By: Jharana Chalise
If you are one of the extremes – either very skeptical or totally trusting of jobs and internships you find online – then you need to adjust your expectations to be somewhere in the middle. Not every job or internship posting that you find online is real; in fact, a lot of them can be scams, but there are many legitimate job and internship postings that are available online.
Here are some ways to spot sketchy jobs/internships
- Actual companies won’t ask you to pay any money upfront
Search the company name online and the hiring database to find reviews and to verify their legitimacy- From personal experience, I recommend that you check the address of the company where the interview is being conducted to see if you can find their building on the map, and see if the address is personal or the company’s
- Search for complaints about the company through websites like the Better Business Bureau
- Beware of vague job descriptions; look for detailed, clear postings
- Check the company review/ratings on Glassdoor
- Review If the pay does or doesn’t match job title or responsibilities
- If you received an e-mail with the job or internship posting, check to see if you received it from a personal e-mail or an actual company e-mail
- Check to see if there are any grammar mistakes on the job posting or e-mail communications; if there are, it may need to be investigated further as most legitimate companies edit their postings
What to do if you are a victim?
- First: Don’t Be Embarrassed – scams can be very sophisticated these days and it’s easy to not spot problems ahead of time
- Second: Report the crime – file a complaint through Internet Crime Complaints: ic3.gov
- I was personally a victim of a job scam so I have spread awareness through our local news: wbaltv
- Make sure all of your financial and e-mail accounts are secure – change your passwords for all of your accounts and monitor your credit/debit cards for suspicious activities.
The 5 Best Legitimate Websites to Find Internships
- Handshake
- Interships.com
- Positions applied through the company website directly
- USAJobs.gov
- LinkedIn – Make Sure the messages that you get are legit
References: HerCampus
