Description

I was contacted by Laura Henry via email and LinkedIn stating she was conducting a retained search for a VP position in my field. Based on her brief description of the role it did seem like it would be a fit with my experience. I did a search on LinkedIn for her and a detailed, and well built out profile came up in which we had several shared contacts so I thought she was legitimate. I asked for more detail, she said it was a confidential search and she couldn't share additional information at this time. Which is plausible, for many retained searches. I sent my resume as requested and received this reply: "Your experience is aligned with the role, but your resume is not ATS-friendly. Kindly adapt your resume to be ATS-friendly as I need it asap. For creating an ATS friendly resume, please visit https://atsreadyresumes.com/ and send me your ats resume once the recommended website has completed it. For now, precise details about the role and our client are under wraps due to confidentiality protocols. Once we align our schedules, I’ll shed more light on this. I’ll review my calendar and circle back with potential timelines for our continued discussion. Regards, Laura Henry" I didn't really read the full email just that I needed to update my resume to be more ATS friendly - which should have been my first clue - because if she is the executive recruiter why would my resume need to go through an ATS? I did update my resume then clicked the link as I thought it was just going to show me an example - but it was a resume generator which required a $17.00 fee for an editable resume. Thankfully I didn't pay for the service but I am alarmed by the sophistication of this scam and concerned that there a many many people who may have paid since the fee seems so minimal and there are so many people looking for positions. Looking for a job is a full-time job made even more difficult by scams like this. This is an alarming trend and truly the big tech companies - like Microsoft who owns LinkedIn should do more to protect its paying users. They charge an excessive amount to companies ($20K - $200K annually) and individuals (sometimes thousands of dollars annually) to use their platforms and the scams are as prevalent as found on free social media sites like Facebook or Craigslist.