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