With midterms past and scheduling underway, it is also the time of year to start applying for spring internships and jobs.
To conduct this search, college students and recently graduated twenty-somethings may go straight to the Internet to find what they are looking for, just like they do everything else. But when it comes to looking for a job, the Internet may not always be the best answer.
Trey Truitt, associate director of Employment Services for Career Services, said job postings on external sites like Craigslist are not always reliable.
Truitt said he has had experiences with students in recent years that have fallen victim to fraudulent job postings outside the Careers2Geaux system, with job posting on external sites asking for credit card information or initiating money transfers right after a student applies for a job.
“In essence, students have been provided some form of pre-payment for work, and upon deposit of the money, their accounts have been whipped out,” Truitt said.
Fraudulent employers tend to provide quick compensation for work and tend to hire before interviewing a candidate, which is a tempting deal for the typical job-hungry college student.
Truitt said the key to picking out fraudulent postings is looking for short descriptions or personalized email addresses that do not match up the companies the employer claims to be representing.
Truitt said that over the past few years, Career Services has put in place various measures to eliminate as many fraudulent postings as possible.
LSU Police Department spokesman Capt. Cory Lalonde said there have been no recent reports of that nature, but students should immediately report such suspicious activity.
All job posting on the Career Services website go through an extensive vetting process conducted by dedicated staff members who review every job posting.
“Careers2Geaux has over 500 job postings that have all been evaluated,” Truitt said.
In the event that an employer posts a suspicious job description, it is red flagged on the website and investigated further by Career Services professionals, Truitt said.
Although the processes are in place to protect students from fraudulent postings, it doesn’t mean that those posting can’t sneak into the system, Truitt said.
“We pride ourselves in trying to vet every job listing we get and educating our staff internally on the trends in job scams,” Truitt said.
However, Truitt said students should be more vigilant when using websites like Craiglist.
“I can’t imagine having to deal with this and also trying to be a student,” Truitt said.
In the event a student does fall victim to job fraud, Career Services helps students notify LSUPD.
Lalonde said that the investigative team handles these cases and uses the job listing to track down the “employer.”
“More often than not, they originate oversees,” Lalonde said. “Once it is traced out of the country, it is out of our jurisdiction to prosecute.”
In these instances, Lalonde said the case is referred to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, which is a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.
“If students do see suspicious job postings, we still want to know about it,” Lalonde said. “Students just need to be careful and be wary.”