Scam Jobs

Greg Wyatt • May 17, 2026

What follows is Chapter 14 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026).

I last shared in February when Simon Ward and I did a LinkedIn Live on fake jobs.

The title's a little different because we've had a few requests to do a session specifically on scams.

While this might seem pedantic, not all fake jobs are scams - such as StudySmarter scraping some of my vacancies last week and hiding them behind a sign up.

But scam jobs are more damaging, whether they're doing a bait and switch (apply for a job, get told you need to do a £1k CV rewrite), phishing or others.

And they seem to prey on people at their most vulnerable. It's no surprising the only thing separating scam from scum is one letter.

You can join us, or view the recording, at this link:

https://www.linkedin.com/events/jobhuntingscams-howrealisthedan7460979369981841408/theater/

Come armed with your questions and your example so we can help job seekers avoid these pitfalls.

14 - Fake jobs


Picture the scene.

You’ve gone through the emotional turmoil of losing your job. Or maybe something’s happened at work to galvanise your decision to make a change.

You take a bit of time to figure out what the right next move is.

You go through the obvious channels to see what jobs are out there - job boards and other websites which promote jobs.

Your first reaction is one of hope and optimism - there seems quite a bit out there - maybe you’ll secure something quickly.

If you happen to be reading this, new to a job search, indeed you might.

Many people in this market quickly realise that a significant number of adverts do not represent jobs that exist.

A double whammy in your emotional rollercoaster of recent weeks.

There are a few categories to go through, but the outcome is the same: an advert that, at best, wastes your time.

The recruiter perspective

When we advertise a job, we allow time for applications to come in before assessing them and starting the interview process.

Let’s say the volume is manageable and the outcome is not guaranteed - for example, when a candidate you want to offer decides to take a different job instead.

There are no villains in this scenario. It’s common enough that risk is a factor when advertising.

If a recruitment process takes six weeks from advert to offer, it can make sense to leave the advert up in case you need more candidates in your pipeline.

What about if your process takes three months? Illness, holiday, lack of availability, unexpected deadlines - all can delay a process.

There are many tools and suppliers which support a hiring process, one of which is the job board. Often features are developed to support ‘what happens if things go wrong.’

These same tools can lead to issues you may experience:

Scraping

Scraping is when one website takes content from another and relists it. This can happen as an affiliate / aggregation / commercial arrangement, or to drive traffic to the scraping website.

The idea is that this increases eyeballs on the content.

In the context of job adverts, you can see this everywhere. Indeed and LinkedIn have both relisted adverts from elsewhere at various times.

It's changing because some job boards have now secured high volumes of traffic and want to monetise that traffic while keeping control of the adverts.

An indication that this happens is when you click ‘apply now’ and it takes you to another website other than the employer’s.

This can happen multiple times. Every time a job is scraped, there can be parsing errors where data from fields are incorrectly transferred.

If the original advert is updated, the scraped adverts won’t necessarily be updated.

Scraped adverts can give inaccurate or outdated salary, location, or even job information. They can also stay listed when the original has closed without the employer ever knowing about it.

This is a form of 'legitimate' scraping intended to benefit the employer through additional applications.

There is a second type of scraping.

As of 2nd February 2026, one of my vacancies has been scraped, without my permission, by apparently two different organisations.

In the first you can only apply by signing up. It lists a salary that I haven't disclosed elsewhere is not commensurate with role responsibilities.

If you click on my Company Name, it will tell you I am a large multinational recruiter, employing 51-100 staff.

Which is 51-100 more people than I employ, if you don't include me.

Let's ignore the AI word soup company profile they've lumped on me for now.

Some of my other adverts this website shares are slop summary overviews. Including the same job at 40% to 60% of the salary in the first advert.

It's the same for the second, except here the salary invented is well above the hypothetical top budget.

Looking deeper at both companies, on Trustpilot, both offer subscription services to access jobs that are hard to cancel. While one offers what appears to be bait and switch CV writing services.

Several reviews are from employers who have experienced similar to me, with instances of outdated vacancies that no longer exist.

What a sham.

Relisting

As a feature for advertisers, many job boards allow an automatic relisting of adverts to ‘bring it to the top of the pile.’

These relists can occur throughout the lifespan of an advert. Six weeks in, an advert may appear new, even though a candidate might be about to be given a job offer.

The vacancy is live, but your application may not be considered because the process is too far along.

This can also happen manually for many reasons.

I’ve taken down a job after a couple of weeks to rewrite it based on fine tuning from an interview process. Or when a candidate has declined an offer put forward to them. Or when a vacancy has been put on hiatus.

The reason for a manual relisting might be unknowable if it isn’t stated in the advert. It isn’t necessarily for a bad reason.

If I were to relist an advert, it would only be because I need more candidates, in which case your application would be read.

In many situations relisting can encourage an application that won’t be assessed.

Laziness

Adverts can remain listed because someone forgot to take them down.

This is more likely to happen if there isn’t a cost per advert, such as on an employer website, or if there is an unlimited contract.

Evergreen vacancies

Some vacancies are perpetually advertised to enable a candidate pipeline for a specialism.

There might be no vacancy now, with anticipation of vacancies in future. This is more common within larger employers or a specialist recruitment agency.

I spoke with a Talent Acquisition Manager recently about the positive side of an evergreen vacancy. She told me for that vacancy they are always recruiting, having mad eight hires in six months - it's a business as usual vacancy.

I would hope this is made clear in the advert.

Fishing

Sometimes adverts harvest applications on the off chance that a related vacancy comes up.

I remember a Cambridge agency that used to scrape employer adverts, list them as their own, then submit those CVs speculatively to the same employers - without a commercial arrangement in place.

Make of that what you will.

Is there any way to check for fishing? Probe the advertiser for relevant information and what their relationship is with the hiring process.

That’s not proof of bad behaviour because of how the contingency model works. When multiple agencies work on one vacancy, it’s common not to provide company information until later in the process.

If an agency is fishing only to build a bank of CVs, it’s unlikely they’ll admit to it.

Scam jobs

It sickens me that advertising and job scams are on the rise.

If it doesn’t feel right, if they are asking for payment, if they do a bait and switch (this job isn’t right but here’s our CV writing service or access to a system beating framework), if they ask for ID that can be used for other purposes: beware.

These may be in public advert form.

They may also be from direct messages - LinkedIn DMs, WhatsApp messages, or phone calls. Often from ‘recruiters’ that appear to work for big corporates, yet have no connections and use a gmail account.

One scam last year cloned a legitimate company website and job seekers lost many thousands of pounds.

My scraped example above is, in my book, a likely scam too.

It’s worth reading through www.jobsaware.co.uk, which is a great resource on scams and employment exploitation.

The disappearing act

This last category may or may not be a fake job.

Here’s the scenario - it looks like a vacancy, it sounds like one in discussion. Perhaps you even interview there on site. You may even go so far as to do a 5 hour presentation at final interview on your 90 day strategy.

Then it disappears - either permanently, or it reappears with no further communication from the employer or agency.

I hear this happening a lot, particularly at a senior level, in the UK market.

There are a few reasons it can happen:


  • Company had budget to recruit; changes in the business, or external factors, mean the vacancy isn’t viable at least immediately
  • Company didn’t have budget to recruit and only realises there is no budget later in the process
  • Company runs an interview process to get free consultancy in the form of a final interview presentation (scumbags)
  • Company dipping a toe in the market to see what’s out there, with no intent to hire
  • Company benchmarking an internal hire for future planning purposes
  • Agency finds out there may be a need for an employer to hire and runs a speculative process that doesn’t get approval


I’m sure there are many more reasons this can happen and there isn’t a huge amount you can do, given the appearance is of a real vacancy.

You can ask if budget has been approved, research the business on Glassdoor, or speak to alumni.

It’s unclear what proportion of job adverts are fake. It is a notable problem, and one which takes attention away from legitimate adverts that can put you closer to employment.

For the adverts that are real, Part Three of the book will help you assess which you are best suited for and how to effectively use job boards.

A standard diagnostic

By Greg Wyatt • October 22, 2026
The other day I read a LinkedIn post about the iron triangle as it relates to recruitment. That you can be fast and good, but it will be expensive. That you can be fast and cheap, and it will be bobbins. Or that you can be cheap and good, but it will take longer than the heat death of the universe. At first glance it’s always made sense, with caveats, though that sense has been ablated with the promise of AI. Something that promises to be quicker, cheaper and better than people can manage. The only thing this triangle lacks is judgement-with-responsibility, something AI-style LLMs are currently incapable of, which is why they can be such problematic technology for recruitment. Though if your priority is speed, saving money, and filling jobs, the lack of judgement in even those algorithms that promise black box bias freedom might not be a problem you’d think much about. And when the top is spinning in an elegant way this might seem a standardisation you can apply everywhere, while you get on with your day job. Sadly the only place a spinning top doesn’t stop is when you were dreaming all along. AI has made me think about why the fundamentals of recruitment are so important, using judgement before we launch our projects. Which is why I like the 5Cs of project management as a way to look at recruitment: complexity, criticality, compliance, culture, compassion. With an adaptation and an additional C to be fit for purpose. It’s a great way to consider what approach to deploy: Complexity: the number of moving parts in a role, supply and demand in the candidate market, resources required to engage and bring forward the right people Criticality: the impact a vacancy has on the organisation. The opportunity a great hire brings. The damage the wrong hire can cause. And everything in between Channels: we go where the candidates are, whether at the end a headhunt, from an advert, from sourcing across LinkedIn Recruiter/equivalent tools, CV Databases, ATS records, other platforms, internal applicants, suppliers, consultants, temps, networking, referrals or even from a little black book, which I suspect will become more relevant again when data becomes noise Compliance: not just employment law, but how technology is used to find, engage and assess candidates in a fair, equitable and inclusive way Context: the full picture of the company – its organisational and local cultures, principles and values, mission, vision, goals, challenges and trajectory. The nuts and bolts, what that means for your candidates, and trying to understand the same in them Compassion: recognition of the impact a vacancy has on the employer and its team, balanced with how everyone can be brought together. And compassion for everyone that interacts with our recruitment, in process or invisibly Yes, I swapped context for culture. Hiring for context necessarily includes culture, and goes much further. And I've added Channels, which should always be established before going to market. I like these because they’re a way to ensure that how you recruit is proportionate and appropriate. They may even highlight you shouldn’t hire at all. But what you shouldn’t do is assume one recruitment process is the same as the next, nor that the investment made in reaching desired outcomes should be. What may seem expensive to you might bring an unexpected return on investment. What seems slow at the outset might bring a starter quicker than hoped – proper planning and all that. What seems good quality might fall apart, when the promises prove inadequate. That’s why it’s so important to diagnose first, before standardising. Greg p.s. You're welcome to try my free Hiring Diagnostic & Plan . It's not based on the 6Cs, which I think require more depth than a free tool can reasonably provide. Instead, it draws on principles from other disciplines: True and Fair from accounting, and Suitable and Sufficient from health and safety. It's free and private. Give it a go, and let me know if you'd like to chat through how the 6Cs might apply to your recruitment and enhance the resul 

Introduction to the hidden jobs market

By Greg Wyatt • October 14, 2026
On Wednesday 21st, I'll be doing a LinkedIn Live on The Hidden Jobs Market, joined by Paul Woodhouse. Paul is a marketing leader who has been looking for work in our challenging market. A previous role was a Hidden Job, and has also hired people himself. We'll be looking at his experiences to give a little substance to what can be a nebulous term. I'll show the steps anyone can take to become available for unadvertised vacancies, and for advertised vacancies that are filled by other means - after all employers consider more than only applications when taking a standard approach to recruitment. As a recruiter I don't advertise around half my vacancies, which might be for reasons of confidentiality, a lack of definition in the brief, a on the QT replacement for someone about to be dismissed, or mass availability of candidates. I'll use LinkedIn Recruiter to look for potential candidates, CV databases that can be more effective for immediate hires, my network for referrals and recommendations. My previous candidate pools for other vacancies - some of whom might have once open a time been applicants. Indeed, that last point shows the absurdity of much job search advice. If you apply for a vacancy on an ATS, you might be rejected, yet still be considered for future vacancies in the same employer. A hidden job hidden by an advertised job, where tailoring your CV with AI might make you less likely to be considered. Join us on Wednesday, or if you aren't free, the recording will be available immediately. Both can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7516049669924225027?viewAsMember=true . The chapter below from A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) shows a simple metaphor for the hidden jobs market, why it's such a silly term, and a better way to think about your own job search. 3 - The hidden jobs market In most of the calls I have with job seekers they will ask me about The Hidden Jobs Market. What is it? Is it real? How can I access it? Before we get into that, we should talk about tomatoes. As you read this next section, imagine a tomato is a job. So, you want to procure some tomatoes. How would you? Your local farm shop. The supermarket. Wednesday’s stalls. Maybe you subscribe to a weekly box of veg. Maybe you grow your own. Maybe you trade for the tomatoes from Tim’s allotment. Maybe you look at people funny when they ask for an intro to Tim because his tomatoes are wonderful. You likely wouldn’t buy some from Amazon - they don’t sell fresh food. Not to me anyway. Though you might buy tomato seeds from Amazon if you grow your own. Maybe even cans of crushed tomato, sauce, puree, or whatever meets your needs. As the channel you use to source tomatoes isn’t the only consideration, so too is the configuration of what you need. While you and others all access tomatoes in different ways, some of which overlap, and some of which are mutually exclusive - none of these channels are hidden. It’s just that you may not know how to access some channels, while others won’t be available to you. Now I want you to read that section again. Instead of being your desired job, you are an employer whose desired tomato is a candidate of choice. While recruitment is the inverse of a job search (more on this later), the analogy is better from the employer perspective because they are on a buyer’s journey where you are the product. Employers want to fill their vacancies through the best means. Some vacancies are easy to fill, others not so, and they will access the channels necessary to find the right people. In many situations, they won’t advertise a vacancy, which might be for reasons of confidentiality or convenience. Some say this is as much as 80%, a flawed figure which comes from a flawed survey, or perhaps it comes from a newspaper article in 1974 before computers were a thing. In my recent small-scale research, it was indicated more than 62% of vacancies are advertised. 53% responded they advertise more than 75% of vacancies. Many of the respondents were headhunters, whose business may be based on not running public adverts. I expect this will have skewed the results lower than the true figure. What employers don’t do is hide vacancies systematically. To access these vacancies, you need to understand the channels through which employers hire and invert these channels to form your strategy. Much like how tomatoes are sold through channels which consumers buy from. Is the hidden jobs market real? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that not all jobs are advertised. Some are confidential, some for reasons as mundane as not wanting to deal with hundreds of advert applicants. No, because it isn’t a term that has inherent meaning. Speak to people who advocate for it, often a career coach, and they’ll tell you it’s anything from personal branding and networking to going direct and being referred in. When vacancies aren’t advertised by employers, they often fill them through sourcing - this is a specialist skill related to finding people where they may be found: LinkedIn, CV databases, corporate databases, GitHub, Facebook, YouTube. These are all channels you can access as part of an appropriate multichannel strategy. Which means if you have the right multichannel strategy (I call this Through-the-Line, which we’ll cover in parts 2 and 3), you access all jobs available to you, including those which are hidden and those which are in witness protection on another continent. Who are the headhunters that specialise in your domain? Who are the people who can refer you to jobs? How can you be more discoverable on LinkedIn and CV databases? How can you gain an understanding of the ways in which your ideal job is recruited, so you can take advantage of those channels? Those are better questions to answer to allow an effective through-the-line, multichannel strategy involving outbound and inbound leads. Despite me being vocal about why Hidden is a flawed notion, two people have thanked me for advice that led to their new roles claiming they’d accessed the hidden jobs market. As I gritted my teeth in hidden rage and congratulated them on their success, they unveiled the truth. What they actually did was map out their real life network of people they’d worked with and got in touch. If the people you know don’t know that you are looking for a role, what reason would they have to tell you about a vacancy? It’s simple marketing - right place (LinkedIn), right person (ex-colleague), right message (looking for work), right time (we’ve a vacancy). Of course, that takes a bit of luck to achieve the right congruence. Odds you increase through volume and follow up. And when you do find those opportunities, they are easier to win because you are a known name, not another unknown CV. There it is, the hidden tomato market.