Latest ID Theft Tactic: Fake Job Listings

citking writes "News.com.com reports that, in an attempt to curb identity theft on its service, online career listing site Monster.com has begun warning its users of fake job postings bent on stealing personal information. 'Regrettably, from time to time, false job postings are listed online and used to illegally collect personal information from unsuspecting job seekers', according to an e-mail sent by the company yesterday to registered users. With the increasingly difficult job market, things such as background checks and non-disclosure agreements are becoming more and more difficult to avoid, so where does one draw the line for giving out personal information in response to a classified ad? CNN has a small article about this as well."

Comments

Sending resumes out never works anyway.

[callipygian-showsyst]

Take the advice of someone who just changed jobs--answering ads never (well, almost never) works anyway.

In this economy, employers get THOUSANDS of resumes for every job posting. Most of course, are garbage dot-com resumes or from other unqualified individuals. It's nearly impossible for a good resume to break through the signal-to-noise ratio.

And high-quality companies will not have to resort to advertising jobs in this economy, except to fulfill some "equal opportunity" requirement, showing that all new jobs are publically posted.

My advice: Stay away from Monster and other job boards. Get friends who are working at the companies you're interested in to submit your resume for you. If you have no contacts in a particular company, hand deliver your resume, or send it US mail. At least, your resume will stand out this way.

Worked for me

[mattACK]

I listed on Computerjobs in May. I had a great job in one week at a large company. This is not an advertisement, I assure you. It is simply a reminder not to leave any stone unturned; it could happen to you.

Of course, YMMV.

Re:Ironic

[the eric conspiracy]

"Wanted: Tech professionals needed at top companies now [zdnet.com]"

Yeah, that is an excellent link - to Dice.com, a job site that is in Chapter 11 bankrupty. Good thing, too. Their jobs are always the same, and their site is as buggy as all get out.

Re:MYTH: There are unwilling identity theft victim

[AMuse]

You're using logical inconsistancy here. Though the credit card companies are the customers of the credit bureaus, you *ARE* getting ripped off if someone fradulently assumes your identity to rack up false credit charges.

If your credit record is tarnished, it can be more difficult to:

* Buy a house
* Rent an apartment
* Buy/lease/rent a car
* Obtain airline tickets
* Get a job! (Yes, employers now check credit records)

All of the above is more aggravated by the fact that the credit card companies, far from being inconvenienced much by the theft, acutally BENEFIT in the form of offering you only extremely high interest loans for some very important things. Try to buy a house in the SF Bay Area on bad credit. Got $800,000 cash, right now, in your bank account? Sorry.

Clever troll, but people whose reputations in a digital world get tarnished are victims, and DO deserve recourse.