Avoid These ‘Executive Career Management’ Scams
Many fleeced executives fall prey to the oldest career racket: the “executive recruiter” who promises you a new job if you’ll pay for it. Don’t fall for it.
It started several years ago with an e-mail from the distraught spouse of a C-level executive. Her husband paid an “executive career management firm” $20,000 for help landing a new job, including access to special insider contacts and a newly written resume.
When all was said and done, he had a new resume that he wouldn’t dare send to anyone. And he had a big hole in his bank account. The spouse wanted to know how this could happen.
Since then, I’ve collected many stories from embarrassed, fleeced executives who fell prey to the oldest career racket: the “executive recruiter” who promises you a new job if you’ll pay for it.
While such scammers target people at all income levels, I find that the most susceptible sucker is a high-level executive. I think that’s because the higher up the ladder we go, the more accustomed professionals like you are to paying big fees for legitimate consulting help. Besides, who wants to do the dirty work of finding a new job if someone else will do it for you? It’s worth the money! (See “3 Keys To Productive Networking.”)
Don’t fall for it. And if you already have, don’t be embarrassed. You’ve got loads of company. My advice is, tell all your friends— because these scammers rely on you staying silent so they can freely sucker the next person.
Here are a few tip-offs and tips to help you avoid these scams.
Tip-Offs:
- Usually approach from nowhere. They find you on LinkedIn or via some unspecified source. There are no mutual contacts.
- Claim to have one or more luscious jobs that seem just right for you, and they want to talk to you, but it’s all a rush.
- Need a fee up front, and they have loads of excuses—foremost, that these jobs are of course confidentially listed, and of course you realize getting value costs money.
- Demand that you sign a contract when you pay—and it’s usually riddled with poor writing. There’s no one’s name from the “firm” and no street address on it. It’s designed to support rejection of your chargeback by your credit card company.
- Want a nondisclosure agreement because their “clients require utter confidentiality.” It prohibits you from contacting their client ever and from posting any comments or information about the client, the job, or the “firm” online. What this really means is, they want no dissatisfied customers publishing criticism.
- Almost never schedule in-person meetings for you and anyone else, including themselves. Everything is on the phone.
- Introduce you to people and employers that don’t exist on any credible third-party information services, so you can’t vet them—or they have flimsy LinkedIn profiles. The explanation is that “our clients must of course maintain the highest levels of confidentiality.”
Tips:
- First things first: No credible headhunter or recruiter will ever charge you a fee for an interview or a job. If you remember this, you need not read further.
- Before you sign up or pay, check the firm’s registration in its home state. Does it even exist?
- Make sure there’s an arbitration clause in the agreement, or don’t sign it or pay.
- Google Earth the address and do a reality check. One firm gave a street address but no street number. Another was housed in another company’s building—and a call to the building owner revealed no such tenant. Another’s address didn’t exist anywhere.
- Ask for references, then vet the references and the principals at least three levels deep via Google. Solid business people are online, and a credible news outlet has written something about them. Scammers’ information appears only in “press releases” published on questionable sites. These guys will spend a bit of money to get your $4,000—but not much.
- Insist on an in-person meeting before you pay. While the biggest scammers actually have offices, most are only virtual.
- Insist on pay-as-you go so you’ll have a stop-loss mechanism. If they insist on a big fee up front, run.
If all this is obvious to you, why do so many sophisticated managers fall prey to these scams? One recently rationalized to me, “$2,500 wasn’t that bad a loss, and I learned something important from the experience. Besides, they sounded pretty credible.”
Don’t be the next executive sucker I hear about. Wishful thinking is common when we think about landing a great new job because most people shudder at the thought of doing the hard work necessary to get it. It’s easier to pay someone. And they’re ready to take your money.