I was going to post this in my last post but decided it deserved its own post. I have ran into a "recruiter" that I truly believe was trying to steal my info. Maybe it is paranoia but here is why I think he was just trying to get all my personal information.
This recruiter; we will call him Bob, called me up with an amazing job offer. It was a permanent hire position for what he said was a fortune 500 company. The pay and benefits were in my pay range (100k) and sounded great. So I agreed to let him submit my resume.
So Bob says he is going to send me some information on the job to look over and some forms to fill out. This sounded pretty routine, I have filled out tons of forms for jobs. So he e-mails me the job description and the "forms". Now comes my first suspicion of Bob, he was e-mailing me from a hotmail account.
These forms; claiming to be applications for employment, seemed a bit odd as well. They did not ask for any work or education experience only personal information such as my social security number, full name, birth date, drivers license, address. They had no logos for either his company or the company I was supposedly applying to, just plan old word doc asking for a lot of personal info.
Now in the 14 years I have been doing IT work I have only had to fill out applications either at start of interviews or after I got the job offer. Every application I have ever filled out wanted a lot of work and education history; even McDonald's ask for this information. They all had legal speak on the applications about how you had to tell the truth and sign and date it. These didn't have this anywhere.
So my alarm bells are screaming in my head. So I start doing some research on his company but Google couldn't find anything. I try to call him back but couldn't get through so I e-mailed back and asked for some clarification on the information he needed. I got a response in a few minutes about how great the job was and they wanted to hire someone next week. He then goes on how he already sent them my resume and I have the job when I fill out those forms and get them back if I could start Monday.
WHAT!? I got hired without an interview to a fortune 500 company? They are going to pay me 105k annually and did not even have to speak to me? Damn, I know and I am good and all that but come on. Not even a phone screen? You should all bow before my greatness, I am so good I get hired off my resume alone! That's right let me say that again so it can sink in; I got a 105k a year job with a fortune 500 company off my resume alone....
OK sarcasm off now; I turned his information over to law enforcement. Apparently this is some sort of scam now out there. They prey on people being desperate for a job to get your information. As badly as I need a job right now if he had been a better actor or more patient I will not lie he would have gotten my information I am sure. I am lucky he was an amateur I guess, he got greedy and tried to fast which set off my paranoid streak which probably saved me.
