How to avoid a recruitment scam.
Thanks for your interest in joining Putnam, we hope this is the start of an exciting new chapter in your career.
As you go through the recruitment process, please be aware of fraudsters pretending to represent companies like ours in order to gain your personal and financial information.
These scams can be quite sophisticated, often involving bogus websites and fake email addresses. Eager and unsuspecting candidates may be invited by scammers to take part in ‘interviews’ and fill out employment ‘applications’ – they may even send you fake offer letters.
Here are a few tips and reminders to help you stay alert and avoid falling victim to recruitment fraud:
Communication
- Be wary of job opportunities that come from people you don’t know and appear too good to be true.
- Pay attention to business web addresses – check whether they’re consistent with the real address.
- Don’t correspond with people who use a Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail or other free email account. Our recruiters may initially contact you via LinkedIn, but we’ll never approach you out of the blue by email or phone.
- Don’t engage with communications featuring unspecified roles or vague job descriptions.
- Never give out sensitive personal information such as your national identification number, date of birth, social security number, national insurance number, bank account information, passport information, or any number appearing on identity documents. We’ll never ask for these details at the pre-employment phase.
Interviews
- We never use Skype, Telegram, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, text, live chat or email to conduct interviews.
- Our recruiters will always interview you face to face or via phone or video conference (with our camera on).
- All our applicants are re-routed to Greenhouse to submit a formal application. If you did not apply via Greenhouse, the role is likely fake.
- All interviews are scheduled by our talent team. Always check to make sure the person (and title) sent matches LinkedIn profiles or career pages on our website.
Offer Letters and Money
- Never pay money as part of the hiring process – we’ll never ask you to pay money to us or pay money on our behalf.
- We’ll also never ask you to pay for equipment or office set-up costs.
- We do not send offer letters via WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, Skype, or Teams.
If you think you’ve been the victim of recruitment fraud, contact your local law enforcement department, visit Europol or Action Fraud if you’re in Europe, or follow the Federal Trade Commission advice if you’re in the US.
Thanks again for your interest in joining Putnam and we look forward to meeting you.
If you have any questions – our talent team and their contact information is on our careers page.
