How to guard against fake job rackets

BANGALORE, INDIA: Fake job rackets in the IT industry have been in the news all along and the arrest of a four-member gang that played recruiters giving hope to hapless aspirants, who wished to join Wipro Technologies, is not going to be the end of it.

After the incident, a Wipro spokesperson said, “We advise all candidates, who are approached by third parties for jobs at Wipro, against cash payment or security deposit, to immediately report the matter to the local law enforcement authorities.”

How can candidates guard themselves against touts and what can companies do to keep track of racketeers and check them?

Talking about Wipro's recruitment process, Priti Rajora, vice-president and global head — Talent Acquisition, Wipro Technologies, said the company employs numerous channels for recruitment through its Global Sourcing Team, which channelizes resumes through employee referral, newspapers, online media, job portals, social media and third parties such as search firms and recruiting partners, among others.

“All our third-party empanelment undergoes the background verification process. This weeds out all third parties with dubious records. Additionally, there is a reinforcement mechanism of Wipro’s stringent policies every time an interaction happens between Wipro and a third party,” she said.

According to senior HR consultant Sathish Bhat, who runs a recruitment agency in Bangalore, whoever charges for securing you a job is a fake. “No genuine agency asks you to deposit money in their accounts. It is best to avoid such agencies,” he said.

Candidates can make out genuine agencies from the rest by their portfolio, client list and track record, he said.

“Moreover, they won't charge exorbitant amounts for any services offered. Only if they provide job skills training and offer interview coaching, will they charge, that too a nominal amount,” Bhat pointed out. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any payment involved, as these agencies get paid by their clients — the IT companies.

The best way, said Mohandas Pai, former head of HR at Infosys Technologies, “is for the candidates to correspond with the companies directly and not going through any middlemen”.

“If one is expected to pay for a job or services, you are being cheated,” warned Pai. He added that companies should keep an eye and monitor the involvement of any middlemen in their recruitment process.

“It has been happening for long and in remote areas, it might not be easy to track it. But if companies smell something fishy, they should intervene and report the incident to the police immediately,” said Pai, strongly advocating the need for the culprits to be punished severely.

Fake recruiters also use the e-mail platform to lure job aspirants. Normally no company will send such offers via e-mail, without any test or interview. Also, when you get a job offer mail, make sure that it is not fake.

While talking about this, Rajora warned the job seekers to keep themselves away from such trap.

“We would like to apprise all the prospective candidates on some of the identifiers of these fake job offer e-mails. They come from public e-mail IDs often with WIPRO as a user name and claim to come from Wipro Group of Industries Limited or some such non-existent organization,” she said.

The other pointers are the call for cash deposit into a designated bank account and in order to make the offer seem authentic, the call for submission of qualification documents, experience certificate, photographs, etc.

“The content and format of the letter will be amateurish and have a lot of spelling and apparent grammatical errors. Often, the contact address, phone numbers etc. given in the e-mail would be non-existent and false,” explained Rajora.