LinkedIn’s New Button: Instantly dumber job hunting & hiring

On July 27, 2011

I don’t know who I feel more sorry for: Job hunters or employers. LinkedIn has introduced a new button that lets you instantly apply for a job — no resume, no cover letter, no effort. It’s instantly dumber for everyone concerned. (From Mashable: LinkedIn Launches Button That Lets You Apply for Jobs.)

The last thing job hunters and employers need is a quicker, easier way to apply for a job. What we need is more prudent, thoughtful, and careful job hunting and hiring — which means improving the process, not speeding it up. LinkedIn’s new button puts the emphasis on getting an application in quickly — while LinkedIn’s founding philosophy is that making good contacts and cultivating relationships requires effort and patience.

It’s dumb ideas like this that instantly put you into even more mindless competition with thousands, if not millions, of other instant applicants. This is why employers find themselves sorting through more and more drek applications. A bigger, fatter pipeline with a button that accelerates the flow of crud doesn’t improve recruiting and hiring. It instantly devalues LinkedIn’s equity in the personal networks it has worked so hard to facilitate.

LinkedIn’s New Career

LinkedIn, the bastion of online “social networking” and “relationships,” seemed to have taken a smart turn when it announced its “careers” initiative a few months ago. The company would offer tools to help employers and job hunters find one another, using LinkedIn as their path to personal contacts that yield the best working relationships.

The social networking company started building a new career service by hiring some top-notch business development folks from top-tier companies — implying it was going to build on the success of the networking tools it has become so famous for. Then LinkedIn drove off the road, and picked up churn-’em and burn-’em sales people from the big job boards and — Presto! — LinkedIn is now dumbing down hiring and job searching, just like Monster and HotJobs and CareerBuilder.

What’s the brilliant new idea these sales nomads from the job boards dragged in the door? Now you can apply for a job with a button.

A Button for The Drek Pipe

Gimme a break. We’ve seen it before: A hot company does an IPO and suddenly loses sight of its essence and turns the reins over to a management team with a solid history of selling commodities faster and harder. Where LinkedIn once preached use your contacts and your brain, now it’s selling volume and instant.

The highly-motivated new hires that LinkedIn originally brought in to launch the careers initiative — we’re talking cream-of-the-crop, seasoned relationship-builders from some of today’s leading companies — were given marching orders to extend LinkedIn’s dominance in social networking into the career sphere. That’s what lured them to LinkedIn. And it all sounded great: a natural extension of one of the most valued brands on the Web.

But in short order, LinkedIn went from selling the value of networking and personal relationships to dialing for dollars and pulling a Ladders-type about-face. (Remember TheLadders’ “exclusive” services for “executives only?” What a promising concept! Today TheLadders is just another job board selling database access for $15/month to any sucker who’s inbetween HotJobs and Monster.)

Like a lot of entrepreneurs with a great idea, Reed Hoffman implemented his idea as a database. Like a lot of great concepts supported by databases, Hoffman’s great idea became the database — with the result that LinkedIn’s database is now the product. It’s far easier to expand a database and to sell access to it, than it is to think up new ways to make personal relationships generate profits.

It seems LinkedIn has abandoned the concept that made it so successful.

Selling The Database

The impressive business development and relationship-building experts the company hired last year found that their long-range objectives had suddenly morphed into boiler-room-style monthly quotas. They were told to hit the phones and start burning through call lists. Selling the commodity and closing quick deals became more important than developing relationships that would lead to long-term business. The word on the street is that LinkedIn’s primo new hires, who believed in the mission, found themselves cast aside.

Their replacements, a second-string crew of telemarketers (reportedly including some from the likes of Monster.com), were closing deals with employers — but hardly relationship-building deals. Word got out that companies would sign up to search the database to make one hire, then bolt. The telemarketers weren’t selling a relationship with LinkedIn. They were hawking short-term access to a database, slapping the high-quality LinkedIn brand on Monster.com-level services.

It looks like the promising links between career development and thoughtful networking via LinkedIn snapped.

The Button: Impulse Job Hunting

I held off on commenting on what I’ve seen, hoping that LinkedIn was just straying momentarily from its mission to link all people and all companies into an incredibly facile network based on knowledge and solid relationships. I hoped LinkedIn would get back to the knitting. I visited Linkedin.com’s About section, hoping to find LinkedIn’s mission statement, or at least a definition of what the company’s objectives are; something that would indicate the company could find its way back. To my surprise, LinkedIn has no statement of purpose, or even a definition of what the company does. Not unlike TheLadders, LinkedIn defines itself by its database and with statistics about all its members. There’s not a word about the value of relationships and connections. It’s all about the database — the path to job board perdition.

Then I saw the announcement in the Mashable article: Just push the LinkedIn button. Says Mashable:

“The button is much like the Twitter tweet button or the Facebook Like button… The button essentially lets you submit your LinkedIn profile as your resume — no cover letter necessary.”

How much dumber can the career industry get? Job boards have turned HR departments into swill pots of incoming drek from job hunters who have learned to play the numbers and apply for every job they can find, whether it’s a fit for them or not. There are more inappropriate candidates in HR’s inbox than ever — and now LinkedIn makes applying for a job no more thoughtful than liking a website.

LinkedIn’s great accomplishment is to make job hunting an “impulse buy.” A drive-by app. Dumber than dumb. Could the database whizzes at LinkedIn already be busy building that mobile app? Drive by a company, submit an application via your smartphone! See a product ad or an article about a company? Scan the code and Bam! your application is in! It could be a great place to work! Don’t hesitate!

Ever wonder why employers never call you back or return your calls after you go on a job interviews? This is why. Expect more of it.

Just Another Job Board: Wishful thinking for dummies

On the comments section of the aforementioned Mashable article, reader Mike Young says:

“Will apply for all of them ;-)”

Another says:

“Awesome! Now all we need is an “Apply All” button so we can make the job apps fly.”

Mike Young sounds like he’s kidding. But LinkedIn isn’t. LinkedIn just made it easier for Mike to act dumb (if he chooses), and easier for employers to be dumber. LinkedIn could post its mission statement as one simple sentence: Wishful thinking for dummies.

Good jobs come from great personal contacts and from the hard work of building solid relationships. (If Reid Hoffman is reading this, Remember why you started LinkedIn? Do we need another job board?) There’s an astonishing amount of talent on the street today, due to our uncertain economy. Rather than recruit intelligently, employers waste untold overhead dollars “processing” millions of inappropriate incoming applications from thoughtless job hunters who believe the more jobs they apply to, the better.

Now LinkedIn has created a button to make it even easier to apply for any job that comes along. (What’s the harm, eh? The more, the better! HR departments will love it!)

Dumber Living Through Databases

George Carlin had a great line: Suppose you could have everything in the world? Where would you put it?

Today, every employer has every job hunter’s information, and every job hunter has every job listing on the planet — right there, online. And none of them know where to put it.

LinkedIn was a great idea. It could be fostering a whole new era of job hunting and hiring, by showing people how to cultivate relationships and parlay them into opportunities to work together. But rather than raise the bar, LinkedIn’s career team is taking a reductionist approach. Rather than delivering the hope of good relationships by teaching people how to behave smarter, LinkedIn is selling a database.

Rather than create new career services based on the company’s trademark networking and relationship-building, LinkedIn has allowed its brand to be commandeered by the same people who brought you “better living through job boards.” Having turned Monster.com, CareerBuilder, and HotJobs into useless data dumps, they’ve glommed onto LinkedIn as a Great Brand ripe to be ransacked. But the brand can’t cover up the same-old dumb business model that cheats employers of their time and money, and job hunters of good job prospects.

Get Back to Work

LinkedIn is still a good idea, but if you want to use it to find a job, you’re better off using it the way it was originally intended. You have to invest your time to develop relationships that LinkedIn merely helps you start. You can’t send LinkedIn, like a dog with a note in its mouth, to apply for a job for you.

Don’t be a dummy. Don’t get suckered into another job-board-style “career service” that will do the work for you. No one can do this for you.

Check out Jason Alba’s LinkedIn For Job Seekers. Alba teaches you how to exploit the LinkedIn database by using your brain to develop and cultivate healthy relationships by doing a lot of hard work.

If you push the button, your naked LinkedIn profile instantly arrives — and sits — in some personnel jockey’s inbox while the job hunter who carefully cultivated a personal contact is already talking to the hiring manager. And you just look dumb and dumber by the minute.

So does LinkedIn.

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Looking for a job in America: Got a flashlight?

On July 15, 2011

I couldn’t make this stuff up.

A sales director with over 20 years’ experience managing sales teams pays MyJobHunter.com $50 to send out 500 job applications on his behalf. The guy’s wife’s beauty salon receives the resume and calls him for an interview. He didn’t know it, but his “job hunting agent” also submitted him for jobs as a receptionist, manicurist and fitness coach. Then he’s befuddled when a district manager from Krispy Kreme calls about his job application.

A U.S. executive pays JobSerf.com $98, which submits his resume for C-level jobs at porn companies because the team in Visakhapatnam, India that’s handling the job search doesn’t know what “XXX” and “adult entertainment” mean.

A guy in Washington, D.C. pays JobSerf to submit job applications on his behalf to land a job in finance. He gets a call from a company about a job selling playground equipment.

These people are looking for jobs — where?

Sanjay Dasgupta, head of the JobSerf team in Visakhapatnam, says his U.S. clients are to blame. They’re not clear about what they want, so JobSerf sends their resumes to inappropriate employers.

They’re laffing their asses off in India. Maybe this is outsourcing revenge.

A guy in Houston used MyJobHunter to send out so many resumes to the wrong companies that a recruiter who received his resume chewed him out. The guy’s comment? “I’d rather have too many submissions than too few.”

These stories are all reported in The Wall Street Journal: The Unemployed Worker’s New Friend: Outsourcers.

“Occasionally, the sheer abundance of job applications some clients send can spin out of control, forcing the services to cut them off. MyJobHunter’s service was once slowed by a customer who set his parameters so  wide that he applied for more than 20,000 jobs, said Lee Marc, CEO of eDirect  Publishing Inc., which owns MyJobHunter. ‘They’re like junkies,’ said Mr. Marc, who once had a customer apply to  10,000 jobs in a week.

Looking for a job in America: It’s a good idea for an outsourcing business in India, because there are a lot of dummies in America.  But if you sign up, ask for a flashlight, because it’s a long and winding road in there.

(What’s perplexing is that The Wall Street Journal exposes the underside of “paid job-hunting help” by reporting on two-bit companies like JobSerf and MyJobHunter.com — yet avoids the big kahuna in the pay-for-jobs rackets: TheLadders. Well-known for greasing the media channels, TheLadders slips through yet another investigative column about employment practices in the world’s leading business journal. Maybe it’s The WSJ that needs the flashlight.)

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TheLadders: A lipstick pig’s death rattle?

On June 27, 2011

TheLadders just keeps rooting around in its pen for scraps of executive job-board revenue. But this looks like a death rattle. There’s all the posturing:

The gimmicks have run out, and this pig still don’t hunt.

But today TheLadders CEO Marc Cenedella announced a new source of funding for his beleagured operation on CNBC’s Sqawk on The Street: Guaranteed job offers. (I thought Simon Hobbes was gonna pop a vein in his neck, his head was spinning back and forth so hard in disbelief.)

Yes: Guaranteed job offers. For $2,495, Marc Cenedella will get you a job offer (never mind for how much or for what job) within six months, or refund your money. Oh, you have to qualify for the service — TheLadders can’t do this for just anyone. But 90% of the suckers who sign up should get their jobs, says Cenedella.

This is the salve Cenedella offers to last year’s suckers. The ones that have been waiting for a “$100k+ job” after handing over $35/month for the past… how many months?

For years, TheLadders has been charging desperate rubes $35/month for access to a data dump that customers and employers alike complain is corrupted with jobs scraped from unwilling employers’ websites, jobs that pay far less than the promised “$100k+,” and long-defunct positions that employers and recruiters say never paid $100k to begin with.

You can read Cenedella’s announcement in his daily missive, titled “A job offer. Guaranteed. Or your money back. Introducting  ‘Signature’.” Or, you can get the real story by skimming over a few choice comments from his customers, which are posted on the same blog.

One commenter nails what’s happening: Cenedella is acknowledging that his $35 service doesn’t perform as promised.

Marc,
This new program completely invalidates “The Ladders”. It implies that regular users who were spending $35 a month had no realistic expectation of finding a job. As others have pointed out, paying $2,500 upfront for the privilege of maybe finding a job within 6 months is an absurd proposal, from a business investment point of view. If The Ladders actually did as advertised, there would be no need for Signature. This seems like a clear, opportunistic money-grab aimed at desperate, out of work people. It is very disappointing. — Seemanabe3

What does Cenedella expect his $35/month customers to do? Wait patiently while TheLadders’ staff “curates” jobs for the new high rollers?

Next, another customer suggests a double-or-nothing counter-offer:

Marc,
Are you ready? I’d gladly pay $5,000, doubling your money, if the guarantee stood AND the fee is billable after the first paycheck from the new employer. Feel free to contact me at cfc3803 yahoo .com. — cfc3803

Cenedella won’t take that deal. You should pay up front, he says, because that will motivate you: “Turns out a financial commitment from the professional is highly correlated with their commitment to the program, which is highly correlated to their success.” Which in turn is highly correlated to cashflow for TheLadders while you sweat it out for six months. (You could keep working on that $35/month project in the meantime… that might work, too.)

Then one of Marc’s customers slaps him upside the head, revealing that Cenedella could use a refresher course in Harvard math:

With a so called “90% success rate”, you should not have any problems billing when the job is accepted instead of up front. And since you would supposedly refund the unsuccessful 10%, you have nothing to lose. Only scammers charge up front! — Jerry

Marc Cenedella’s problem is that he likes to pretend he’s operating a headhunting firm that works for the job hunter rather than for the employer. But he doesn’t want to charge like headhunters do — upon a successful placement. He wants the fee up front. But no worries, he’ll give it back to you later if he doesn’t get you a job offer. He’s just gonna hold that $2,495 for your benefit.

Ask The Headhunter regular Larry Kaplan is a career coach. Larry has a better idea, and I agree:

I’d spend the $2,500 on taking 50 networking connections out to a nice lunch during that 6 months — I’d get a lot more out of it.

Some quick math on Cenedella’s new program suggests that for $2,495 Cenedella will give you 16 phonecalls with one of his crack counselors during that six months. Under Kaplan’s plan, for $2,495 you can do 32 generous lunches with people who might be able to really help you. (In both scenarios, as Cenedella puts it, you must make a “commitment to the program.” In Larry’s scenario, your own lunch is included!)

If Cenedella could deliver on what he’s offering, everyone earning $50,000 and up would be employed today, because they’d gladly fork over $2,500 for a guaranteed job. And Cenedella would have competitors on every street corner, selling jobs.

But you’ve never seen that, have you? There’s a reason.

A guaranteed job for money has always been the lead-turned-to-gold alchemy of the career industry. Even the most brazen racketeers don’t attempt to sell that bill of goods to desperate job hunters.

Except Marc Cenedella. He’s already drained the snake oil tank and emptied the pockets of legions of hopeful “subscribers” who now cry fraud. Now he’s cranking up the heat.

What you’re hearing is not the promise of job offers. What you’re hearing is the desperate death rattle of a career scheme cooked up by the founders of HotJobs a decade ago.

Take a pig — a churn ’em and burn ’em job board called HotJobs. Slap some $100k lipstick on it. Let the press and the media ogle and kiss up to it as the hottest idea in the biz… and you’ve got a pig waiting to be called to breakfast at the big sty in the sky. It seems pretty clear TheLadders is in deep trouble. Or Cenedella wouldn’t be guaranteeing jobs.

No matter how long I work in this business, I still shake my head when I see $100k+ suckers get turned into bacon. Scrub ’em up, get ’em ready.

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Your Internet Leavings: Do you leave a mess?

On May 16, 2011

In the May 17, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader asks whether what we post on the Net can hurt us.

Now that I’m job hunting, I’m taking stock of things I’ve posted around the Net. I wonder if my online writing could hurt my chances of getting hired. I suppose a diligent background check could turn up things I’ve written that could be misread. I also see that certain companies have policies prohibiting their employees from publishing blogs or anything that might reflect poorly on the company. Are we supposed to keep our mouths shut and stop posting online because “Big Brother” might find it? Is it best to use a screen name and to avoid identifying myself?

Here’s the short version of my advice: (For the entire column, you need to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter. Don’t miss another edition!)

…the Net is a great way to hang out with people — there are some great discussion forums to participate in and blogs where you can comment. Done right, it’s a good way to make valuable new contacts, and a way to build a reputation.

I believe the main reason a person’s postings on the Net can create problems is anonymity. If we think we’re anonymous, we’re more likely to post stupidly. How can you seem stupid if you’re anonymous? It’s not difficult, for someone whose job is to investigate you, to map your silly screen name to a similar e-mail address, Twitter account or Facebook page, and through your online haunts, and to track it back to you.

So, don’t be anonymous. Use your real name, or don’t post. Clearly identifying ourselves helps keep us honest — and undoubtedly helps decrease the litter of Internet leavings (and the load of nonsense) on the Net.

I try to practice this not only when I post, but when I judge a posting. If a real name doesn’t accompany a posting, I give it less credence. I want to know who is behind the words. I want to know they’ve put some skin in their statements…

(…Sorry, but you must subscribe to the newsletter to get the entire “Answer” and commentary in the newsletter… Don’t wait til next week… Sign up now… it’s free!)

…In a time when intellectual property (IP) is the real asset, why do people (and companies) want to suppress the identities of those who create that IP?

There will always be dopes who make themselves (and their employers) look bad online. But the potential to build a good, solid reputation across the Net starts with accountability. Anyone who doesn’t believe they leave a persistent image of themselves online has a lot to learn — the hard way. Those who “get it” can prosper because the Net is a phenomenal amplifier of good IP.

I’ll put this more clearly: A consistent, responsible body of useful postings on the Net identified by your real name can gain you the kind of notice that leads to good job opportunities. (Please see this old gem of an article by Susan Raskin: Mining Candidates: How top recruiters really use the Net to fill jobs.)…

…Your privacy is of course valuable. That may be why you decide to use a pseudonym. But, if you have something worth saying, and if you are thoughtful and circumspect, then I suggest you put your real name on your writings. It’s the rare individual who can be proud of the trail he or she leaves. While that trail might attract nuisances, it also attracts opportunities.

You drop stuff all over the Net every time you post a comment on a blog or social networking site. Are your leavings making you look bad? Or, do you drop gold nuggets that suggest you’re a golden goose? (Okay, enough of that metaphor.) How do you account for yourself online?

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TheLadders: How the scam works

On May 9, 2011

“The ladders is a scam, plain and simple. A class action lawsuit sounds like a good idea.”
— TheLadders (former) subscriber Robin Lynn

“I’d love to charge them for the amount of my time they wasted.”
— Employer Claire Peat, not a customer

TheLadders continues to discredit itself while suffering renewed attacks from its own paying subscribers, and now also from employers, who claim TheLadders is a scam. This article reports how job hunters and employers believe the scam works.

Recent disclosures reveal that TheLadders’s claims of exclusivity and “Only $100k+” jobs and candidates are untrue, and that it not only fails to deliver what it charges for, but that TheLadders interferes with the business of companies that are not even its customers.

UPDATE March 19, 2014Angry, frustrated customers of TheLadders who say they were scammed finally get their day in court. Federal Court OK’s Suit Against TheLadders: Breach of contract & deceptive practices

UPDATE March 12, 2013
A consumer protection class action suit has been filed against TheLadders. If you believe you’ve been scammed by TheLadders, you can join the suit by contacting the law firm that filed the complaint. More here: TheLadders sued for multiple scams in U.S. District Court class action

Among the key accusations is that TheLadders takes job listings from employers’ own websites without authorization, even after being told to stop, and that TheLadders misrepresents the salaries on those jobs so that it can beef up its questionable database of “50,000, high-level 100k+ executive positions.”

TheLadders CEO, Marc Cenedella, has admitted that 50% or more of those “$100k+” jobs are “scraped” from other online databases, over which TheLadders has no authority or quality control. At best, TheLadders may thus have no more than around 25,000 verified job listings that employers have actually posted in its database.

In the meantime, Cenedella also claims TheLadders has 4.5 million subscribers, earning “$100k+”, competing for those 25,000 “$100k+” jobs. (You do the math.)

Finally, employers have revealed that TheLadders costs them money, time and sometimes their reputations, when Ladders subscribers unwittingly apply for jobs that don’t exist or that employers never placed with TheLadders, or that don’t pay what TheLadders claims.

Frustrated employers and recruiters that don’t even do business with TheLadders say that angry Ladders subscribers blame them for misinformation delivered through TheLadders’ database, creating public relations problems.

In early 2011, TheLadders convened a public relations conference of job-board “consultants” and recruiting-industry “experts,” apparently in an effort defend itself against Internet-wide cries of fraud from its subscribers. Some of the attendees rushed home and posted glowing reviews of TheLadders’ business practices on their blogs.

The stark contrast between the intent of those bloggers — to laud TheLadders — and the resulting outrage of people who overwhelmed them with critical comments, created the embarrassing impression that the blog campaign was conducted by shills of TheLadders. While complaints from TheLadders’ job-hunting subscribers are common on the Net, the surprise on these blogs was the outpouring of complaints from employers.

The loud backfire of that Ladders public relations conference has led to new outcries of “fraud” and “scam” — this time with new details about how TheLadders does its business.

Frustrated Job Hunters

We’ve covered TheLadders extensively on this blog:

TheLadders: Going Down? | Rickety, Leads Nowhere | The Dope on TheLadders (230+ comments) | Marc Cenedella Sells E-mails: $30/month | TheLadders: Job-board salary fraud? (90+ comments) | TheLadders: A Long-Shot PowerBall Lottery Tucked Inside a Well-Oiled PR Machine (including audio from a Harvard presentation) | TheLadders’ Mercenaries to Critics: They’re good eggs! (40+ comments)

(There’s lots more if you type “TheLadders” in the search box.)

Most of these articles cite job hunters who say they’ve lost their money, wasted their time, and otherwise been screwed by misinformation and misleading advertising from TheLadders.

But the latest turn of the screw is being felt by employers, who now share experiences that suggest how TheLadders scam really works. (TheLadders’ business model is ultimately propped up by employers and recruiters that pay huge fees to access its database.)

The Scam

TheLadders promises to provide “only $100k+” jobs and candidates, but as demonstrated by Ladders employees, the company knowingly delivers jobs and job applicants that do not in fact earn or pay “only $100k+.” TheLadders claims to “hand-screen every job post,” but does not actually check those salaries with the employers that own the jobs. Read more →

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How you get cheated out of job offers

On April 4, 2011

Any good company will tell you that it loses business sometimes, to unscrupulous competitors who make promises to customers that they can’t keep, and who will quote artificially low prices to win business. The honest company loses money immediately, but it takes time for the naive customer to realize that the promised product at the lower price is of inferior quality; that customer support is non-existent; or that the vendor is just an outright fraud.

The customer gets hurt, and the honest vendor loses business.

It’s no different in the world of job hunting and hiring. While I believe people are generally honest, we’re kidding ourselves if we pretend that liars and cheats don’t steal jobs from honest job applicants.

We all know what the problem is: A troubled economy, employers that are hesitant to hire, and databases full of millions of resumes that employers pore over to find job candidates for you to compete against. It all lends itself to dishonest business.

So, you apply for a job, and you lose it to someone whose credentials are more stellar than yours. Or are they?

Liars, cheats & dirtbags

Employers today use sophisticated methods to check references, right? Quite a bit of the time, that’s wrong.

Many companies don’t check references at all, or they do only a cursory check. Worse, they outsource reference checking to naive “investigators” that are in too much of a hurry to do a good job.

Even when the human resources (HR) department does the checking, fabricated backgrounds and credentials can fool anyone but a savvy hiring manager who knows what questions to ask about a candidate’s work skills.

Just as you can buy a professionally-written resume (Is that a lie by itself, because you didn’t produce it?), you can buy fake college degrees and credentials. And now, with the help of a new kind of dirtbag “service,” liars and cheats can fake their entire background and their references. That’s who you’re competing against.

watchIsn’t that illegal?

But who would fake their entire background if it could get them tossed into jail?

Q) Is all of this legal?
A) YES! Perfectly Legal. Misinformation on a resume isn’t a crime!

So says TheReferenceStore.com, which will fake everything you need to convince an employer to hire you. Once you pay the fee, this fraud engine will create an entire fake record, including:

  • Fake companies you’ve “worked for,” complete with fake physical address and letterhead.
  • Fake employee bio including your actual photo on a complex and impressive, but fake, company website.
  • Fake HR managers who, when called for employment verification, will “make sure to use the FIVE HIRING BUZZ WORDS used among Human Resource Professionals” to make you look good.
  • Fake schools, including phone numbers and school websites for fraudulent verifications.
  • Fake phone numbers and voicemail boxes, answered by fakes (“Just like the REAL thing”).
  • Fake educational certificates, seminars, and training.
  • Fake resumes, dates of employment, and salary history.
  • Fake references (“We say… Whatever YOU tell us to say.”)

Is this really legal? I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t give out legal advice, but it seems that unless you’re lying to a legal authority or on a certification or contract, misinformation is “little more” than a blot on your integrity and reputation. TheReferenceStore.com says:

Q) What if I get caught?
A) With all things, there are risks. If the deception is discovered, you could very well be terminated; evicted or suffer embarrassment and humiliation.

In a MediaBistro interview, TheReferenceStore’s operations manager, David Everett, tells of a customer who paid the fraudster company “to build out a fake broadcast journalism career path. The new resume showed him growing in the business all the way to executive producer for a large radio station in the Great Lakes area.”

“‘We built two separate fake radio stations and one fake TV station,’ Everett explains, ‘where he claimed to have worked as an intern, writer, associate producer, and producer. We wrote a beautiful resume to correspond with the virtual history we created.'”

How does Everett sleep at night? Probably with hundred dollar bills wadded under his pillow. Beneath an image of a man praying, the website’s contact page playfully says, “Closed Sunday. And Brother??? We need it.”

Avoid liars & cheats

How do you compete with liars and cheats that use services like this?

Avoid hiring channels that expose employers to fraud.
Don’t apply via job boards or through blind resumes to the HR department, which might be suckered by candidates that supply convincing misinformation. When you get in the door through personal contacts who vouch for you, much of your competition disappears, because you’re the candidate with the proverbial inside track.

Of course, a job candidate who pays for a fraudulent history cannot claim to be from a major company — it would be too easy to check. But an HR manager may not realize that a reference call to a former boss’s home is actually being answered by David Everett. (“Just like the REAL thing.”)

Educate the employer.
How can you avoid being compared to people with glowing but fake credentials? Take along a copy of this newsletter, and offer to show the employer — right there on her own computer — how the fraud works. Ask the employer, “Do all your candidates demonstrate that they can do the job? I’m ready to do that.” (While How Can I Change Careers? is written for career changers, it’s for anyone who wants to stand out in the interview by showing they can actually do the job.)

If you feel you’ve got to join ’em because you can’t beat ’em, consider that Lies, lies, all lies just aren’t worth living with.

Well, now… isn’t this all a tad sensationalized and unreal? What if the employer Googles a fake employer or turns to higher-level verifications, like the state department of commerce where a fake company is supposedly located? Certainly, the fraud will be exposed. But not all the time. And not by all investigators. Many employers outsource their reference checking clerks who look only where they’re told to look. Then you lose. And the gamble pays off.

Employers: Get smart

What can employers do to protect themselves?

Limit the bureaucracy.
Employers should stop relying heavily on indirect candidate assessment methods like resumes, job application forms, and credit and background checks. Those are the security holes that dirtbags like TheReferenceStore are good at exploiting. They can fabricate references, but they can’t influence people you know and trust.

Recruit through personal contacts.
Have department managers talk to applicants before you put them through the mindless meat grinder. A savvy manager will spot a fraud that a greenhorn personnel jockey might not. The more personal the contact that brought the candidate through the door, the less likely the credentials are fake.

Use the legal means at your disposal.
When you recruit people that you found through personal sources you trust, the last thing you want to do is “process” them before they meet or talk with a hiring manager. But when you get to the point of filling out an application form, make sure it has teeth. Candidates should sign a statement attesting to the truth of everything on it. Don’t make it onerous, but make it a legal document. Explain to the applicant that the company does not tolerate lying or cheating: “That’s to your advantage. We try to make sure you’re competing with other honest applicants.”

Then, fire liars and publicize the fact that you do.

Playing the odds that HR is lazy

TheReferenceStore posts extensive disclaimers to protect itself legally, and makes it clear that you could get fired (and worse) by using its services. So, why do people use it? Because odds are, the next candidate a company interviews is honest. And the odds are against your having to compete with a liar or a cheat when you’re looking for a job.

That’s what TheReferenceStore counts on: Its lying, scum-sucking customers are rarities in the job market. No one is expecting them. Those customers are betting that no one will carefully check all those thousands of unknown applicants that employers process every day. Someone will slip through. To liars and cheats, those are acceptable odds. Remember: We’re not talking about people with integrity here.

But TheReferenceStore bets that employers are playing the odds, too. That’s the critical assumption in its business plan. TheReferenceStore knows that employers — rather than going out and recruiting the people they really want through sources they know and trust — will use job boards and unknown, indirect sources of candidates, because it’s easier. That’s why TheReferenceStore is in business: to capitalize on lazy gamblers on both sides of the hiring desk.

That’s how companies unwittingly hire liars and cheats, and it’s how you get cheated out of job offers.

Screwed

You were the best candidate. But the other guy cheated, lied, and faked his way into a job offer. You probably didn’t even know it.

Or, your company finds its candidates on job boards and outsources reference checking because HR is just too busy handling all those thousands of applicants coming through the pipeline. Do you know who your employees really are?

Dirtbag companies that sell fraudulent identities count on you to keep moving right along after you get screwed. How do you protect yourself from cheats and liars? Have you encountered cheats? Has your company caught one — especially one that used a service like the one described here? What did you do about it?

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Presumptuous Employers: Is this HR, or Proctology?

On March 28, 2011

In the March 29, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader complains that employers’ demands are very inappropriate. She says she’s applying for a job — not a loan. What’s up with consent forms to access personal credit records and other private information?

I had a good phone interview for a job that seems interesting. I’m visiting them next week for an interview. Today, they sent me an e-mail application (a wee bit premature… I’m not sure I want to apply until after the in-person interview) and, more shocking, a consent form to check my credit report. I think this is beyond inappropriate, not to mention the fact that my report is locked because my husband had his identity stolen a few years ago, and we have no idea where it was swiped from.

So, my question, how do I politely tell them I’m not filling out the forms until after the interview, and until I’ve decided to move forward? Do I even need to explain about the credit report? Is this a new thing? Why on earth would they need my credit report in the first place? They’re not loaning me money.

Here’s the short version of my advice: (For the entire column, you need to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter. Don’t miss another edition!)

Proctology?Imagine being asked to fill out a marriage license and to take a blood test before you have a first date with someone. Or to hand over your credit report before visiting a car dealer? Or to bend over for an exam before going on a job interview?

The explanation for this is simple. The HR department at this company doesn’t recruit or impress. This company’s HR department practices Pure Bureaucracy. Clueless about attracting talent, it serves warrants for information instead. I’m surprised they haven’t asked you to provide a urine sample yet. (Don’t laugh.)

You are right to question the request, and to decline to provide the information until after you have met with the hiring manager. If the company doesn’t have adequate information on which to base an interview, then it should not be talking to you.

Will saying “No” result in the interview getting cancelled? It might. There is always the chance that a company will dump you if you don’t do what it asks. On the other hand, most such requests are routine, and when people ignore them, companies often don’t even notice until it’s “too late.”

Here are your options:

  • Politely tell them you’d like to meet with the manager first. “If there’s mutual interest, then I’d be glad to fill out the forms. But a meeting is necessary to help us both decide that.”
  • Just ignore the request, show up, and do the interview. If they ask where the paperwork is, don’t pretend you forgot or were too busy. That would make you appear irresponsible. Instead, use the statement above. By then, you’re there, and they can deal with it.
  • Give them what they want. I don’t think this is a good option, because as you point out, it not only puts you at risk, it’s inappropriate and it’s a waste of your time.

I would not provide consent for a credit report, or even fill out application forms, until after you decide you’re really interested… [The rest of this advice is in the newsletter. Want more? Subscribe to the free newsletter, which will tell you more each week.]

If they press you, and you’re still interested in talking to a company that funds a bureaucracy, I I’d be frank: Your credit is locked because your identity has already been stolen:

How to Say It
“Many companies rely on third parties to perform credit and background investigations, and I know some of that checking is done overseas, in countries with no privacy protections. Having been seriously burned, my policy is not to grant consent unless I know exactly who is doing the checking, who will have access to my private information, and what will happen to it afterwards. I don’t permit my private information to be stored in anyone’s database. My lawyer would slap me if I did otherwise — this has already cost my husband and me a lot of money. I’m sure you understand.”

You could also ask the employer to sign a letter accepting liability if your information falls into the wrong hands. Then ask for a list of names of people who will have access to the information.

How to Say It
“I’m sure you realize… [Sorry, you’ve gotta get the free newsletter for the rest…]

Invasions of privacy by employers who have no vested interest in you, and that have not put their own skin into the game yet, are common. This is not a new thing… But again — taking a strong position could cost you an interview or a job. It’s up to you how far you go…

Sometimes you’ve got to wonder which department you’re walking into when you appear for a job interview. Is this HR, or Proctology? If people keep letting employers, investigators and background checkers poke around where they don’t belong, can the doctor be far behind?

Do companies seriously believe they’re recruiting when they tell you to drop trou and stand for inspection? Even before an interview? That’s not recruiting. It’s a joke. How far will HR go to abuse people before it tries to attract them? How impressed are you with a company that behaves this way?

And HR wonders why there’s a “talent shortage.” The only shortage is of common sense when recruiting and hiring. What do you do when employers want to check your teeth before they make you smile? (In case anyone got offended, I switched metaphors… so please post your comments and share your stories and suggestions.)

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Readers’ Comments: Did I really agree to that?

On February 21, 2011

In the February 22, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader worries about employers that bury little bombs in job offers that might get the new employee fired…

I read about an employee who sued after her company fired her for refusal to sign its new two-year non-compete agreement. She was fired for “non-compliance with company policy.” The court reaffirmed an old decision from California that an employer cannot lawfully require the signing of a non-compete agreement as a condition of continued employment, but I don’t know whether she has actually won her case. This raises the bigger question: How can people protect themselves against these kinds of surprise “attacks” from their own employers?

Here’s the short version of my advice: (For the entire column, you need to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter. Don’t miss another edition!)

Was it really a surprise? Or did she in fact agree to sign a non-compete agreement (NCA) when she accepted the job? According to your story, she wasn’t fired for refusing to sign the NCA, but for failing to comply with company policy. That’s key.

Your story reveals one of the big gotchas that people don’t think about when they accept a job offer. Most job offers include words along these lines: “By accepting this offer you agree to abide by the rules of the company’s employee policy manual… If you don’t, that’s grounds for dismissal.”

Thus, when you accept the terms in a job offer letter, you’re agreeing to additional terms defined in other company documents. How’s that possible? It’s called incorporation by reference. The offer letter references the policy manual, thus the policy manual is incorporated into the job offer—and so are its terms.

…My guess is that this is the essence of the court case you’ve described. She may have naively agreed to sign an NCA when she took the job. That may be why the company’s position is that she’s not in compliance with company policy.

So, what does this mean to the happy-go-lucky job hunter who gets a headache trying to understand a job offer? It means caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware. It’s up to you to understand what you’re agreeing to. A few tips:

First, read the offer carefully. (Or, back up a step. Make sure you have the job offer in writing.) [Details are in the newsletter. If I give you everything here, you’ll never sign up!]

Second, ask for all documents incorporated by reference in the offer. [More in the newsletter.]

Third, before you sign the offer, ask to see all documents you will be expected to sign after you accept the offer. [More in the newsletter. You’ll love it.]

I’m not a lawyer, and this is obviously not legal advice. It’s common sense based on experience. Remember that the company hired a lawyer to write all those documents. You are about to commit to a salary deal ($50,000? $150,000? More?). You’re at a disadvantage if you don’t have your own lawyer review the details of the deal.

(The flip side of this advice about offer letters is about employment contracts. If a company doesn’t give you a contract, maybe you should ask for one: Employment Contracts: Everyone needs promise protection. While such contracts are usually reserved only for executives, Bernie Dietz’s article makes a powerful argument that everyone should have a written employment contract.)

When you accept a job offer, you’re agreeing to live under the company’s rules. Have you seen the rules? Do you understand them? Don’t be so eager to accept the salary that you ignore the other components of the offer. Don’t wind up asking your lawyer after the fact, Did I really agree to that?

Oh, no! Getting a job offer is very exciting, especially if you decide to accept it. But sometimes, there are little bombs hidden in that offer, and in the documents you must sign before you start the job. Today’s Q&A is about such an explosion: The NCA. Have you ever been burned by terms in a job offer that you didn’t notice when you accepted it? How did you deal with it?

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TheLadders’ Mercenaries to Critics: They’re good eggs!

On February 10, 2011

Egg on FaceBeleaguered and battered by the press, by career industry pundits and — mainly — by its own customers, TheLadders recently convened a war council to round up industry “leaders” to defend its flagging reputation. But this little event quickly blew up in TheLadders’ face, and now it’s leaving egg all over TheLadders’ leading apologists, who are beginning to look like paid public relations flacks rather than industry leaders.

TheLadders paid these folks “T&E” — travel and expenses — to attend the meeting in New York. Then it wined and dined them, and plied them with sugared-up stories about its business model, its phenomenal growth plans, and how it’s changing the world of job hunting and recruiting for the better.

TheLadders fed them a load of bullcrap, gave them some Kool-Aid to wash it down, and then deployed them back to the field, to spread the dung around the Net in a desperate effort to put down the surge of highly-vocal customer dissatisfaction with TheLadders.

But not all the “leaders” swallowed the KoolAid or played along. HR consultant Mark Stelzner says he was skeptical about the event, but accepted the T&E and attended anyway, but only after he pinged his list to get its take on TheLadders:

“The results were shocking to me but may not be to others. I received over 800 messages in less than two weeks… and not one of them was positive.”

Aroused all the more by these reports, Stelzner attended the event and decided to put his list’s concerns to the test. But he quickly found himself relegated to “a corner table” after he started asking tough questions about TheLadders’ business model — and its practices.

Stelzner’s report on the meeting (Climbing All Over TheLadders) quickly triggered the first of TheLadders’ T&E Mercenaries, Josh Letourneau of Fistful of Talent, to take the first shot at Ladders’ critics with TheLadders: More Cirque Du Soleil Than Evil Empire. (Stelzner says that virtually the entire bullpen of the HR blog Fistful of Talent was in attendance.)

Among Letourneau’s targets were Laurie Ruettimann (The Cynical Girl), who recently explained, in her no-frills style, why The Ladders Is The Single Biggest Piece Of Crap, and yours truly (TheLadders’ Marc Cendella: Burying the Pig).

The “event” was already paying off, and battle lines were being drawn. Letourneau set the tone, disparaging bloggers who have published Ladders’ customers complaints as “sheep,” and reporting that, “TheLadders truly cares about their perception among us HR Pros and Recruiters.” (Later in his own thread, Letourneau complains about the “personal innuendo” he’s been subjected to by “the sheep.”)

Though she didn’t post on the topic, Alison Green (AskAManager) quickly took LeTourneau to task in a series of comments on his blog:

Wow. This misses the point altogether.

The issue isn’t that they charge job-seekers. Lots of people charge job-seekers, from job coaches to resume writers. Who cares? If people are willing to pay for a service, great.

The issue is that they LIE to job-seekers and engage in fraudulent business practices. They claim they offer a service that they don’t offer. I would bet money that a lawsuit is in their future, and it will be well-deserved… It’s disappointing to see writers sent on an expenses-paid junket and then turn out posts like this one.

Jeff Dickey-Chasins (Job Board Doctor), had already piled on in late January, amplifying the complaints of Ladders’ customers in Is it ever ethical to charge the job seeker?

Another thorn in TheLadders’ side, Matt Youngquist (Career Horizons), had already published P.T. Barnum & TheLadders.com, discussing what TheLadders’ customers have been screaming about: fraudulent promises and advertising:

They not only claim to sell you access to a pipeline of hidden leads, but also claim to “filter” these leads in a way that will save you lots of time and ensure you’re only bothered by $100K+ opportunities.  Throw some high-profile television ads and snazzy web design around this concept, and boy, it suddenly sounds like an irresistible bargain for the low, low price 0f $30-40 per month!  The problem?  These claims are bogus.

But TheLadders’ bigger headache is now coming from the public sector: Human services organizations funded with tax dollars to help the unemployed. Karla Porter is the Direc­tor of Work­force Devel­op­ment and Human Resources for a mid-size metro area cham­ber of busi­ness and indus­try and eco­nomic devel­op­ment agency in Pennsylvania. I don’t think she knew about TheLadders’s war council meeting, but had she been in attendance, she probably would have been seated at the same corner table with Stelzner, for asking the question, WTF are they smoking over at TheLadders? Commenting on TheLadders recent “pole dance” commercial, Porter says:

If The­Lad­ders thinks this is cool hip and fun then call me a prude — but as soon as I hit the pub­lish but­ton on this post I’m can­cel­ing my sub­scrip­tion, because I no longer have respect for their on the job behavior…[sic]

The last place TheLadders wants to get noticed for bad behavior is among publicly-funded jobs agencies. That’s what brings investigations by state offices of budget and management, and the attention of state attorneys general.

But it was only a matter of time before TheLadders got some real ROI from its T&E Mercenaries crowd. Long-time HR industry pundit John Sumser finally came to TheLadders defense today, with his ironic Who Pays? (Hey, John, TheLadders pays, for travel, beds, drinks and mercenaries.) I expected more from Sumser, because his industry vocabulary is deep and broad, so his cold-served replay of the party line developed by Letourneau and Fistful of Talent was disappointing.

The best Sumser could offer:

What I saw during the time I spent with theLeaders at theLadders was pretty instructive. The company is growing. Their ambitions are big. They know what they’re doing.

Note to TheLadders: Next time, don’t just pay Sumser T&E; pay the guy a fee, and maybe you’ll get better than this.

What makes The Mercenaries’ statements embarrassing and transparent is that none of them address the specific, documented complaints leveled by TheLadders’ own customers. While painting a pretty picture of TheLadders’ financial success, and while telling us about the big smiles on the faces of the enthusiastic and brilliant Ladders employees, Letourneau and Sumser totally ignore the challenges issued by Ladders customers and its critics. They don’t answer, just like TheLadders’ didn’t answer Mark Stelzner’s tough questions at the war council meeting.

But they have no answers. It’s all public relations poppycock and verbal 3-Card Monte. In my comments to Letourneau, I said:

Josh: I’m calling you out. You asked, “Can you elaborate? What are they lying to Job Seekers about?”

I answered your question, which now appears to have been gratuitous.

If you really have standards for public discourse, it’s your turn: Respond to the examples I gave you.

Respond to Martin Burns, who provides one of the most damning indictments of TheLadders’ business practices that anyone could [on Letourneau’s own blog]: TheLadders posts jobs without the permission or knowledge of employers, thereby causing them embarrassment and unnecessary costs. This is an ongoing practice: I have published and cited other examples of Burn’s experience.

What I’m posting is not opinion. It’s evidence provided by Ladders customers — and, in the case of Martin Burns’ company, victims. Your opinions notwithstanding, let’s talk about the substance of the complaints, and about Ladders’ practices, which clearly seem to be systemic.

I posted a comment to Sumser’s PR pabulum a few hours ago, and I reprint it here because I won’t wait for him to decide to publish it. It’s really my response to all TheLadders’ Mercenaries, who have compromised themselves as credible, objective observers of the career and HR industries:

John,

You don’t offer any new spin on the apologists’ defense of the Ladders, but you base your entire post on the same fallacy. Paying for career help or for job listings isn’t the criticism. If someone can make a buck helping people get jobs, that’s good. And if those people actually land jobs by paying for help, that’s good, too.

The criticism against TheLadders is that the company’s practices are fraudulent. TheLadders doesn’t deliver what it charges for.

And, like the other Ladders’ apologists, you don’t address that anywhere in your post. You ignore it. You ignore the substance of all the critiques — “the noise” — that you disparage.

The rest of your post is fluff — a 3-Card Monte game that’s clearly designed to distract folks from the facts and information that many Ladders critics (myself included) have presented to demonstrate the fraud.

Your real agenda is revealed in this statement: “any publicity is good publicity. The critics may be a part of theLadders growth engine. The louder the noise, the faster the growth.”

Pure public relations flak. Because, John, not all publicity is good publicity. “Loud noise” might contribute to faster growth, but growth doesn’t prove the integrity or value of a service or of the company behind it. All it means is that more suckers are paying up. And if that’s your criterion for backing, defending and endorsing a business, well, go for it, Man.

You have not addressed any of the detailed, credible criticisms directed at TheLadders. Instead, like others who’ve been wined and dined by TheLadders, you just wrote a public relations release for Marc Cenedella.

I called out Josh Letourneau, and I call you out, too. Address the specific complaints of Ladders customers, and of employers who have been abused by TheLadders.

Yo, John! It ain’t about how much money TheLadders is making, or how clever its ad company is, or whether the investment bankers descide to buy in to this racket.

It’s about TheLadders’ customers getting screwed — job hunters and employers alike.

Maybe you’ve been wined and dined so many times that you’ve forgotten what this is all about?

Late yesterday, The Wall Street Joural reporter Joe Light called me to talk about the controversy that TheLadders’ customers have stirred up. He said he was preparing for a meeting today with TheLadders’ president, Alex Douzet. Can’t wait to see whether Douzet serves up some fresh answers, because those rotting eggs are starting to smell really bad.

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Work for free, or no interview for you!

On January 24, 2011

One of my favorite job-advice pundits is The Evil HR Lady, Suzanne Lucas, who calls ’em as she sees ’em. In her current post, Job Interview or Bake-Off?, she deals with the subject of employers who tease job hunters with interviews… if only they will do some free work first.

Say what?

It happens more often than you’d think. The employer wants to see samples of your work. Well, not just samples, but, Here’s an assignment that will take you a few days to complete. Bring us the results… heh-heh… and we’ll see which “candidate” did the best job.

Then it’s off to the bank with your work… while you cool your heels “waiting to hear back.”

ConmanI’ve known a handful of people who have actually worked for a few days at no charge, to show an employer that they are really expert at the work. (In every case, the person got the job, and also got paid for the time they invested. Why would anyone even try this if they weren’t 100% confident of the outcome?) But it wasn’t because the employer asked them to — it was because they suggested it. It was never a case of, Do the work, or you get no interview.

My bet is that the “creative” job hunter in the Evil HR Lady’s column is being scammed, whether intentionally or not.

While I advocate “showing the employer what you can do,” I draw the line at doing free work, unless the integrity of the employer is beyond reproach. This reader wouldn’t be asking the question if it were.

If the employer here is merely naive, I’d like to know whether “the work” to be delivered is something the employer can actually use and profit from, or is it merely a demonstration of your skills? Even if there’s nothing in the work that the employer can profit from, the problem is that “2-4 days of work” is going to cost the job applicant a lot.

It’s simply unethical (and perhaps illegal) to ask job candidates to deliver actual work like that. But it’s not uncommon. It’s part of Deceptive Recruiting, a topic I’ve already covered in its myriad nasty forms.

If I were the applicant, I’d offer other means of demonstrating my abilities. If the employer insists on a bake-off, I’d submit a bill in advance for my time and ask the employer to pay it prior to submitting anything.

What if the employer says no dice, as the job applicant in this story fears? Then I’d submit a detailed non-disclosure agreement for them to sign — along with an agreement that they will not use the work product in any way, shape or form except to evaluate you.

Let’s see how ethical they really are.

There’s nothing wrong with showing an employer what you can do, and the extent to which you do that must be based on the employer’s integrity. And there’s nothing wrong with walking away from jerks who want free work. Because, what do you think they’re going to want from you if they hire you?

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