How To Identify Fake Jobs

We've noticed a rise in spammy activity across Linkedin, specifically affecting the Jobs Search experience.

Bots are taking the TMM Recruitment name in vain. From a company point of view, we could do without it. Much worse than that, it is negatively impacting our candidates and the job seekers who engage with us.

A few candidates have enquired about jobs which have popped up recently on Linkedin's Job Search. Roles that were shared by us months ago and have subsequently been filled. The role content for these closed recruitment assignments is being used to create spammy jobs.

What's the point of this?

We don't get it either and can only hazard a guess that it relates to the hijacking of personal information.

How To Identify A Fake Job On Linkedin

If we post a job to share with the Linkedin community, it will be on our Linkedin Company Page or in the activity feed of one of our recruiters. These pages always display the company logo or web address: tmmrecruitment.com.

This example was shared with us recently and we quickly identified it as a fake job because:

• We knew when the role was filled, and recognised the salary information and the reported number of applicants for the job were wrong.
• There was no branding on the job page and the company name had not been claimed.
• The final paragraphs of the post contained text unrelated to the job description but which were scraped from our site, tmmrecruitment.com.
• The Apply button redirects the visitor to a third party site where they have to "sign up" (ie share your personal contacts) to apply.

Reporting A Fake Job On Linkedin

We're extra vigilant about this issue now but if you spot a fake job associated with TMM Recruitment please report it to Linkedin, or let us know and we'll report it to Linkedin. Maybe we could all report it to Linkedin, the more people who report this issue the faster it will be resolved.

Protecting your Linkedin Profile

That said, job phishing scams are not new on Linkedin. Last year Kevin Turner wrote a comprehensive article on how to identify fake job offers received via Linkedin messaging. It's still very relevant today and well worth a read as Kevin includes simple actions you can take to protect your Linkedin personal profile.

We can't emphasis enough, if you find a job online that is asserting TMM Recruitment is the recruiter, contact us directly by phone T 01224 327 000 or email, all contacts are available at tmmrecruitment.com.

Side Note:

When we reported this to Linkedin we received a speedy response. Here's what the very helpful advisor said:

"The jobs that you are referring to are what we call Limited Listings. Limited Listings are free job postings gathered by LinkedIn from job boards and aggregators across the web, so that our members have a comprehensive job seeking experience.

Sometimes there can be inaccuracies with our mapping when it comes to Limited Listings because it is a completely automated process. The data for these job postings are pulled from those external sources, and our system does its best to match them with an existing Company Page in our system. The job has now been closed down, and we've implemented a rule ensuring only manually posted jobs are to show on your Company Page."