Safer Jobs was set up in 2011 by several of the major players in the recruitment and on-line recruitment industry including: Adecco, Fish4, Executivesontheweb, Guardian Group, Hays, Jobsite, Manpower, Monster, Reed and Total Jobs.
The purpose of Safer Jobs is to help protect jobseekers, employers and service providers from crime during the process of recruitment process.Job scams are on the rise – the Daily Telegraph lists job scams in Top 10 scams to watch out for in 2014. Fraudsters use fake jobs for many reasons; to gain financial reward by tricking job seekers into parting with cash upfront, to steal people’s personal information such as bank or identity details, to use malware to steal money straight from people’s bank accounts, or in some cases, such as the more common to the US scam of using a person’s bank account for ‘clients’ to pay into for the individual to then transfer on, to trick people into unwittingly laundering money.
According to the Safter Jobs site:
1. Using a Recruitment Company who are a Member of an Industry Association means An Extra Level of Checks
Reputable recruitment companies who are members of a trade association will have had their baseline processes checked. The REC (Recruitment & Employment Confederation), APSCo (Association of Professional Staffing Companies), and TEAM (The Employment Agencies Movement) all require their member organisations to adhere to a set of standards. This gives an additional level of reassurance to job seekers that they are dealing with a reputable company. To check this is simple, either search for the association logos on the company website, or go direct to the association and search by member. These companies will be working hard to protect their own reputations and will therefore have standards in place to prevent job scams.
2. Using a Recruitment Company means Someone to Report to
The REC, APSCo, and TEAM all offer impartial, 3rd party complaints and investigation processes meaning any job seeker not happy with a member organisation has somewhere to report. This means if a job seeker is concerned about job scams, they have a third party to report to. All job seekers can also report to SAFERjobs using our online reporting tool at www.safer-jobs.com. If a job seeker does become the victim of a job scam after using a recruitment company who are a member of an association, there is still the opportunity for the organisation to be investigated.
3. Using a Recruitment Company means High Standards
Recruitment companies are passionate about what they do and about protecting their reputation. As the issue of job scams grows, so too does the vigilance and understanding shown by recruitment companies. They use this learning to develop their own systems and processes to ensure job seekers do not fall victim to a scam. Recruitment companies also have to meet legislative standards. The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EASI) are a government organisation who work to uphold those standards and deal with any issues that do occur. Any job seeker can also report wrongdoing to EASI, providing a further place to report.
4. Using a Recruitment Company means a High Level of Vigilance
Recruitment companies also want to protect their job seekers and clients as repeat business is critical to the future of their business. This means recruiters will take extra steps to ensure jobs, companies, and information is genuine and correct. Genuine companies won’t mind job seekers checking the information. This means job seekers can and should contact recruitment companies by landline to follow up enquiries and to check details they have been given are correct. A consequence of the growth in job scams is the volume of advice urging job seekers to meet potential employers / recruiters. Indeed, reputable recruiters will want to build the relationship with the job seeker, this means face-to-face or Skype interviews, whereas the majority of fraudsters keep the relationship purely over email. As a result, Recruitment Agency Now claims this actually boosts the reputation of reputable recruiters who are keen to build a relationship with the job seeker. Recruitment Agency Now make the point that the old-fashioned skill of relationship building will help build the reputation of the industry and minimise the possibility of job fraud. Job seekers need to be confident in checking the information, both online and by phone, and the genuine companies really won’t mind.
There is lots more information on the site for recruiters, jobseekers and job boards.
