A Tale of Two Scammers

Everyone knows job scams exist. The problem is how sophisticated the "credibility-building" markers have become.

For example, yesterday, I received a message about a leadership opportunity that didn't read like typical spam.

Because it referred to several specifics of my background:

Wharton → finance → Georgetown → Johns Hopkins → executive leadership → career development

Those are real things. The opportunity sat at the intersection of strategy, leadership, and talent development. A plausible description of something I might genuinely be interested in.

Later that afternoon I had a coaching appointment. My client wanted help crafting a unique reply to a promising lead: a direct reach-out by a Partner in Executive Search at Beacon Hill.

Beacon Hill is real. It is an established recruiting and executive-search firm. Besides, my client and I had expressly agreed at our last session that top-tier executive search firms would be part of her hashtag#jobsearchrch strategy.

Again, the email was super-tailored to her professional background. Then she shared the follow-up email.

Me: Wait! That sounds very familiar. As in, VERY, familiar.

I checked my sender's domain, searched for the organization, looked for the supposed recruiter, checked LinkedIn, and tried to establish a normal connection between the individual, the company, and the email domain.

Two out of the three didn't exist.

In my client's case, the Partner claimed to represent Beacon Hill. The latter, of course, checked out, but clicking on the sender's name revealed a Gmail address.

Meanwhile, said Partner was not listed on the firm's team page.

Then came the most comical part. The follow-up emails.

Different names. Different supposed firms. Different candidates.

Yet, EXACTLY the same script:

"I appreciate that your schedule is likely demanding..."

"Given the strategic nature of this leadership appointment..."

"I'd be pleased to share the executive opportunity brief..."

The personalization had changed. The machinery underneath it had not.

The job market is difficult enough as it is, and hope is in limited supply. Yet this is precisely why one needs to be much more alert:

-A real company name does not authenticate the sender.

-A reference to something genuinely impressive on your CV does not mean someone has genuinely researched you.

-Today, somebody can take publicly available information and generate a highly plausible message in seconds:

Wharton + finance + Johns Hopkins + Georgetown + leadership

The message feels personal because the inputs are personal. That does not mean the opportunity is real. And even before anyone loses money or personal information to a scam, there is another cost: the time, attention, and hope invested in an opportunity that never existed.

More tomorrow on setting up screening rules. And, yes, TARA will cover that part. 🙂

hashtag#JobSearch hashtag#ExecutiveSearch hashtag#Recruitment hashtag#Phishing hashtag#CareerAdvice hashtag#Careercoaching