UTAH TECH UNIVERSITY'S STUDENT NEWS SOURCE | March 28, 2024

Career Center cautions students about job scams on its website

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If you’d do almost anything for $20 per hour, be sure you’re not risking your personal information in the process.

The Career Center at Dixie State University provides an online job board service to its students, which contains available job postings locally and in neighboring states. The Career Center issued a statement in a recent Storm Tracker that warned students to be aware some of the jobs listed on its job board may be scams.

Cheryl Brandt, student employment specialist in the Career Center, said scammers on the job board will likely ask applicants to receive a check from the company before the student has completed any actual work.

In addition, employers hiring on the spot without a face-to-face interview, claiming to be out of the area, and asking to send money to another individual are also red flags students should be aware of when searching for jobs on DSU’s job board. 

“Students are vulnerable,” Brandt said. “You have to be careful.” 

For one DSU student, Mckell Harrop, a junior communication major from Brigham City, these job board scams hit close to home when she fell victim to two of them. 

The first scam advertised an available position at a local restaurant, Hank’s Riverwalk Grill, that boasted of a $20-per-hour assistant job. 

“I got this email that had lots of spelling errors,” Harrop said. “The description that they outlined in the email was different than the job posting, so I didn’t reply to it.” 

Harrop received a similar email from another employer that said he or she was out of the country and would send Harrop a check once she relinquished her personal tax information. Harrop didn’t reply to either of the suspicious emails, but she said the experience was still concerning. 

“It’s still kind of scary because they have all my information because I sent them my resume,” Harrop said. 

Brock Jeppesen, a sophomore business administration major from Bountiful, experienced a scam from the DSU job board that cost him. financially.
  
He said the scammers actually got a hold of his account information and withdrew nearly $300 from his personal bank account.

“I kind of trusted the job board, but it definitely pays (off) to look out for advertising that might be too good to be true,” he said. 

Although representatives at the Career Center try to filter out the scams, Brandt said some still fall through the cracks. She said the center will post a disclaimer on its website to make students more aware of the issue as well as tell them it’s their responsibility to protect themselves from possible fraud.

Students should report any scam they find on the job board website to the Career Center, and they should also contact the company they applied for as soon as possible.