Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017
-
Got one today, figured I'd break it down for people...
So what kind of scam is CyberCoders running here? Hard to say. Might be catfishing. Might be resume collection.
So what is wrong?
- Level: "Senior". Nothing in the description jives with a senior position. This is all SMB generalist work at a very low level. The pay doesn't match the title in any way.
- Title: "Systems Administrator". The description doesn't match this title.
- Pay: Up to $75K? That's not even starting pay for a junior admin in NYC let alone a senior and the top of the range.
- MAC Centric. They claim to be MAC centric and mention it over and over and over again. Yet, they don't know that it is Mac, not MAC. This implies that whoever wrote this knows nothing of networking (MAC is a standard term even for the A+, let alone the Network+), nor of Apple to know that their pet technology is Mac. Exposure from either side would instantly make this obviously wrong.
- Support MAC's PC's and desktops. Beyond not knowing how to form a plural (and apparently not having any proof reading skills) they seem to think that Macs and PCs are opposing items rather than stating the same thing twice.
- Degree: They claim to require a degree for a job that has zero benefits from that and is clearly at a pre-degree level. Requiring a degree for any IT position is always a red flag that, at a minimum, they don't take their hiring seriously.
- VMWare ESX. This is an ancient technology. ESX was last released in 2010. An absurdly long time ago and they specifically care that you have this old experience rather than being prepared to take this into this decade?
- Windows NT. That's right, 21 years old. They are looking for someone with experience from the mid-1990s. The last Windows NT release was 1996 and it was completely replaced by 2000. So 17 - 21 years out of date here. Not one mention of any more recent Windows technology except a passing reference to AD. So this implies that they have at least Windows 2000 somewhere, yet they don't care if you have experience with that?
- Want HXTML. Um, do they mean XHTML, the long ago replaced web market language? Why would your system admin need that? Or Dreamweaver, or CSS? Sounds like they've confused their system admin (IT job) with their web designer (designer job, non-technical.) Dreamweaver... what decade is this again? AJAX? Do people still use that term? PHP, now it's a developer too? Hodge podge of tech terms here.
Second position, same issues. Price is even lower, just as absurd. They seem to want their IT person to also be their web design person and wants them to script the web (what does that mean) using tools like Photoshop. News to me that Lightroom can be used to web script.
Totally fake.
-
Simply reality and not Scottverse.
-
@jaredbusch said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
Simply reality and not Scottverse.
Most job postings are fake, by far. Learning to spot them quickly and know who isn't seriously hiring and is just catfishing is a critical skill. Scottverse is another term for reality, rather than hopeful delusion. In the real world, places like this aren't hiring or, at best, it's all misinformation. That a major tech recruiter posting this fake info, it's that much less reasonable that it is real as no one has checked it. Even a non-technical person would spot this disaster with a casual read.
-
It's the belief that all job postings are real that leads people to think that all jobs require degrees, that ancient outdated skills are the only ones used, that IT pay is a fraction of what it is. Companies and recruiting firms make big money from fake job postings.
-
Over here, in upside down land, these are par for the course. The job hunting landscape is always peppered with poorly written IT job ads.
If you excluded all the poorly written ads here, then you're going to be waiting a very long time.
I'm no resumé spammer, so I probably wouldn't apply simply because the whole thing just sounds craptastic.
Here's a good example: "Stability in a creative environment" lol, now that's an oxymoron. The creative type people that inhabit these workplaces aren't exactly what I'd call stable.I'll admit that the ads don't add up. There's something fishy (maybe phishy) going on, but I usually put that down to reading between the lines about the workplace. Those two places (? maybe one place?), if they're real, sound like horrid places to work.
<thread jack>
Also, I still find it weird how you lot advertise jobs as having Paid Time Off.
(I always see PTO as Please Turn Over
).
Only casual employees here don't get paid time off.
</thread jack> -
@nadnerb said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
Over here, in upside down land, these are par for the course. The job hunting landscape is always peppered with poorly written IT job ads.
Same here. Point is that poorly written is generally a tip off that it is fake. Two things are very common... poorly written jobs, and fake jobs. The one is an indicator of the other. People looking to hire would rarely invest so much time and money and not bother writing a job spec that would make anyone think that they were serious or competent. Let alone doing it and passing it through a major agency.
-
@nadnerb said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
If you excluded all the poorly written ads here, then you're going to be waiting a very long time.
Actually, my point is that you exclude looking at these to speed up finding a job. If you put your energy into fake jobs, that's often why it takes so long to find one.
-
@nadnerb said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
Also, I still find it weird how you lot advertise jobs as having Paid Time Off.
Well, in the defense of this ad, it was that there was an EXTRA time off in winter on top of normal. Otherwise, that would be a tip off too that vacation / holiday time was not obvious.
-
I would now only apply directly on the company's website, not through a recruiting service. Services like Monster.com seem fine because it's usually the actual company posting on there...
-
@scottalanmiller said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
@nadnerb said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
Over here, in upside down land, these are par for the course. The job hunting landscape is always peppered with poorly written IT job ads.
Same here. Point is that poorly written is generally a tip off that it is fake. Two things are very common... poorly written jobs, and fake jobs. The one is an indicator of the other. People looking to hire would rarely invest so much time and money and not bother writing a job spec that would make anyone think that they were serious or competent. Let alone doing it and passing it through a major agency.
Again, Scottverse.
Do you actually think the SMB actually invests money in even knowing what to hire? Let alone how to craft an ad to find the right type of hire?
-
@tim_g said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
I would now only apply directly on the company's website, not through a recruiting service. Services like Monster.com seem fine because it's usually the actual company posting on there...
I see the same thing, often these are fake FROM the original company or in conjunction with them. Agencies add an extra reason to worry about fakes, but original companies do it most of the time without an agency adding to it.
-
@jaredbusch said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
Do you actually think the SMB actually invests money in even knowing what to hire? Let alone how to craft an ad to find the right type of hire?
Yes, they invest a very tiny amount in fake job postings to get loads and loads of information about what's out there. The SMB absolutely does this. Talk to people that do regular SMB interviewing, it's fake to an incredible degree. Fake doesn't ONLY mean that the job does not exist at all, but that it is not reasonably what it pretends to be. Although most of the time, it doesn't actually exist.
-
Do you REALLY think that this 12 person company is hiring TWO system admins for Windows NT? If we are using "SMBs don't do stuff" let's be reasonable. A 12 person company does not hire two IT people for a single role. Let alone any role.
-
@tim_g said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
I would now only apply directly on the company's website, not through a recruiting service. Services like Monster.com seem fine because it's usually the actual company posting on there...
I don't like seeing job ads by recruiting companies/Agencies, they seem awfully suspicious. Especially how they never mention the actual company that they are advertising for.
The tactic seems to be a lot like:
-
As someone who has worked with a similar sized company that does similar work, the IT need was like five hours a week. Sure, this one might be awful and need 20. But we are talking about 80-100 with these postings.
-
@nadnerb said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
I don't like seeing job ads by recruiting companies/Agencies, they seem awfully suspicious. Especially how they never mention the actual company that they are advertising for.
That's because if they do that, they don't get paid. An agency doesn't get paid when you go around them and get hired directly.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
@nadnerb said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
I don't like seeing job ads by recruiting companies/Agencies, they seem awfully suspicious. Especially how they never mention the actual company that they are advertising for.
That's because if they do that, they don't get paid. An agency doesn't get paid when you go around them and get hired directly.
Another good reason to rule them out.
Not enough information in the job ad? Yeah, they can GST (Get STuffed). -
@scottalanmiller said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
Scottverse is another term for reality, rather than hopeful delusion.
For your perception of reality.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
Do you REALLY think that this 12 person company is hiring TWO system admins for Windows NT? If we are using "SMBs don't do stuff" let's be reasonable. A 12 person company does not hire two IT people for a single role. Let alone any role.
Having recently watched a SMB try to hire someone and get it all wrong, yeah, I can totally see this getting posted.
Just because it is not meeting your definitions and expectations, does not make it fake.
Could it be certainly.
-
@jaredbusch said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
@scottalanmiller said in Spot the Fake Job Postings, Labor Day 2017:
Do you REALLY think that this 12 person company is hiring TWO system admins for Windows NT? If we are using "SMBs don't do stuff" let's be reasonable. A 12 person company does not hire two IT people for a single role. Let alone any role.
Having recently watched a SMB try to hire someone and get it all wrong, yeah, I can totally see this getting posted.
Just because it is not meeting your definitions and expectations, does not make it fake.
Could it be certainly.
That it is fake makes it fake. There are two reasonable options here... that the posting is not intended to hire anyone (or only one of two) is one and that they aren't hiring what they say is the other. Both are fake, neither is "my opinion" and between the two they are by far the most likely choice.
Only in Jaredverse would there be a 12 person company legitimately trying to hire two Windows NT system admins for a web design business with HXTML experience.
Do insane, incompetent, but well meaning SMBs exist? Of course. Are they the norm? Heck no.
