The economic and employment situation in the country makes it tougher on graduates seeking for means of employment. This also exposes our graduates to desperate situations where they get scammed of the little money they have by fraudsters posing as employers or legitimate companies.

At Ngcareers we encounter complaints from jobseekers seeking to find out if company A is a scam employer or not. On our own we have implemented measures to ensure that scam or fake recruiters do not get their jobs listed on our site. We have a constantly updated Blacklist section where we enter the names of companies we have investigated and found to be scam. Some of them who went ahead to pay to advertise jobs on Ngcareers had their vacancies not published and their monies seized. That way a whole lot of them do not come back to use the site. What this means is that we have zero tolerance for fake jobs and most of them steer clear of Ngcareers.com

Now however since there are so many platforms and avenues online these scammers still find it easy to trick and swindle jobseekers. So if you are looking for a job these are ways to find out if a company is scam.

1. No Online Presence

While I understand there are companies who do not still have websites the trend is changing. Any serious organisation in today's world should at least have a website unless it is a Mom and Pop shop. So when you get to apply to a company check them out online and see if they exist

2. No official email addresses:

This borrows from No. 1 above. At Ngcareers when an employer creates an account and posts a job we check through their employer profile and if we can't see official email addresses we get in touch to ask for one. The truth is many of these scammers do not stress themselves to the extent of building websites and getting for official email addresses. It is one way to identify whether a company is serious or not

3. Did You Apply for the Job or Just Got Unsolicited Invitation for Interview?

You see the problem for most people is that since they apply to so many jobs they no longer remember which they did not apply to. So when these scammers send you text or emails inviting you to an interview you do not remember that you never applied or sent them your CV at any time.

To help with this first keep records of companies you applied to. If you have a computer do it on an excel sheet so you can always search through it.

When a company you do not know about sends you a job interview invite you can check to see if you at anytime had given them your CV. If not then you have to investigate them even more thoroughly than usual.

4. Run at any Hint of Paying Money

No matter in what guise they come once they ask you to pay money - whether it is called registration, pay for materials etc just RUN. The Employer should never charge the candidate money in whatever form.

This is why personally I think that many of these government agencies that ask candidates to pay to purchase scratch cards to apply for jobs etc are doing something illegal. But then Nigeria is going downhill so anything goes, doesn't it?

Get on Ngcareers today and start looking out for that better job