at 11:26 AM on August 16

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out something people should know about the stipend check or equipment check or whatever bullshit check they send you as the process proceeds:

The money goes into your account after a few days, and this is not the check "clearing" as is commonly believed, but rather your bank "releasing funds," something they do in a revocable fashion. A good check does clear-- confirmed funds coming out of the draw account-- within a week, typically, but sometimes it takes 3 weeks, because the check could be unreadable by electronic equipment or have other distress that slows things down and requires human intervention. Bad checks (not just NSF, but drawn on nonexistent or closed accounts, stolen checks, etc.), of course, take the longest to be resolved as bad for this reason.

If anyone ever does send you a check that's too much, don't spend it for a month, or at least check with your bank that the check has cleared (emphasizing cleared over funds-released) before doing that. No scammer is going be that patient.
posted by Sunburnt at 11:27 AM on August 16

I want to highlight in Jabah's example above, that the scammer could be using the existing public job posting as the hook to target people who are most likely to be vulnerable to an offer of that type of job. The fact that the opening is publicly announced does not prove that the recruiter is actually charged with filling that position.
posted by metahawk at 12:15 PM on August 16

Just to provide some closure, an actual recruiter called me back after I left the voicemail and confirmed that there has been someone using NAME with fake job offers/interviews that they've been dealing with. She said he'll resurface every so often but there's (obviously) not a whole lot they can do about it. She encouraged me to have a little fun with him if I had time to kill but think I'll just go silent and move on.

Part of my reluctance was because my current job wasn't hiring using the traditional methods either (small company, no job posting, etc. )but turned out to be totally on the up-and-up. At least it was fun to imagine retiring early for a few hours!
posted by Twicketface at 12:20 PM on August 16

Seconding the recommendation for Reddit's r/Scams. Anyone looking for work, especially remote work, needs to be a regular reader there.

Some of the job scams are obvious, and some are more subtle, but there are a LOT of job scams out there now.
posted by ralan at 2:53 PM on August 16