is being unable to get jobs that are just scams.

I had already observed in August 2022 that, if finding a job has become harder, the fault may be less of actual robots stealing human jobs, than it is of “robot recruiters”. There is, that is, too much use and abuse of “artificial intelligence” software that rejects too many job applications for all the sad, dumb reasons explained in that post.

A few months after that post, I found more, even better evidence that AI-first job screening works way worst than advertised.

That problem started years ago, even before “artificially intelligent”, that is counterproductive, job screening. Now, however, things are quickly getting even worse than that, and again because of software making even the wrong things much easier to do.

At least THOSE problems were about REAL job offers!

Today, what is rising is employment scams using fake job opportunities (also on Slashdot):

These schemes, that involve fictitious job listings, interviews with fake recruiters and other equally fake procedures, have the only, totally unsurprising purpose to “steal job seekers' money or identities”.

The most coveted targets are “workers who have recently lost jobs, particularly in the tech industry”.

Same old, same BAD old. just easier

As already mentioned, several causes of this problem existed well before artificial intelligence could hide or turbocharge them. They include (*):

• • it’s impossible to see, visit or otherwise physically interact with the recruiter before going through phishing and other attacks
• • many job offers are fake only to satisfy legal requirements to offer jobs to external candidates
• the same reason why all other spam still works, that is ignorance
• BUT: the whole world of work and employment has become so void of purpose and peace of mind, for decades, that more and more people not dumb enough to fall into nigerian style scams basically have to accept the risk of being scammed to get a job, ANY job

So beware. And maybe start giving a thought that certain alternatives are becoming, whether one likes them or not, less impossible than all the others.

(*) marked items are quotes from the Slashdot discussion