Protecting yourself from recruitment scams

Recently we’ve seen  a significant rise in jobs scams, often featuring fraudsters impersonating recruitment companies or consultants. 

At PageGroup, we’re doing everything we can to spread awareness of the tactics use by fraudsters  to help protect individuals and organisations from scammers using our company or consultant’s name. 

Warning signs to look out for 

We’ve compiled a list of the warnings signs to look out for that could indicate you’ve been contacted by a scammer posing as a recruitment consultant or company:

PageGroup “consultant” or brand requesting: 

  • Personal financial details.
  • You pay a fee to be put forward as a candidate for a role.
  • Money on behalf of another individual.

Social Media (i.e., LinkedIn / WhatsApp / Telegram) from a purported recruitment consultant with:

  • A lack of activity, information, or contact details on their profile.
  • A suspicious or no profile picture.

Communications of any sort guaranteeing employment or income.

PageGroup will never request direct payment from a candidate or contact you via WhatsApp, Telegram, or equivalent apps.

All communications from PageGroup or our consultants will be sent from official PageGroup / Michael Page / Page Executive / Page Personnel / Page Outsourcing email addresses. These are:

@mail.michaelpage.com
@mail.pagepersonnel.com
@mail.pageexecutive.com
@mail.pageoutsourcing.com
@e.michaelpage.co.uk

@e.pageexecutive.com
@e.pagepersonnel.co.uk
@mail.michaelpage.ca
@email.page.com
@mail.michaelpageafrica.com
@mail.michaelpage.ae
@e.michaelpage.ae
@e.michaelpageafrica.com

How to spot a scammer webpage

There’s also been a rise in cases of fraudsters cloning the sites of legitimate recruitment consultancies in an attempt to steal money and/or the personal details of job seekers and hiring managers. 

Here are the key things to look out for: 

  • SSL Certification – This is a digital certificate that authenticates a website’s identify and enables and encrypted connection, depicted by a padlock icon to the left of a URL. To check the legitimacy of a site, we could encourage you to verify the SSL by clicking this padlock. If a site doesn’t have one, this could be a sign of a scam website. 
  • Missing information – If a site doesn’t have an “About Us” section or contact information it could be a sign of a scam.
  • URL Check – Check the URL of a site conforms with traditional formats. Look for spelling errors, unusual domain extensions (outside of .com/.ca), or copy and paste the URL into Google and it’ll show you the company’s legitimate website. 

PageGroup official websites are: 

Warning sites for webpages

There has also been a rise in cases of fraudsters cloning the sites of legitimate recruitment consultancies in an attempt to steal money and/or the personal details of job seekers and hiring managers. 

To check the legitimacy of a site, we could encourage you to verify the SSL certificate. In most browsers this can be done by clicking the padlock on the far left of the URL. If it doesn’t have one, this could be a sign of a scam website. 

More information

For more information on recruitment scams and how to spot them, check out the dedicated page by Action Fraud, the National Fraud and Cyber Crime Reporting Centre.  

To let PageGroup know about a potential scam using our name, please get in touch with your local office here.