They advertised a design job directly on LinkedIn on January 5, 2016,receiving 132 applicants (I foolishly applied and was promptly ignored).
The same job was advertised again – as a new job – on February 11, when it received 114 applicants (no, I didn’t bother applying). That makes 246 total
applicants at this point.
On March 13, it appeared for a THIRD time, receiving 120 applicants.
We’re up to 366 now.
And here it is again on May 9, with a mere 57 applicants (perhaps people are wising up to this scam).
After the 02/11 appearance, I
decided to send them an old-fashioned complaint letter via their Facebook page.
I came right out and asked just what kind of game are they playing here,
listing all the links and offering a few choice words, “Is your ‘Recruiting
Coordinator,’ Banesa Vasquez, so incompetent that out of 246 applicants she
couldn’t find even one qualified designer in all this time, particularly in a
city where designers are a dime a dozen? Word of advice: People are starting to
take notice of companies posting fake jobs, like this one. I strongly suggest you get your act together. Not only do you
look very bad here, but you make America look bad.”
No response
received.
After the 05/09
appearance, I sent an email to both of their "public relations" contacts
(found on their website). I repeated the details from the Facebook
message, pointed out how disingenuous they appear here, and, “Do you
keep re-advertising it because you get a federal tax break for being a 'job creator' (despite the job being fake)? Or, are you just trying
to fool your competitors into thinking you're expanding? Or, are you soliciting
applicants' personal information via their resumes for ulterior motives -- for
example, using the company names obtained from their work histories as a source
of potential sales leads? Or, is this just an astonishing case of incompetence?”
I ended it with suggesting that they apologize to all 437 applicants who were
duped into thinking they were applying for a real job.
No response received.
Finally, I wrote a
letter to the CEO, Barry Gosin, via snail mail with signature confirmation:
After being ignored by your recruiting representative, your Facebook administrator, and your public relations team, it is clear that your company simply does not respond to any digital communication, hence I am sending this letter via USPS. I have attached a copy of the email I sent to your public relations team in regards to the graphic designer job that you have been advertising ad nauseam on LinkedIn since January. I questioned why you continue to post this job even after you amassed several hundred applicants. I also pointed out that I send a similar message to your Facebook administrators and I received NO response. Not surprisingly, I received no response from your public relations team. You are quite obviously a company with no ethics. I am sending a copy of this letter along with the enclosures to the US Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Branch in the hopes they will investigate this matter, as I am convinced you are harvesting applicants’ personal information for ulterior motives.
About a week after
sending this, I received a phone call from some girl who could barely speak coherently. She said that they
found an internal candidate for that job -- surprise! the job was COMPLETELY
FAKE FROM THE START! -- and the only other design job they currently have open
is in their New York office and would I be interested in hearing more about it. I told them I have no desire to do business with
them. She said "well,
whenever you see another job on our website you're more than happy to
apply." More than happy to apply. Yep, that's what she said...unbelievable that they would put such an inexperienced kid in charge of damage control
here. Good grief. I hung up the phone and sincerely hoped that this would put
an end to the fake job postings (because I really do feel sorry for people who
just aren't as aware as I am of what's going on).
Boy, was I wrong. Almost
immediately there was a virtual explosion of design/creative jobs with
this shady company on StinkedIn (screenshot taken on 08/16/16), including one in Boston, *sigh*:
They sure showed me!
"Nobody's gonna tell us we can't advertise fake jobs!"
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