With the surge of demand in technical talent, I believe the amount of fraud on the contractor market has sky-rocketed. I often post the situations I’ve ran into over the years to help educate (and hopefully, occasionally, entertain) the community but wanted to recap everything that I’ve experienced to help prevent you running into the same situation.

Unfortunately, as a recruiter, we get caught in the cross-hairs with our customers who trust us, and if they have not experienced this situation before, come to us for an explanation, with the perception that we might have been in on it, often causing a relationship (and even future business) to be lost.

Obviously, I am not saying every contractor is a problem if we have to reschedule an interview, but I’ve learned to tread extremely lightly now whenever any of the below signs occur:

1.      Resume and LinkedIn profile doesn’t match with past project, companies, dates, etc.

2.      LinkedIn profile doesn’t exist or doesn’t have a picture associated to it

3.      Resume looks very generic or cookie cutter with what you’ve seen before from other candidates

4.      Resume has different fonts throughout like they’ve cut and paste from other resumes

5.      Photo ID and the candidate taking a Skype video interview doesn’t match

6.      Skype video has a bad connection with delays

7.      Candidate has their hands close to their mouth holding a headpiece, so you cannot see their mouth

8.      The candidate is very animated during the Skype call, moving their head back and forth so it’s hard to get a feel if they’re lip syncing

9.      Extreme delays in the voice and visual during a Skype call

10.   Backdrop to the room where the Skype session is taking place has a bed sheet or some other low-end noise barrier

11.   Phone call has a great deal of background noise (traffic, cars honking, etc.)

12.   Candidate must reschedule the interview multiple times with throwing every excuse they can your way

13.   Candidate delays an interview by any more than a day

14.   Candidate wants to do remote work only

15.   Once candidate answers the call and the interview starts they abruptly need to reschedule as something came up

16.   Candidate provides references of non-work phone numbers or non-work email addresses

17.   References are very hard to get a hold of or once you do, the references are very generic with their answers

18.   References do not have a LinkedIn profile

In summary, if anything seems “off”, then there’s a good chance there’s a problem brewing.