How to Stay Away from LinkedIn Scams

How to Stay Away from LinkedIn ScamsHow to Stay Away from LinkedIn Scams4Up until recently, LinkedIn was a fairly safe online haven for job seekers. You were able to connect with industry leaders, companies that you were hoping to work for, and past and present colleagues as well- all in the hopes of landing a job. And you were able to do it all while avoiding LinkedIn scams.But then along came the job scammers, and things changed. Whereas before you would be super excited if a recruiter reached out to you via LinkedIn and asked you for your resume and deckblatt letter, now you cant be sure if youre even talking to an actual recruiter or not.Here are some tips on how to stay away from LinkedIn scams and stay safe online.Know who youre talking to.Lets say you are contacted by a hiring manager who has read through your profile and thinks youd be an ideal candidate for a job hes trying to fill. Before you send over your resume and cover letter, do a little digging. For starters, check o ut his LinkedIn profile. Is it complete and filled out? Does he have many connections? Does he work for a known organization? If you cant figure this out by the LinkedIn profile, do some online investigation to determine if this person is actually who he says he is.Dont pay money. Ever. A headhunter sends you an InMail and offers to help you with your job search. Thing is, he wants his payment upfront. While its not unheard of to pay for someone (such as a headhunter) to help expedite your job search, you shouldnt ever fork over your money ahead of time. Being required to do so ahead of time might mean that youre right in the middle of LinkedIn spam.Be realistic.Youve been job searching for a while and youre getting a little desperate to land a job. So when a recruiter comes along and wants to do an interview, youre thrilled. But he wants to do the interview via instant messenger, at 1100 p.m. Even if youre looking for a telecommuting job with a company that is several hours ahead o f you, you mucksmuschenstill wouldnt be expected to do an interview that is at an odd hour for where you live. Similarly, instant message interviews are a huge red flag for a job scam. If youre approached to do either, know that youre stepping into a scam.Check the emaille.Its one thing for a recruiter to contact you via LinkedIn for a potential job opportunity. But its another if the follow-up emails are from a gmail, hotmail, or yahoo email address. Ideally, if a professional recruiter or hiring manager is interested in you, he will be working with a company and have that companys email address. If youre unsure, you can always reach out to the company directly to confirm that the person works there, and verify his email address. After all, some savvy scammers will take an actual companys email address and modify it slightly. For example, if the company youre planning to interview with is Golden Company, Inc. (and the email address is johngoldencompany.com), a scammer might modify it to read johnagoldencompany.com. So be extra careful when confirming email addresses.Be aware of links. Some scammers might reach out to you with a job and ask you to click a link to take you to the companys website. Many times, these are phishing scams, so be careful what you click on. You can hover over the hyperlink to see where the link will take you. If its not to LinkedIn (or a real companys website), youre headed towards a job scam.LinkedIn is still an amazing resource for job seekers, but you still need to be aware of potential scammers. After all, with over 300 million users on LinkedIn, it can be a paradise for job scammers. So stay safe from LinkedIn spam by being aware of hyperlinks, grammatically incorrect emails, slightly modified company names and email addresses, and solicitations for money in order to find you a job. With some precaution, you can definitely use LinkedIn to help connect with real people to find real jobs. And thats no scam.Readers, have you ever be en a victim of LinkedIn scams or know someone who was? Let us know what happened in the comments