How to protect yourself from scammers offering fake jobs

NEW YORK (AP) — Between finding openings, sending out your resume and interviewing, looking for a job is tough. Now a growing trend of scammers impersonating recruiters is making it even harder. In the last year, job scams have been on the rise, according to Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit that helps consumers when their identities are compromised. Because most job seekers turn to online platforms for employment, scammers impersonate companies and recruiters to trick people into giving them money or personal information. “We’ve really seen tremendous growth in job scams,” Velasquez said. “I think that’s just due to the fact that we fundamentally changed the way we recruit and hire people.” It happened to Tehseen Islam, a 28-year-old quality assurance analyst. She had been looking for a job for a few months when she finally got an offer from a well-known marketing technology company. Or at least she thought she did.