Internet Job Websites and Scam Jobs

First of all, I wouldn't say I'm actively seeking a job at the moment, in case anyone from my work is reading this. Just every now and then I like to have a little look on the internet job sites and apply for a few vacancies that look half decent. I usually go for the ones that offer lots of money and I know I have no chance of getting, just because I'm one of those people who thinks somehow one day I'll will just have a good job that pays well without having to do any work to get it. Apparently that's something to do with being a Pisces.

Anyway, recently I joined the website Monster because I'd heard of a few people getting decent jobs from there, and then I saw an advert on the telly for the site that's actually just called Jobsite, so I joined that. On a side note about that advert, even though it sort of worked because I went and joined the site, I don't think the fella on it is the best person for an advert. You know, the "new job phobia" guy? He looks like a sex offender, and it takes one to know one. That was a joke... maybe.

sex offender?

Anyway, one of the main reasons I only look for jobs on the internet every now and then is because of the amount of crap jobs that the websites throw up. I think it's to do with the agencies they use, but they bring up a load of these jobs that I like to call "jarg jobs", in other words, they're scams. I know about these jobs because I was unfortunate enough to fall for it a few years back when I was out of work after quitting university. There was no monetary loss on my part, I just lost a day out of my life and to be honest I felt a bit stupid for it at the end.

Basically what happens is the job is advertised on these sites under a company name to make them seem legitimate and professional, there was one I was looking at the other week called 'Red Planet Marketing', and there's a few being advertised at the moment called 'Encore Interactive Ltd'. Then they advertise the job in such a way were they don't say what the job is, but they make it sound like it's a brilliant career move that will make you successful and rich. Here's an example from Jobsite.co.uk of these type of jobs coming up on a search, when I searched using my postcode:

Now as you can see them first three jobs are all with the same company, offer the same money, and have the same job description, yet they have different job titles. The are two more jobs lower down the page that can't be seen on that screenshot, that are the same again, but have the job titles "Customer Sales Advisor" and "Graduate Trainee". Can you see the different ways they are trying to draw people in, and also how they are trying to have their vacancy appear in as many job searches as possible. As you can probably tell, each one of them jobs is the same, just marketed differently. The company are quite clearly desperate to get people to join them, and the reason for that is because they are a form of pyramid scheme. If you were to apply for any one of them vacancies now, just as an experiment, I would guarantee you'll get a call back or some form of response in the next few days.

Before going any further I think it would be best to explain exactly what the job is. My 18 year old self, clearly more naive than my present self, and after just dropping out of uni and being desperate for work, fell for one of these job advertisements. I was called a few days after applying, and invited to an "appointment" the next day. I think they call it an appointment because it's not an interview, but they don't want to reveal to you what it actually is. In fact, even when you get there they try and conceal from you what the job is until the last possible moment. That is because the job you've applied for is door to door sales. Walking the streets all day, knocking on doors, and trying to sell things to people. Not what you expect after reading the advert. 

So I go to an office building in Liverpool, all suited up to meet the boss, along with quite a few other people. The office is another disguise for the true business, one receptionist and a fella who is the boss. The Pharaoh, as he would be known in the pyramid scheme. Anyway, long story short, I spoke to this boss who told me how he was earning £80k a year, how he had a business plan, all these business terms he used to entice people in, then I went out with someone who who already worked for them, and he told me about his business plan, and how he hoped to be up to that £80k mark one day, how he'd have groups of people working for him (probably expecting me to be one of them), and all this. Then after all that talk you're knocking on people's doors trying to get them to switch to Virgin Media.

So, the way the pyramid scheme works is that, quite simply, someone sits at the top and has people working for them, who in turn have people working for them, and so on. The idea being that everyone in the pyramid makes a payment to the person above them, or they get a cut. So the aim is to get higher up the pyramid to get a bigger cut. The description of this sort of scheme, as provided by Wikipedia, is: "a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sales of products or services to the public." Can you see how this fits in with these jobs? The key part of that is probably the "non-sustainable" bit. To go into further detail about how these types of employers try to draw you in, we can go back to Wikipedia which says: "A successful pyramid scheme combines a fake yet seemingly credible business with a simple-to-understand yet sophisticated-sounding money-making formula which is used for profit." 

The thing with the pyramid scheme is that in some cases it is actually illegal, and that is because it is basically a scam. A few people at the top may make a small amount of money off it, but it's impossible for everyone to make money. The people at the bottom almost always have to be at a loss. So if you go to one of these job's and they feed you the stories of how much money you can make, first of all it's only so they can make money off you, and secondly you might only be intended by them to be the person at the bottom who does in fact lose out.

So lets now have a look at one of these job descriptions on the internet, and see how this all fits in, and also how you can spot them when browsing vacancies:

The main thing to notice is that you never get an actual job description. You get all the language that describes how amazing the job is, but they never actually tells you what the job is. Straight away you should be suspicious of that. This "specialist marketing team in our respected Liverpool city centre office" sounds great doesn't it, but it is in fact a group of door to door sales people who work for one man and his receptionist in a one roomed office in Dale Street. They don't tell you that "the opportunity to represent international clients throughout Liverpool and Merseyside" means you will just be travelling all over the city and knocking on people's doors trying to get them to sign up to broadband. 

They love their jargon and business terms that they try to use to sucker people in, "increasing our client's base by meeting with customer's face to face", and what exactly are their "b2b"'s and their "b2c"'s. The event based campaigns they mention, well that's when you see someone standing in Asda with a Talk Talk stand trying to get people to sign up. "Representing some of the largest names in the Home Energy, Telecommunications and Security Industries." Notice these are all areas that involve people signing up to things. That's how they make money off people, by getting them to sign things. They're not at people's doors flogging a physical product, they make their commission with a signature on a direct debit form and the companies involved deal with the consequences later when someone sees it on their bank statement and doesn't know what's happening. Or they just hope the person doesn't notice, or doesn't want to go through the hassle of cancelling. The problem is the only people who usually do sign up to the stuff are the old and vulnerable who let the sales people into their house because they're lonely and fancy a chat and end up signing their life savings away.

Now I don't mean to offend anyone who works for a company like this doing a job like this if you're reading this blog. By all means put me right. In fact, I'm sure someone will have something to say about this, because in my research for this I came across a number of occasions were people were questioning or criticising this type of job on internet forums (usually student websites actually) and there would always be a comment stating how this job is great and how they're earning £350-£450 a week. However, the fact that these comments from different users followed pretty much the same script were a bit of a giveaway to the fact they weren't normal people.  

You see the people who do this door to door job, sometimes on the train travelling to their latest victims area, or if you're unlucky you'll have them knocking at your door. They wear their smart suits and believe in their business plans. But the problem is they've just bought into a lie that was sold to them by a fella in an office who thinks he's Alan Sugar, but really he's more like David Brent. They're cold calling at people's houses, which is often illegal, and they're part of a pyramid scheme, which is also often illegal, and they think they're some sort of entrepreneurs.

I don't know, maybe there is something good about this type of job, but when I see them on the internet I stay well clear.

@adamheath 

Brendan Rodgers, Rafael Benitez and Liverpool fans

Brendan Rodgers is manager of Liverpool Football Club. Rafael Benitez is not. However, if you were to listen to quite a few Liverpool supporters you would think it was the opposite.

There is no denying that Liverpool have declined somewhat over the past few years. It's not been as great a decline as some media outlets might have you believe, we've gone from finishing second three and a half seasons ago to playing in the Europa League and being current League Cup holders. With this slight demise, and also the increase in social networking, the voices of our fans who hark back to the days when we did come second are louder than ever.

I have no problem with people remembering the times we had under Rafael Benitez, but I think now, especially with him being Chelsea manager, things are going a little too far. A lot of our fans seem to be defending him all the time, and when he gets abused by the Chelsea fans they treat it as them abusing our manager and not their own. He's not our manager, and people need to let it go, it's getting embarrassing.

Another thing that annoys me is that, when Rafa was our manager, I found myself arguing his side all the time. He had nothing like unanimous support from our fans, I'd say it was a lot closer to 50/50. I remember hearing all the time that "winning the European cup just papered over the cracks", you don't hear anyone say that any more do you.  "He doesn't take the Premier League seriously", remember that? And even in the season that we did finish second, a good portion of our fans were not happy with the manager, blaming his defensive play, inability to beat the smaller teams, and even his rant about Manchester United for us not winning the league.

Rafa papering over the cracks

The problem is, Liverpool fans have this tendency to grasp onto something nostalgically and believe it's return will make everything better. We've done it for years. Ever since Michael Owen left there's been a large section of our support who have wanted to bring him back, with a false hope that for some reason playing for Liverpool will prevent him being injured for entire seasons. We burdened Robbie Fowler and Kenny Dalglish with the roles of saviours. Since Fernando Torres left he's been terrible, even in his last season for us he wasn't great, but for some reason we think just by being back at Liverpool he'll return to the player he was in 08/09. And now the same nostalgia is present with Benitez.

Don't get me wrong, a return of Torres and indeed Benitez could bring about a change of fortunes for the club and see us miraculously catapult back to the pinnacle of European football, but is there any point in lingering onto this false bit of hope? We're turning into a group of supporters based on if's and but's, if Benitez had stayed, if Torres had stayed, if Alonso had stayed, if it hadn't been for Hicks and Gillett... Sounds a lot like a criticism we make about another set of supporters, doesn't it? Well the truth is a lot of our own supporters are just as bad if not worse these days.

A lot of these same supporters who are constantly calling for a return to Benitez, are the same supporters who refuse to give Brendan Rodgers a chance. The reason I decided to write this blog was because a photograph has surfaced of Rodgers wearing a tshirt that has The Sun newspaper on the front of it. Many Liverpool fans straight away vilified him, which is what lead me to claim on twitter that they are "embarrassing". Fans of Liverpool football club who will publicly slate our own manager whilst they continue to show unwavering support for the manager of Chelsea. Makes sense doesn't it.

Brendan Rodgers wearing a "The Sun" tshirt

Now I hate The Sun, I understand why no one connected with Liverpool football should have anything to do with the rag, but it's better to try and get the full story before making a verbal tirade against your own manager. The photo was taken in June 2011 after Brendan returned from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. Part of a team led by Chris Kamara, the climb aimed to raise £500,000 help provide free nursing care for people in their own homes. So what's Rodgers supposed to do when he gets the call off Kamara, "hey Brendan it's Chris Kamara, will you climb Kilimanjaro with me to raise money for a charity that provides free nursing for people in their own homes." "Sure Chris, who's taking part?" "A load of ex footballers, oh and it's sponsored by The Sun." "Did you say The Sun are sponsoring it Chris? Well fuck the people who need nursing care in their own homes as they can't leave the house and can't afford private care, I'm having no part in this."

I'm not even going to use the argument that he wasn't the Liverpool manager at this time, because the response to that is that he should have morally known not to be involved with The Sun. However, how can you question a man's morals when he climbs one of the world's toughest mountains in aid of charity? When you look at the moral credentials of the manager of Liverpool, is it not more important to see that he did this charity work than the fact he wore a tshirt once? Brendan Rodgers did not make The Sun newspaper any money, and nor did he make any money himself off them. Lets not forget our own captain has made a fair bit of money in the past off exclusives for The Sun's sister paper, The News Of The World. But people are a lot quicker to forgive when it comes to the captain.

Liverpool fans seem to be in a strange place these days. I don't know whether it is to do with the current standing of the team, or whether it is just more noticeable with the increased platforms to air their views such as twitter and facebook. If we have a bad game, they're saying how poor of a manager Brendan Rodgers is, if we have a good game and get a good win he's a great manager. If Stewart Downing or Jordan Henderson have a bad game they're terrible wastes of money who need to be sold, if they have a good game we hear that they might come good. You can't back the winner after the race is over, you have to be behind it from the start. This is what is happening with Rafael Benitez now, because we haven't been back to the position we were in when he was manager, so it's easier for people to back him than it was then. But at the time I can guarantee that a lot of the same supporters did not like him.

I'm no Paul Tomkins, I'm not PR for the club, I accept that when the team are poor you can have a go at the players and the manager. I won't try and tell you that Downing did in fact make three passes with his right foot that all had 100% completion rate, which shows he is in fact a very versatile player. Criticise poor performances by all means, but keep to a certain level. If you're going to go all out on a player or manager, if you say they're never going to be good enough for the red shirt, don't then turn around and claim you backed them all along if they come good.

And for the record, I myself am completely behind Brendan Rodgers and I think Jordan Henderson is a great player, but Stewart Downing is a terrible waste of money and needs to be sold (you can hold me to them statements).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this quick rant and it's given a few people something to think about.

@adamheath 

The Best Club In The World...

With Manchester United vs Liverpool this weekend, there seems to be a lot of talk about who is the biggest team in England. On twitter earlier I was discussing this idea, what makes a big team and what arguments are invalid when measuring the size of a club. During this mini rant I had I went on to compare clubs across Europe as well as clubs around the world. This isn't an argument I'm going to go into here. I don't like talking about "who is the biggest club", I think it's a bit of a stupid argument for people to have because, like I said, the arguments presented are often invalid.

However, I do think there should be a way in football to determine the best football club in the world. At the moment we have the European Champions League, arguably the biggest club football competition in the world. The 'arguably' part of that is something I feel is long overdue to be taken away. Not by saying for definite that the Champions League is the best club football competition, but by creating a new competition that would determine the best football team in the world.

Chelsea win the 2012 Champions League

The most vocal opposition to the idea of the Champions League being the greatest club football competition in the world would no doubt come from South America. In South America they have their own continental club football competition equivalent to the Champions League, and that's the Copa Libertadores. However, in Europe you wouldn't find many people who know the last winners of the Copa Libertadores, the most regular winners, and indeed who the best teams in South America are.

Corinthians win the 2012 Copa Libertadores

Currently there is a competition held every year in Tokyo, the FIFA Club World Cup, that takes the winners of six continental club competitions and puts them against each other. This usually does lead to a final involving the European Champions League holders and the South American Copa Libertadores holders. However, this tournament isn't held in high regard by football fans, and the winners generally aren't taken to be the best team in the world. Sometimes, a team like Barcelona, who many already believe to be the best team in the world, may win the competition, but they don't need this trophy to prove anything. When Barcelona played in the competition in 2011, had they lost the final I'm quite sure the majority of people in Europe would still consider them the greatest team in the world. This competition is more of a money making gimmick, and is not a suitable process for determining the greatest team in club football.

The FIFA Club World Cup.

You probably didn't even know

what it looks like

The South American teams that enter the Club World Cup do actually take the competition very seriously. This is because they want to go up against the best teams in Europe and prove their worth against them, and prove they're better than them. However, the teams from Europe rarely take the competition as seriously, and you can't really blame them as it interrupts their domestic season, and is also not really worth the effort for them to win a trophy that is not considered a major honour in Europe anyway.

My idea is that there should be a football tournament on the same scale as the current FIFA World Cup, but for club teams rather than internationals. A competition that would be held every four years, with the best teams from the six continents going against each other for one ultimate prize - to be named the best club football team in the world. I may be wrong, but I'm sure the popularity of this competition would be as equally high in Europe as it would be in South America and the rest of the world. A chance to see teams face each other who have never had the chance to go head to head before. Giving your team the chance to face teams you've only heard about, and never been able to watch on television regularly.

Of course, obvious problems arise when considering a competition such as this. The first question most people would ask would be how do teams qualify for it? Well, my idea (even though I'm sure people will find flaws in it straight away) would be to have a points system in the Champions League, Copa Libertadores and the other equivalent competitions, that ran over the four seasons prior to the Club World Cup. The finals of the tournament would apply the same format as the international World Cup, with 32 teams starting out in 8 groups. The amount of teams from each confederation that would qualify for the competition is debatable, however, my suggestion would be that 12 teams from Europe would qualify, 12 teams from South America, and 2 clubs each from the other 4 continents, making the total of 32 teams.

Qualification would work like this: you are awarded points for games in the Champions League or equivalent competition. But looking at the Champions League as an example, you would only be able to win points once you were in the group stage, and you also only get points for winning. The reason preliminary rounds don't count is because that would be awarding a team for their league position and not their performance in the actual competition. Also, points aren't awarded for draws simply because this would give teams a greater incentive to win, particularly in the group stages. But this would also apply to the knockout rounds, were the reward would come for getting through to the next round. 

So with that being said, the points system would work like this... A win in the group stages would be one point, a win in the first knockout round would be two points, a quarter final win is 3 points, a win in the semi final is 4 points, and for winning the final you'd earn 10 points. The reason there is such a large increase in points from the semis to the final is because the semi final has two legs, so there is an opportunity there to gain 8 points, and the final has to be worth more than the semi final. 

Qualification would take place over four years prior to the competition, with the last year for qualification being the season the finals take place. Therefore the actual Club World Cup would be up to date with who are the best teams at the time. The finals can not take place in the same year as a World Cup or European Championships, so they would have to take place a year before or after the World Cup. As we are currently in a year before the World Cup, I have made an example of who would have qualified for the tournament from Europe if it would have taken place in 2011, based on the points system mentioned above.

I've actually missed the 12th European team off, that would have been Porto who had 15 points. So I think from looking at this table you can see that the points system is fair, with all the Champions League winners making it to the finals.

Applying this system to the other competitions you would get a fair sample of teams from each continent to take part. The finals would start off with 8 groups. As there are more than 8 teams from Europe and South America there would have to be groups with clubs from the same continent in, but you would have the top European team in a group with the lowest South American team, and the rest of the continents are unseeded. So every group would involve a European team playing a South American team, and I think this would be of great interest to the world of football. 

I don't know whether many people feel the same way as me, but I personally enjoy club football a lot more than international football. I think if this competition was introduced it would get more interest than the international World Cup. If my team weren't playing in the competition I'd still watch it with great interest, the same way I do the Champions League or World Cup when my teams aren't in them.

Anyway this was just some thoughts I had I'm not sure many people will like the idea, I am sure that a lot of people will find flaws in the competition though, so let me know if you do. Thanks for reading 

@adamheath 

Internet Porn

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