Did you know that cons have used fake jobs in Kenya to swindle unsuspecting Kenyans? You must have seen through major news channels of young people duped in to paying to be enlisted in the disciplined forces or lucrative office jobs. Here are some red flags to help you not loss what you don’t have.
They come to your Inbox; LinkedIn Inbox
Legimate head hunters will come to your inbox, cons come to your inbox as well. The difference is that cons will give you all the details including the company names and job details. Legimate headhunters will withhold some of the information like the company recruiting or which roles.
They give two emails to send your application, one of them is a Gmail account.
And they insist you to copy the Gmail address. Organizations that have website domains do not use free email service. If you’re looking for a job in Kenya you should know that a department cannot have Gmail account. If they have, they take time to go through the emails. Not the same day. And if they use a Gmail account probably they don’t want you to know which organization is recruiting. They cannot give you two emails and one of them is a Gmail account. Big red flag. Run.
Check out their LinkedIn profile, in most cases they don’t have activity going on.
Conmen have no time for interactions online. They just create a fake profile and leave it. They might have some legit connections but you do simple search you won’t find any of they roles their talk about anywhere online. These people know their trade and you will need a sixth sense to uncover them. I have encountered several I know.
They call you after you apply and ask more documents.
In most cases these documents are government issued and it’s not possible to get them out in a short period of time. A certificate of good conduct in Kenya will take you at least a month to get the one. Illegitimate jobs in Kenya will request you to give documents that only government roles ask.
Conmen usually will call you same day asking for health certificate, Or certificate of good conduct a document that may be asked after you get the job. Usually this will not hinder you from getting the job that is legit.
Government Jobs in Kenya require good conduct, EACC certificate, KRA compliance certificate Helb certificate among others. In most cases serious job seekers have these but not health certificate. Most organizations have specific hospitals for this. Know that you won’t loose a job because you lack a health certificate.
If you don’t have the documents they ask for, they suggest to you that they know someone who can fasttrack but you need to pay. When you here this run.
They use companies that don’t recruit through online means
This include privately owned big enterprises mostly family businesses. They don’t post jobs online or do massive recruitment drives. If you have been unemployed for sometime you know which companies recruit at what time. For instance you know that PWC have recruitment drives for graduates so there is no way PWC will reach out to you in your inbox unless you’re experience exemplary consultant.
The roles are usually urgent replacement of staff who left
They indicate that they really need to fill up the vacancy fast. The truth is there are hundreds of unemployed Kenyans and it’s not hard to find someone with you stockpile of resumes to fill up roles that employees left unexpectedly. This should be a red flag of a con.
If they approached you through LinkedIn, try find out among your connections if you have someone working in that organization. Politely reach out to them and inquire of someone left the organization and ask of they are trying to fill up the role.
If you cannot find someone go online immediately get the contacts of the institution and ask for HR and find out if the guy works in the organization. Secondly try to find out if someone left the particular role. When doing these background checks don’t inform your recruiter.
