I Received an Offer Without Interviewing. How Can I Tell If It Is Legit?
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
I know someone that this happened to and share their story as part of my answer and then add on a few details.
I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I’m a career coach who helps businesses, people, well, I help people find new jobs. I help them hire better, manage and lead teams better, you know, just overall be more effective in the workplace.
And this video is response to a question I received from someone where they describe receiving a job offer from a small firm, and they never interviewed, and they want to know how can they tell if it’s legitimate?
Now, my wife has a friend who spoke with me about a similar situation. She had a resume posted on a job board and received an offer from them, and was at the point where they were telling her that they were going to ship a computer to her to go to work. And she said, “This is weird, you know?” And she was right about it being weird.
And I’ll just simply say, I don’t recall if there was any money that needed to exchange hands for the computer being shipped, I don’t think so, but I suggested a very simple thing: call the firm and start off by asking for the person who ostensibly is made the offer to you and see if they’re there. So, that’s step number one, because ostensibly, this, you know, it could be a large firm, it could be a small firm. You just want to confirm that one piece of information.
Now, in her case, when she made the phone call and discovered there was no one there by that name, she followed up by saying, “You know, I’ve received this email with an offer to come to work for the firm and do it remote.” And they said, “Hold on one second,” and went on the, the line with her to indicate that this scam has been going on for a while for reasons that they do not know, and you know, they just want to let her know that they had not made such an offer.
Now, that’s one obvious way of doing it. Number two is: Google. Start off with a Google search. You see one or two things about this firm? Well, how trustworthy can this firm be if they haven’t really done any PR? “Oh, we’re a brand new startup.” All right! Now, tell me more about your brand new startup where you’ve made an offer without interviewing anyone, and thus have no way of determining whether I’m competent. I happen to be, but I want to understand how your business model works where you’re hiring people without interviewing.
And this doesn’t have to be said with arrogance, it just has to be said somewhere along the lines, along the lines. Again, if there’s no information about this firm, if you can’t find them on LinkedIn, or there’s basically, you know, nonsense stuff there, as sometimes happens on LinkedIn corporate profiles, and sometimes happens on LinkedIn people profiles, find the person on LinkedIn as well, and see if you can connect with them.
Discover what happens. Tell them you want a little bit of time to absorb the fact that you’ve gotten an offer without interviewing. Talk to people who they claim are clients of theirs. Find out about the work that they’ve done with them. Once you start getting information that sounds legitimate, you can start removing some of the skepticism.
And if it requires relocation, obviously, ask them for relocation money. If it involves work at home, understand the terms of employment. Again, you need to know more, and you have the wisdom to know that this doesn’t smell good. And usually, if it doesn’t smell good, it isn’t good. But we have to give a little bit of doubt here, just to be safe.
I’m Jeff Altman. Hope you found this helpful. Visit my website, thebiggamehunter.us. I’ve got a lot more there that you can watch, listen to, or read that’ll help you find work more quickly. Also want to mention, if you’re interested in one-on-one coaching, you can schedule a free discovery call with me at the website. You know, I’d be happy to talk with you and see if coaching you, you know, I can help you as a coach.
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
People hire Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter to provide No BS Career Advice globally because he makes many things in peoples’ careers easier. Those things can involve job search, hiring more effectively, managing and leading better, career transition, as well as advice about resolving workplace issues. He was the host and now produces “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 3200 episodes.
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