How to Tell If An Email Is A Job Scam
Simply Hired Staff
We’ve recently been looking at ways to identify and respond to the scam jobs that are commonly found online. But some scammers will proactively reach out to unsuspecting job seekers by email. Here are some ways to identify potential recruiting email scams.
Pay attention to the sender
- Beware of emails that come from free or unfamiliar domains. Free domains include yahoo.com, hotmail.com, gmail.com, etc.
- The domain should match the name of the company where you applied. (The only exception to this rule is for small businesses, which may not have their own domain.)
- Beware of unsolicited email. If you receive an email from a job that you didn’t apply for, it’s probably a scam.
Do not engage with suspected spam emails
- Do not offer your personal information or money to anyone who emails you.
- To apply for a job, you should not need to supply your birthday, social security number, bank account number, credit card numbers or other personal details.
- Resist the temptation to reply to a suspected scam email or offer your phone number by calling—scammers will sell your phone number or email address to companies who will send you spam email and spam call you.
Here is an example of an actual scam email claiming to be sent from Simply Hired:
From: Simply Hired – Recruitment Solutions <[omitted].simplyhired@post.com>
Subject: Re: Job Application
Dear Applicant,
This is to notify you that your application recently shortlisted by [omitted] among other applications from Asia, Africa and the Middle East for participation in their 2015/2016 Graduate Training and Employment Program has been approved. You are required to contact their Human Resources Department within 72 hours via email: ( [omitted]@gmail.com ) for important updates with regards to your application.
Best Regards,
Simply Hired
Note the sender’s email address at the domain post.com instead of simplyhired.com.
Simply Hired will never contact job seekers about job opportunities with other companies. Any email about a specific job opportunity with a company that is not Simply Hired that claims to be from Simply Hired is not legitimate.
This unsolicited email was forwarded to us by a job seeker who didn’t apply to any jobs with the company. As soon as we found out about the problem, we were able to take measures to stop the scam and warn people about this fraudulent email.
Please forward any suspicious emails to support@simplyhired.com and we will investigate right away.
