OCP Shares Warning Signs of Fraudulent Job Postings 

As our students begin a new academic year, many will also start thinking about their career plans post-Meredith, as well as ways to supplement their income while they work to complete their degrees. Our recent graduates are currently set to join a labor market characterized by record-low levels of unemployment. It’s a job-seeker’s market, and they have lots of choices! Unfortunately, among those choices at legitimate organizations, we have also seen an increase in fraudulent job opportunities appearing on public job boards. 

While the Office of Career Planning receives the bulk of employer outreach on our campus from recruiters hoping to engage with our students, we recognize that employers also reach out to faculty and staff on campus to help promote their opportunities. OCP has updated the job search resources that we share with students to include the following safety tips. Should you receive outreach from employers hoping to share their job postings, or working with students to help them secure employment opportunities, we encourage you to be on the lookout for a few common red flags appearing in fraudulent postings: 

Be wary if an employer:

• Offers you a job with little or no interaction with you
• Offers a large amount of money for a little work before work has been completed
• Requests personal information such as your Social Security Number, bank account or credit card information, copies of passport, license or other personal documents
• Requests you to move money from one bank account to another
• Uses a personal email address instead of a company email address, or the organization name is misspelled within the email address (angel@merredith.edu instead of angel@meredith.edu)
• Uses a generic name/word in their email domain in place of a company name (angel@engineer.com) 
• Posts a job with multiple spelling and grammatical errors
• Posts a job that includes keywords such as “quick money,” “investment opportunities,” or “part-time job with full-time pay”

OCP utilizes Handshake, a centralized recruiting platform, to post full-time jobs and internships for students and alumnae, and we vet every employer and opportunity before posting based on specific criteria, including verifying physical business addresses, locations, company email addresses, and checking websites. The Office of Financial Assistance posts part-time opportunities for our students, and uses similar criteria when reviewing positions to post. In addition to having multiple safeguards in place, Handshake provides equitable access to opportunities; the site allows us to ensure that opportunities are shared broadly with all students and alumnae. We invite you to forward any employer outreach you receive, along with any questions you may have, to career@meredith.edu.