Welcome to The Long View—where we peruse the news of the week and strip it to the essentials. Let’s work out what really matters.
This week: Don’t get scammed looking for a job, and momentum grows for the 32-hour working week.
1. Indeed, LinkedIn Full of Scammers
First up this week: Recruitment scams are getting more and more clever. Do your due diligence. And never shell out on the promise of reimbursement.
Analysis: It’s a jungle out there
LinkedIn says it’s got the problem under control. But reports are still rife—including from legit recruiters who’ve been shut down.
Ian Johnston: LinkedIn scammers step up sophistication of online attacks
“Lay-offs in the tech sector”
LinkedIn has been hit by a rise in sophisticated recruitment scams. … The warning comes as the Microsoft-owned social media company said it has sought to block tens of millions of fake accounts in recent months, while US regulators warn of an increase in jobs-related cons.
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Jobseekers on the world’s largest professional network are being defrauded out of money after taking part in fake recruitment processes set up by scammers who pose as employers, before obtaining personal and financial information.
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Remote working has accelerated the trend. [As have] recent lay-offs in the tech sector.
Arianne Cohen: Here’s How to Not Get Burned
“Don’t be fooled”
Savvy job hunters are becoming victims of increasingly personalized hoaxes. … Today’s scam ads are often indiscernible from legitimate listings, and can appear on reputable job sites like LinkedIn and Indeed. … Of the 22,325 job scams reported to The Federal Trade Commission in the third quarter of 2022, the median loss was $2,000.
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Right now, job-hungry populations are being targeted, such as people laid off by tech companies. … The boom in remote jobs allows scammers to advertise positions or companies that don’t necessarily exist. … Today’s scams are surprisingly elaborate, with fake company websites and phone or video interviews.
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Don’t be fooled by very individualized recruiting. … Downloads are a no-no. … Do not pay for anything. … Ask a lot of questions.
But how are people falling for these scams? nealric shows the way:
I can see desperate people falling for something. It wouldn’t be a straight-up demand for cash. More likely something like a request to use their “travel agent” to book interview travel (with a … promise that the company would reimburse the expense).
How does it go down? u/insincerechili decided to play along:
I applied … and had my “interview” today. It was entirely chat based and had very vague questions. At the end of the interview they said that they were going to “send my answers to the hiring board for review and consideration.”
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100% it is a scam. But it is fun to see … what direction they will go in. … The “recruiter” got back with me and said my interview was top tier and they were going to connect me with my supervisor. All they needed was my name, date of birth, address and banking information LOL.
LinkedIn proudly boasts of many automatic takedowns, but beware of false positives. See slkg’s sad story:
We are a startup and have been recruiting on Linkedin since end of Oct. We have not hired anyone via Linkedin yet but we kept the job post open as we have filtered through many candidates and they don’t get to apply again to the same job post and we were saving candidates for later stages. Anyways, our recruiter account got cancelled, all data was lost, job posting closed. Huge amount of man hours wasted and zero candidates to show.
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Then their customer support rep offered to restore the data. … It was established by Linkedin that our account got cancelled on unfounded claims. … Meanwhile, we started paying for Recruiter again and posted the job, two days later when we had enough candidates to start filtering them, our recruiter account got cancelled again. They said the profile picture is not yours. It is 100% my co-founder’s photo and they already have his driver’s license to prove it.
The scam is LinkedIn itself, says bkmoore:
The scam is convincing whole professions that if you’re not active on LinkedIn, you’ll miss out, your career will flounder, and you’ll die at the bottom of a deep, dark hole. 99% of the people on LinkedIn are only there because they’ve been brainwashed to thinking they have to be.
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The other part of the scam is you basically become free labor for LinkedIn, generating engagement, content, etc. If you work really hard for free, maybe Linked-In will reward you, by telling you that you’re an “influencer” or some BS. I quit LinkedIn and won’t be back. … Like all social-media, [it] just made everyone a whole lot stupider.
2. The 4-Day Workweek is Coming
After its recent pilot successes, expect to hear much more about limiting the working week to 32 hours or so. And now, many states are taking notice.
Analysis: “Not for everyone” is a convenient cop-out
You know stuff’s getting real when legislators start talking tax credits. But beware the usual antibodies attacking new ideas.
Scott MacFarlane and Analisa Novak: Some states consider legislation making 4-day workweeks more common
“Not suited for all employers”
Stay-at-home orders issued at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic gave millions of workers their first taste of flexible work arrangements — and some employers discovered that less can be more. … At least half a dozen states … are considering legislation to make four-day workweeks more common. Among those states is Maryland, where lawmakers recently introduced a bill [that] would allow some employers that participate to claim a tax credit.
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Employees in four-day workweek studies have reported less stress and less burnout, as well as better physical health. … More than 90% of the companies that took part … said they would make a four-day workweek permanent.
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[But] similar proposals have failed in the past. … Some critics have argued that a four-day workweek is not suited for all employers.
Probably not. But renjimen is more glass-half-full:
It’s so strange to me how opposed to four-day workweek [some] are. It seems like the main grievance people have is how businesses will be affected (despite the study showing negligible or positive impact), while downplaying or ignoring the huge quality of life improvements.
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A business is just a lifeless entity with very little meaning, while your time is the single most meaningful thing to you. … Why wouldn’t you want to live in a society where people are happier and business continues as usual?
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How do you know until you try? What makes five days the optimal number? It’s just some historical compromise we settled on with no scientific support.
Meanwhile, junkname isn’t surprised:
Of course even the mythical 9–5 job very rarely exists. It’s really 9–6, with an unpaid hour ‘lunch break’ that many tech workers work at their desk while eating.
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It’s no wonder tech companies that went to a 4×8 schedule experienced a boost in productivity and profit. Coupled with work-from-home and you are looking at a potential time savings of 23 hours a week for the worker (10 hours travel time, paid lunches adds 5 hours, no Fridays adds 8 more). What could you do with an extra 23 hours of personal time per week in your life?
The Moral of the Story:
Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it
—Charles Swindoll
You have been reading The Long View by Richi Jennings. You can contact him at @RiCHi or [email protected].
Image: Stephen Leonardi (via Unsplash; leveled and cropped)
