Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hey there, everybody, welcome to tech
Speaker 1: Stuff where we're gonna school you. I'm Jonathan Strict and
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren vocal Bomb. Today we're gonna school you where
Speaker 1: we are talking about online universities and jobs and the
Speaker 1: kind of the kind of tangled web they weave that.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's a lot of scams out there,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of terrific benefits as well. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of There's a lot of information to sift through,
Speaker 1: and some of it is misinformation. So consider this episode
Speaker 1: sort of a cautionary tale some some tips that you
Speaker 1: can follow to really kind of make sure that the
Speaker 1: information you're getting is the most accurate and is going
Speaker 1: to be the most advantageous to you. And also keep
Speaker 1: in mind that if you're listening to this episode in
Speaker 1: things probably changed a little bit aborted it. The Internet
Speaker 1: is likely to have changed since then, but that's one
Speaker 1: of those things. We're in this sort of transitory period where, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, business adopted the Internet very quickly, right, didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily do it the right way when it first started.
Speaker 1: That's when we saw that dot Com bubble burst. But they,
Speaker 1: you know, business has kind of figured out how they
Speaker 1: could leverage the Internet in a way that made sense,
Speaker 1: that that bolstered their business and wasn't just like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we have to have a web presence because that's a thing, right, right,
Speaker 1: But they really had the resources to do so at
Speaker 1: the time, right. And And it's kind of interesting because
Speaker 1: if you think about the Internet started off as an
Speaker 1: academic uh thing, I mean our bonnet. The predecessor to
Speaker 1: the Internet was connection between computers in uh in in universities. So, um,
Speaker 1: the education and the Internet have had a link in
Speaker 1: a for a really long time. But being able to
Speaker 1: use the Internet formally in order to get an education
Speaker 1: in the sense of what we think about when you
Speaker 1: attend a brick and mortar university, that's a newer idea
Speaker 1: and in some cases, uh, it can be a little treacherous.
Speaker 1: So that's why we wanted to talk about. So Lauren,
Speaker 1: you know, I know you looked a lot into the
Speaker 1: online education side. I looked a lot into the online
Speaker 1: jobs side. So this this episode is gonna be a
Speaker 1: little different than the way some of our previous episodes
Speaker 1: have been. Jonathan is going to be talking not to
Speaker 1: the entire time for for nearly fifty of the episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't crazy, Frankly, I don't know what I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: with myself. But actually I do know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be asking you some questions, Lauren. He also
Speaker 1: brought some knitting. I did, uh, And let me tell you,
Speaker 1: my pearling has become phenomenal. And you knitters out there
Speaker 1: know that I know what I'm talking about. That size
Speaker 1: eight needles, people, size eight circle needles. So you know
Speaker 1: what are you? Pearling? Isn't just a computer pun? Also
Speaker 1: a computer pun? All right? So, now that we've got
Speaker 1: the knitting and computer computer language jokes of the wait,
Speaker 1: let's actually look at the state of affairs and online education. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, Lauren, do you have anything about the
Speaker 1: trend in online courses? Right? So, according to a study
Speaker 1: done by the Sloan Consortium, which, to be fair, promotes
Speaker 1: online education. They but however, they did the study in
Speaker 1: twelve that found that students taking at least one course
Speaker 1: online numbered above six point seven million in the U
Speaker 1: s alone. All Right, so that's a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and and I'm sure that a lot of this is
Speaker 1: students who are in fact attending a brick and mortar
Speaker 1: school and taking one specific course online. However, this is
Speaker 1: a trend that's been growing since the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: when universities began offering these online programs, and it became
Speaker 1: a little bit, like you said earlier, treacherous because as
Speaker 1: of as of two thousand and eight, a study found
Speaker 1: that there were a hundred and sixty eight accredited graduate
Speaker 1: business schools and a two hundred and twelve fake ones.
Speaker 1: So there are these fake schools out there that people
Speaker 1: could end up sending money to or enrolling in some way.
Speaker 1: And you know, we also should say, like, there's there's
Speaker 1: another term for online courses of people call it distance learning.
Speaker 1: The the idea that you are are essentially logging into
Speaker 1: some sort of um educational resource and you are not
Speaker 1: physically attending that university. So let me ask, what are
Speaker 1: some of that you know, you talked about a fake
Speaker 1: business school, what are some of the dangers associated with
Speaker 1: this online coursework trend. Well, um, they're they're called diploma
Speaker 1: mills because the general process of this is that you
Speaker 1: pay them for a diploma. You might take a test,
Speaker 1: you might take a tiny bit of course work, probably not,
Speaker 1: and they just mill you a diploma and go, congratulations,
Speaker 1: you're a doctor. So this is kind of the educational
Speaker 1: counterpart to the Universal Life Church online, that resource where
Speaker 1: you go, you fill out a form and magically you're ordained. Right, sure,
Speaker 1: except for the fact that you can when when you're
Speaker 1: ordained by the Universal Life Church, that can be a
Speaker 1: legal document that you can use. The educational degrees degrees
Speaker 1: is in little floating quote marks in the air are
Speaker 1: not always accredited, right, So they're they're not true credentials, correct,
Speaker 1: there they are fake credentials from a fake university frequently
Speaker 1: that has some kind of crazy offshore account and exists
Speaker 1: only to take your money and or to provide other
Speaker 1: scammers with with the method of getting a job that
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily deserve. Okay, So so there's there's two
Speaker 1: sides to this coin. Really there's there There are people
Speaker 1: who are dishonest people who are using these services to
Speaker 1: obtain fake credentials, and honest people who are being taken in,
Speaker 1: people who who legitimately want to pursue an education and
Speaker 1: potentially a career in a specific field. But really all
Speaker 1: they're doing is handing money over and getting a sheet
Speaker 1: of paper that says here's your that's completely worthless. And
Speaker 1: when you end up taking that too, you know, if
Speaker 1: you get high school diploma this way and you take
Speaker 1: it to a university, the university is going to say, like,
Speaker 1: that is not really a diploma. You cannot go here
Speaker 1: or or to an employer, and the employer says the
Speaker 1: same thing. Because there are lots of resources where people
Speaker 1: can check this sort of thing out. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: that's scary stuff. I mean, and it's kind of crazy
Speaker 1: to me because I think this is just it's a
Speaker 1: weird middleman, because you would think if you're trying to
Speaker 1: scam people, you could just print up your own I
Speaker 1: guess you would technically be on like some some fake
Speaker 1: schools enrollment form, but you would And and that's the
Speaker 1: thing that part of the service that these that these
Speaker 1: scammers provide is that you know, they'll they'll have a
Speaker 1: phone system that you know, that an employer could call
Speaker 1: into and if they don't really do their research, if
Speaker 1: they just call this phone number, then they would say, yes,
Speaker 1: this person totally went here is this super accredited school.
Speaker 1: Thank you? Um, and so so do you have any
Speaker 1: examples of some of these crazy things that have happened
Speaker 1: with Yeah, there's some terrible, terrible horror stories from from
Speaker 1: the news. You can you can look them up and
Speaker 1: they're they're really sensational and wonderful. A lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of websites very much enjoyed, I think covering these
Speaker 1: sorts of things. Back in back in two thousand one,
Speaker 1: UM one Gregory Kaplinger claimed that he had a medical
Speaker 1: degree and got a whole bunch of not just patients
Speaker 1: but also investors on board with this AIDS and cancer
Speaker 1: treatment gosh research that he was claiming to do. UM
Speaker 1: wound up being ordered to pay more than a million
Speaker 1: dollars in restitution. Thank goodness. Yeah, oh no, no, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know his uh because because as it
Speaker 1: turned out, he his medical degree was from the Metropolitan
Speaker 1: Collegiate Institute in Great Britain, which he paid a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for a diploma from. So, I mean, think about
Speaker 1: this for a second. Guys. We're talking about someone who
Speaker 1: was taking advantage of people who are, by the very
Speaker 1: nature of the disease that they or a loved one has,
Speaker 1: are an incredibly emotionally vulnerable state. And uh, that's also
Speaker 1: going to come into play when I talk in my
Speaker 1: section about online jobs. Um. I get really be angry
Speaker 1: about a few things, and this is one of those
Speaker 1: things that I get exceptionally angry about is the taking
Speaker 1: advantage of people who are at their lowest point when
Speaker 1: it comes to their emotional vulnerability, and anyone who is
Speaker 1: willing to catalyze on that, I just I can't. I
Speaker 1: can't fathom that level of disregard for someone else's you know,
Speaker 1: well being. Yeah, this was one of the stories. This
Speaker 1: is one of the episodes in doing the research for it.
Speaker 1: Every time that I would come to the examples portion
Speaker 1: of any of these articles, I would have to brace myself.
Speaker 1: I drank a lot of coffee today and kind of
Speaker 1: to to bolster my own you gotta you gotta muscle through. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I've decided to get off my soapbox until the second
Speaker 1: half of the show, So pray continue excellent. Um. So
Speaker 1: you know he was brought to justice, which is wonderful.
Speaker 1: Um On on the other end of it, um Uh,
Speaker 1: there there are stories about you know, people who who
Speaker 1: we're nurses, who had never gotten their high school degree
Speaker 1: because they had dropped out for for very very visceral
Speaker 1: personal life reasons, who decided to pay two dollars or
Speaker 1: four dollars for a degree that they really thought was
Speaker 1: going to advance their life. UM to institutions like for
Speaker 1: for example, and I haven't I haven't UM confirmed whether
Speaker 1: or not these are still an operation, but some names
Speaker 1: that were floating around UH a few years back include
Speaker 1: Belford University, Jefferson High School Online, um vents or high
Speaker 1: School Online and these these places, you know, again, would
Speaker 1: would take your money, shift you a diploma, give you
Speaker 1: a very basic online test, usually UM claiming that you
Speaker 1: could use your life experience on a multiple choice test
Speaker 1: that you could go back and and if you've got
Speaker 1: an answer wrong, it would let you go back and
Speaker 1: try again, and give you a hint gosh, saying that
Speaker 1: somehow that's the equivalent of the actual educational process, right UM,
Speaker 1: and then send you a diploma and and yeah, these
Speaker 1: people were these people were taken in and before you know,
Speaker 1: they just wanted it so badly that that they were
Speaker 1: willing to believe in this process because they, you know,
Speaker 1: they needed something to be easy, right Yeah. And again
Speaker 1: that's another one of those things it's true on the
Speaker 1: online jobs as well, very much so. Is that it's
Speaker 1: that old saying that we've it's become a cliche, but
Speaker 1: it is still true. If it sounds too good to
Speaker 1: be true, it probably is. So if someone tells you that, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, taking this one little online test is equivalent
Speaker 1: to finishing out your high school years after you dropped out,
Speaker 1: that's just not true. For one thing, you don't have
Speaker 1: that experience of all the pep rallies that's all important,
Speaker 1: all important pepper rillies. There were a lot of pep
Speaker 1: rallies when I was in high school. I went to
Speaker 1: way too many pepper rillies. I was not very peppy,
Speaker 1: so it didn't speak to me. I'm pretty sure I
Speaker 1: was covering them for for my yearbook, so so I
Speaker 1: could kind of Daria over in the corner with of course,
Speaker 1: I was on the yearbook with my camera and kind
Speaker 1: of be very loose from above the entire thing. But
Speaker 1: this is all but so, you know, I think things
Speaker 1: to watch out for in these kind of things are
Speaker 1: are you know, A lot of these places are registered
Speaker 1: through a service like domains by Proxy, which allows which
Speaker 1: is a service that allows the original registrant of a
Speaker 1: URL to hide who they are. Ye, so if you
Speaker 1: do a who is look up on this, you're not
Speaker 1: going to find a whole lot of information, exactly. It's
Speaker 1: not a great sign. Never a good sign for anything, honestly,
Speaker 1: not only online education. I mean, unless you're looking for
Speaker 1: some sort of proxy server. Uh that's probably not a
Speaker 1: great sign. Yeah, not not a good sign of trustworthiness. Um,
Speaker 1: most of their physical addresses are outside of the US
Speaker 1: or you know, your home country of choice and uh
Speaker 1: so which which especially? I mean the US educational system
Speaker 1: is a strange thing because it does not directly give
Speaker 1: credit to colleges and universities as being legitimate. But there
Speaker 1: are a lot of a lot of smaller regional UM
Speaker 1: body that it does recognize as being official creditors. Gotcha.
Speaker 1: So there's not like a centralized authority that is the
Speaker 1: gives the stamp of approval or disapproval. Right but in
Speaker 1: but in any case, um, if you are talking about
Speaker 1: an online university that claims to be giving us credit
Speaker 1: or claims to to have to be in the registry
Speaker 1: to give us credit, and its main office is outside
Speaker 1: of the US, that is a big warning sign. And
Speaker 1: all of these things kind of also tie into concerns
Speaker 1: in the educational system about for profit colleges. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen commercials for these, right, I've I've seen commercials
Speaker 1: on uh television. I've seen ads on like the public
Speaker 1: transportation system here in Atlanta. Yeah, places like University of Phoenix. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the one that always I always see. And uh
Speaker 1: so these are these are for profit colleges, right, right,
Speaker 1: as opposed to public schools or or even or even
Speaker 1: you know, private schools that are nonetheless educational institutions. Right.
Speaker 1: So this, this is this is more of a kind
Speaker 1: of a privatized, for profit approach as far as educating
Speaker 1: people goes. Honestly, I don't know very much about it.
Speaker 1: What can you tell me about these? Well? Okay, so,
Speaker 1: so it's not that it's not that they're not educational institutions.
Speaker 1: They do provide a rigorous coursework um through which you
Speaker 1: can earn a degree um which will, depending on the case,
Speaker 1: be accepted by other educational institutions and employers. I see.
Speaker 1: So if you were to go to some of these, uh,
Speaker 1: depending on the case, you might be able to, let's say,
Speaker 1: spend a year taking university of Phoenix courses and then
Speaker 1: maybe transfer into another school. And depending upon this relationship,
Speaker 1: those credits could be accepted as UH as transfer credits.
Speaker 1: They they could be Yes, sometimes it depends, It depends
Speaker 1: on the school they're they're generally looked on, looked upon
Speaker 1: as being less desirable than an education from a nonprofit
Speaker 1: college Brick and Water College. Yes, UM, they're Also they
Speaker 1: tend to be more expensive. There was this terrific study
Speaker 1: that was done by the US Government Accountability Office back
Speaker 1: in UM in which they sent undercover applicants to fifteen
Speaker 1: four profit colleges and UM in terms of expenses, for example,
Speaker 1: a student who was interested in massage therapy, UH not
Speaker 1: not you know, an incredibly rigorous four year plan, but
Speaker 1: but just a certificate would have cost fourteen thousand dollars
Speaker 1: at a four profit college and the same certificate from
Speaker 1: a local community college would have cost five and twenty bucks.
Speaker 1: That that is incredible, And it would have cost a
Speaker 1: tiny bit more from a from a private school. However,
Speaker 1: not that much, I mean within the same range. UM.
Speaker 1: That kind of that kind of shenanigans. And also they
Speaker 1: found that UM four of the colleges UH own write
Speaker 1: encouraged fraudulent practices. Uh, it encouraged applicants to lie in
Speaker 1: order to get federal aid. Um. And all fifteen made
Speaker 1: deceptive or otherwise questionable statements to these undercover applicants. Yum,
Speaker 1: that's that is not that's not a ringing endorsement. It's not.
Speaker 1: I mean, stuff like like staff would tell the applicants, um,
Speaker 1: what would inform the applicants that they would be attending
Speaker 1: twelve month year classes, you know, you know, classes every
Speaker 1: month of the year, um, but would state the costs
Speaker 1: for attendance for only nine months um in order to
Speaker 1: mislead them about the amount of money that they would
Speaker 1: be spending. And so you would have a three month
Speaker 1: surcharge added on top. Yikes. Yeah, it's just I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, and this is kind of phat logic. It's
Speaker 1: just if you're not paying direct attention, right, if you
Speaker 1: don't know that lying to you, if you don't ask
Speaker 1: the right questions, it's just like the genie. If you
Speaker 1: don't frame the wish just right, you're gonna get the
Speaker 1: worst end of that deal. Yeah, and uh, and other
Speaker 1: stuff like um. Once once applicants, these these undercover applicants
Speaker 1: had registered with websites that are designed to link for
Speaker 1: profit colleges with prospective students. UM. They began receiving phone
Speaker 1: calls within five minutes UM. One of them received more
Speaker 1: than a hundred and eighty phone calls in a month UM,
Speaker 1: some after eleven PM. So they were essentially getting harassed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and just you know, just not not good stuff.
Speaker 1: And especially since enrollment in these for profit colleges had
Speaker 1: grown from about three hundred sixty five thousand students to
Speaker 1: almost one point eight million in several years leading up
Speaker 1: to the study in two, it was something that the
Speaker 1: government was very concerned about in terms of just what
Speaker 1: kind of quality of education these students were getting and
Speaker 1: how they were being treated, and whether or not it
Speaker 1: was it was worth their time or money at all. UM.
Speaker 1: I read another interesting article one that you sent me actually, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: about a students experience experience at the University of Phoenix
Speaker 1: and um and and it and it didn't seem positive.
Speaker 1: Now to be fair, of this person who went through
Speaker 1: the University of Phoenix program had already achieved her degree
Speaker 1: and then some right she she had already taught in
Speaker 1: creative writing, which was her field, and she went through
Speaker 1: this degree, it sounded like, um, mostly to get more
Speaker 1: more computer experience. Since it was an online course, it
Speaker 1: seems like that was mostly her goal, and I think
Speaker 1: that she achieved that goal, um, but she just didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the feeling that someone who was going
Speaker 1: through it for the creative writing experience would have gotten
Speaker 1: much of anything. To be fair, we should also say
Speaker 1: that she expressed on the very outset that she had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a bias against online learning and
Speaker 1: that she felt that it's really hard to replace the
Speaker 1: experience of being face to face with professors and other
Speaker 1: students in a traditional learning environment. So let's you know,
Speaker 1: she definitely did have already a kind of a preconceived idea.
Speaker 1: Now whether or not that was based in uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in fact or just her her her own personal I
Speaker 1: think that it was very much based in her own
Speaker 1: personal information. Because there was a study done in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine by s r I International for the Department
Speaker 1: of Education that found that on average, online students performed
Speaker 1: better than face to face students in quantitative studies of
Speaker 1: both K through twelve and college education course. That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean that that tells a very strong story right there. So, um,
Speaker 1: all right, so we've got we've got the quality of
Speaker 1: the education itself seems to be pretty uh pretty rigorous,
Speaker 1: Like it's pretty good quality of the education for at
Speaker 1: least at least some of these schools. Well well this
Speaker 1: this isn't necessarily talking about those for profit colleges, but
Speaker 1: but but for online education in general, Um, we want
Speaker 1: to make it really clear that if the online education
Speaker 1: is through a good school, then it's probably fine. I mean,
Speaker 1: there there are plenty of completely a gentimate universities. Um
Speaker 1: Duke University has an MBA program for people all over
Speaker 1: the world who you never have to set foot into school,
Speaker 1: and it is it is very prestigious. And and then
Speaker 1: there's also I mean this isn't for college credit, but
Speaker 1: there are also lots of resources out there where if
Speaker 1: you want to take a class from m i T,
Speaker 1: you can get access to all the coursework, you can
Speaker 1: get access to the lectures, you can follow courses that
Speaker 1: are taught at m I T and other other colleges
Speaker 1: as well. I'm just using m i T as an
Speaker 1: example because I've actually used that. I've used chemistry courses
Speaker 1: in m I T to help get a better understanding
Speaker 1: of chemistry. And obviously I'm not getting any sort of
Speaker 1: credit towards that. I'm not going to get a degree
Speaker 1: in chemistry from m I T because I'm doing this,
Speaker 1: but I get the benefit of that information and the expertise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is called continuing education and UM, and it's a wonderful,
Speaker 1: wonderful thing that is harder to scam people on because
Speaker 1: you're not paying any money on the outset, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it tends to be like M I T. Stuff is free,
Speaker 1: so most most universities, well that is that is a
Speaker 1: really good If you are just doing continuing education, you
Speaker 1: should probably not have to pay for that unless you
Speaker 1: are actually going into a brick and mortar right right, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're actually paying for the facilities and the textbooks
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. Right. Um. But so
Speaker 1: if if you are trying to look for UM for
Speaker 1: online education you're wondering whether it's legitimate or not, there
Speaker 1: are a few really great resources that you can go to. UM.
Speaker 1: First is to just search with the Better Business Bureau UM,
Speaker 1: which is at www dot BBB dot org UM, and uh,
Speaker 1: just just type a name. There's a lot of information
Speaker 1: out there about a lot of these scammers that we
Speaker 1: were talking about. Keeping in mind that this is all
Speaker 1: based on what people have reported. There's it's not like
Speaker 1: it's a governmental agency. It's not no no, but um,
Speaker 1: but you know other people have had problems with this
Speaker 1: particular school, then that's probably a red flag. UM. You
Speaker 1: can also go to UM O, P E dot E
Speaker 1: D dot gov slash accreditation UM and UH and use
Speaker 1: that to see whether this is a federal government website,
Speaker 1: a Department of Education website that's going to list all
Speaker 1: of the all of the various accreditation bodies report into
Speaker 1: it about the schools that they have accredited, and so
Speaker 1: so this is a database of right. So if if
Speaker 1: the school you're looking at is non that list, that's
Speaker 1: a huge red flag. That is a huge red flag.
Speaker 1: Even if the school is on the list. Um. You
Speaker 1: you know, just just kind of kind of think ahead,
Speaker 1: think as far ahead as possible. Try to check with
Speaker 1: other people in the industry, Check with the universities that
Speaker 1: you might want to pursue graduate graduate degree from, and
Speaker 1: and check and make sure that your class work is
Speaker 1: going to transfer. It will not always and and I've
Speaker 1: you know, I think everyone knows someone who's had that problem,
Speaker 1: and it is um Also internationally, you can check with
Speaker 1: the Council for Higher Education Accreditation at www dot c
Speaker 1: h e A dot org. Awesome. So those are some
Speaker 1: great resources that people can use so that they can
Speaker 1: make sure that the money that they are going to
Speaker 1: dedicate towards their education actually goes to a legitimate education.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you'd get an education and totally the wrong way.
Speaker 1: It's that's the school of hard nuts, is what we
Speaker 1: call that one. All right, Well, we're gonna start talking
Speaker 1: about jobs, but before we do, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: All right, So we've covered the education part of this conversation.
Speaker 1: Now let's talk about jobs. There's so much information out there,
Speaker 1: not only about jobs that you can find online, but
Speaker 1: jobs that you can perform through teleworking online. Uh, and
Speaker 1: also just information about jobs in general. And before I
Speaker 1: get into the various kind of things you need to
Speaker 1: look out for, I thought to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about some some interesting statistics I found. Right, because we're
Speaker 1: living more of our lives online and so chances are
Speaker 1: if you're applying for jobs, part of that process, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: part of that process is a this vetting process. That
Speaker 1: people will give you the job applicant That can sometimes
Speaker 1: prevent you from landing that gig you one into land.
Speaker 1: So so let's say that I'm applying for a position
Speaker 1: here at How Stuff Works. Turns out the people at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works, or what I like to call web savvy,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. Yeah, so one of the things they
Speaker 1: might do, and by might, I mean one of the
Speaker 1: things I'm sure they do, assuming you've gotten far enough
Speaker 1: into the process, so your resume matches up what they
Speaker 1: are looking for, and your cover letter doesn't have incredible
Speaker 1: grammatical errors in that um and you've you've followed all
Speaker 1: the instructions. By the way, if you ever do want
Speaker 1: to apply for a job at How Stuff Works, follow
Speaker 1: the instructions. We know the person who looks at those
Speaker 1: and the there's a very easy first step. If it
Speaker 1: doesn't follow the instructions, it doesn't go into a file,
Speaker 1: It goes into the trash can. So anyway you follow
Speaker 1: the instructions, what happens then well, they may be checking
Speaker 1: up on you on your various social networks. You know,
Speaker 1: if they'll they'll take a look and see to make
Speaker 1: sure that the person who is living their life is
Speaker 1: the same one who is represented on paper exactly. So.
Speaker 1: A study commissioned by Microsoft called the Online Reputation in
Speaker 1: a Connected World discovered that about seventy of the employers
Speaker 1: or seventy employers who were who were surveyed conduct an
Speaker 1: online search of all applicants, said they had turned down
Speaker 1: applicants by what they found online, but only seven percent
Speaker 1: of job applicants were concerned about their online reputations. That's
Speaker 1: a huge disconnect. Wow, Yeah, I'm that's that's something. I mean, personally,
Speaker 1: I'm very concerned about I always I because I comment
Speaker 1: on them. Also, well, I mean, you know, just I
Speaker 1: I feel like it's I guess it's not common sense,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I try to really lock down
Speaker 1: my online presence and never say anything in public um
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't want the public to hear. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: try to do the same thing, and most of the
Speaker 1: time it works, except when I get friends who decided
Speaker 1: to share stuff that wasn't meant for the general public.
Speaker 1: You know who you are anyway. Some of the reasons
Speaker 1: why the these employers did turn down applicants included things
Speaker 1: like inappropriate comments by the candidate on their social profiles,
Speaker 1: unsuitable photos and videos, criticisms of previous employers. That's a
Speaker 1: huge no note. Oh yeah, yeah, be very careful about that. Always,
Speaker 1: always be very very polite whoever you're working for. Use
Speaker 1: your filters if you are going to use your filters,
Speaker 1: and don't post to any kind of public forum if
Speaker 1: you are going to grouse. I know that venting is important,
Speaker 1: so I'm not saying don't do it, just be smart
Speaker 1: about it. Also if you were to criticize former co
Speaker 1: workers or clients. And also they found that even sometimes
Speaker 1: inappropriate comments left by friends and relatives of the person
Speaker 1: were enough for a company to turn that personal, which
Speaker 1: is that's really rough, right because I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I've got a couple of jerk relatives who might
Speaker 1: leave a comment. If you have a public post and
Speaker 1: someone just comes in there, and yeah, I don't have
Speaker 1: any control over them. I guess I could delete their comments,
Speaker 1: which or you could make the post and not public
Speaker 1: in general. But yeah, but I'm a public kind of guy.
Speaker 1: I like my laundry out there where everyone can see. Anyway,
Speaker 1: those are some statistics that I thought are interesting, so
Speaker 1: that that's just a good rule of thumb. For anybody
Speaker 1: who is in the job market, just know that you're
Speaker 1: in mind that that if you can google yourself, your
Speaker 1: employer can do the exact same thing. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: want to make sure that that the stuff that your
Speaker 1: employer sees is going to have be a good representation
Speaker 1: of who you are. And it's not saying that you
Speaker 1: can't go out and have fun, you can't be smart
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah. So now let's move on really to
Speaker 1: some of the the nastier scams that are out there,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot. So again, like we were
Speaker 1: saying in the top of the show, people who have
Speaker 1: like and we were talking about the people who were
Speaker 1: buying into that fake doctor who was saying that he
Speaker 1: was working towards cures, AIDS and cancer things like that,
Speaker 1: they're very, very vulnerable emotionally. Same thing is true for
Speaker 1: people who are seeking jobs. They whether it's your first
Speaker 1: job and you're you're just unsure because you're entering into
Speaker 1: a brand new world that you just don't have experience,
Speaker 1: and so it's yeah, it can be terrifying. Or you're
Speaker 1: someone who I've been in this experience, you're someone who
Speaker 1: worked for a company for years and years and years
Speaker 1: and then suddenly found yourself back in the job market
Speaker 1: and it had been years since you had to deal
Speaker 1: with that. Heck, when I got a job, the Internet
Speaker 1: was barely a thing. So um, you know that there
Speaker 1: are there are reasons why people are very vulnerable at
Speaker 1: this period, and so that makes that that just opens
Speaker 1: up the doors for yeah. Unfortunately, because people who scam
Speaker 1: don't really care that the people that they're hurting are vulnerable.
Speaker 1: In fact, they counting exactly. So one of the most
Speaker 1: uh well known scams out there is often referred to
Speaker 1: as payment forwarding or payment hands for scams. So the
Speaker 1: scam works this way. First of all, you get let's
Speaker 1: say that you have put your resume up on a
Speaker 1: couple of job posting sites. So there are plenty of
Speaker 1: them out there. Some of them tend to be more
Speaker 1: rife with rep scallions than others. Sure, but you know,
Speaker 1: in any in any forum in which you're posting your
Speaker 1: profile publicly, you're going to get attention from yeah, from
Speaker 1: people who think they can take advantage of you, as
Speaker 1: well as people who may legitimately have something for you.
Speaker 1: I will say this, though, I think that the success
Speaker 1: rate of just posting your resume and then getting an
Speaker 1: opportunity is really low. That's like, we didn't we didn't
Speaker 1: pull statistics on this, and I've heard numbers ranging all
Speaker 1: over the place, but I but I believe it's less
Speaker 1: than ten percent of people. I've heard the number I
Speaker 1: saw most frequently, although I was trying to find a
Speaker 1: very reputable source that could tell me. But the number
Speaker 1: I saw us eight percent, which I don't have trouble believing.
Speaker 1: But because I could not find a rep source, that
Speaker 1: may not be accurate. I will say that I did
Speaker 1: find my very first job from an online job posting,
Speaker 1: but all of my but all of my jobs after
Speaker 1: that have come through networking. Networking. Yeah, well, but your
Speaker 1: online job posting, were you responding to a job that
Speaker 1: had been posted? See, that's different than someone hadn't contacted. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: so so payment forwarding tends to be that other way around. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not that you are responding to a job posting.
Speaker 1: It's that someone has seen that you've posted your resume
Speaker 1: and they contact you, and they may contact you about
Speaker 1: a position. Uh, saying that this is an amazing opportunity.
Speaker 1: You're going to be able to make lots of money.
Speaker 1: Per month and you're gonna be able to work from home,
Speaker 1: and there's like there's it's just there's nothing to the job.
Speaker 1: It's just this is an opening and you're the perfect
Speaker 1: person and the stars have aligned. All of this should
Speaker 1: be a red flag to you, because again, if anything
Speaker 1: is too easy, if it seems too good to be true,
Speaker 1: it probably is. So uh, here's how the scam works.
Speaker 1: The scammer convinces the victim to hand over information that
Speaker 1: usually includes a banking their bank account number. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they don't just clean out the scan the victim. That
Speaker 1: would that would be a scam. That would be pretty
Speaker 1: easy to to, you know, trace back, and that would
Speaker 1: be a big problem for the scammer. Now. Instead, what
Speaker 1: they do is they might tell the victim like, oh,
Speaker 1: we need your bank account number because you're gonna get
Speaker 1: paid and direct deposit and that's the only way we
Speaker 1: pay you. That's also another red flag. By the way,
Speaker 1: if the employer says we only pay out by direct deposit,
Speaker 1: that's a red flag unless it's a government agency and
Speaker 1: you are absolutely sure it's a legitimate government agency, because
Speaker 1: a lot in the US only pay for direct product Alright,
Speaker 1: So then they've got your bank account number. What they
Speaker 1: then do, well, they'll transfer money into your account and
Speaker 1: your job is to then wire that money to some
Speaker 1: other account, which is usually an offshore account, and as
Speaker 1: part of that transaction, you get to keep a certain
Speaker 1: percentage of the money that was transferred into your account.
Speaker 1: But here's the problem. That money is from some form
Speaker 1: of illegal activity, possibly stolen outright. So really what that
Speaker 1: victim is doing is they are committing theft and wire
Speaker 1: fraud because they've been tricked into being part of this.
Speaker 1: And the reason why it's done this way is so
Speaker 1: that if the law enforcement officials start to track the activity,
Speaker 1: they come after the victim. They're not coming after the
Speaker 1: scammer because the scammer has distanced him or herself away
Speaker 1: by at least one degree of separation by putting the
Speaker 1: victim as the the fall guy. So the victim is,
Speaker 1: as far as they know, doing something perfectly legitimate. They're
Speaker 1: just moving money around. But if you ask yourself the
Speaker 1: question like why the why do they need me to
Speaker 1: do this? Why can't they just do this themselves and
Speaker 1: then save the money on that transaction fee? Why would
Speaker 1: they need me to do it? Then it all starts
Speaker 1: to fall. Yeah, it's illegal, and they don't want to
Speaker 1: get caught. They want you to get caught. Here's some
Speaker 1: general rules. Okay, so you should not give out your
Speaker 1: personal bank account or PayPal account or credit card numbers
Speaker 1: to an employer potential employer, especially not before you have
Speaker 1: already received the job, right. Yeah, And don't agree to
Speaker 1: have any funds or paychecks direct deposited to any of
Speaker 1: your accounts by a brand new employer, particularly if they
Speaker 1: say that's the only way that they give out payment. That's,
Speaker 1: like I said, a huge red flag. Uh. The US
Speaker 1: government being an exception, assuming that you can verify that
Speaker 1: it's a legitimate office, because there are scammers who will
Speaker 1: pose as you know, legitimate business, but if you are
Speaker 1: to really examine them, you realize this guy is not
Speaker 1: on the op and up. Make sure that there's a
Speaker 1: phone number you can call it goes to an actual person.
Speaker 1: Make sure that the email has an actual registered domain
Speaker 1: that goes to whatever the organization is and it's not
Speaker 1: hotmail dot com or Yahoo dot com or unless unless
Speaker 1: you're applying for Yahoo, in which case a right. Even
Speaker 1: though those corporate uh emails will be different from just
Speaker 1: that anyway, so be careful, it's what we're saying. Also,
Speaker 1: don't forward, transfer or wire money to an employer, Like
Speaker 1: if part of the job involves you buying into the
Speaker 1: employer first, that's a huge red flag. And uh, don't
Speaker 1: transfer money and retain a portion for payment because you're
Speaker 1: probably receiving stolen goods stolen money. Uh, and use critical thinking.
Speaker 1: Any legitimate business that would have an employee wire money
Speaker 1: to some of their account would first conduct a really
Speaker 1: thorough background check on that person. I mean, you are
Speaker 1: essentially entrusting that person to send large amounts of money.
Speaker 1: Obviously a thorough background check would have to happen if
Speaker 1: it was legitimate. If it's not legitimate, that's when they're like, well,
Speaker 1: we'd rather just go ahead and risk it, because, uh,
Speaker 1: we don't want to get caught. So if it seems
Speaker 1: like it's going through really smoothly, it's probably because it's
Speaker 1: not a legitimate business. There are other warnings as well.
Speaker 1: If the recruiter asks you for your Social Security number
Speaker 1: or to scan your I D that's a red flag.
Speaker 1: If they're email again, like the email address isn't part
Speaker 1: of the business, that's a red flag. Also if if
Speaker 1: people send you an email about a job or there's
Speaker 1: a job posting and it's filled with misspellings and grammatical errors,
Speaker 1: that's a huge red flag. Um and you know, I
Speaker 1: mean human error except accepted. Right. Yeah, if it's a typo,
Speaker 1: that's one thing, but if it's if it's yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a problem. And also, uh, one thing I would do
Speaker 1: is I would take a string of text from that
Speaker 1: job posting and just put it into Google and do
Speaker 1: a search and see if that same job posting is
Speaker 1: popping up everywhere, because that's an indication that it's a
Speaker 1: net that's being spread out to catch as many victims
Speaker 1: as possible. In general, a quick Google search can can
Speaker 1: take care of all. It can assumes you a lot
Speaker 1: of these fears. Right, So let's talk about some of
Speaker 1: the other scams. Like the payment forwarding is one of
Speaker 1: the most popular ones out there, but there are a
Speaker 1: lot of others. There's also one called postal forwarding, and
Speaker 1: this is where your job ends up being to receive
Speaker 1: shipments of goods and then you are supposed to reship
Speaker 1: them to some foreign buyer and you get a commission
Speaker 1: in return, and uh, and the way it starts to work.
Speaker 1: Is it seems like everything's on the up and up.
Speaker 1: You get stuff, you it money, you're you're sending it off.
Speaker 1: But again, this is way too for the scammer to
Speaker 1: hide a legal activity. The goods could be stolen. Uh,
Speaker 1: they could be the wrong thing. Like it could be
Speaker 1: that people are paying for one thing, but you're shipping
Speaker 1: out something else and it's but your addresses on the return,
Speaker 1: it's not the scammers address. So again, when they're when
Speaker 1: problems come up, the authorities come after you, not the scammer.
Speaker 1: So again it's setting up that fall guy. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it could be again like stolen goods that are being
Speaker 1: fenced overseas, it's just a it's it's you know, a scam.
Speaker 1: Through and through other scams. You can run into our
Speaker 1: the old bait and switch. That's when you get our
Speaker 1: job posting and you go in and for an interview,
Speaker 1: and then when you get to the place where you're interviewing,
Speaker 1: you suddenly find out that the job you're interviewing for
Speaker 1: is not the one that was posted. Um, and that
Speaker 1: could be that it's for a legitimate job that they
Speaker 1: just didn't have any way of filling, and that you
Speaker 1: are not interested in, or it could be that's part
Speaker 1: of a bigger scam. Um. There's also a fake check scams,
Speaker 1: where the whole thing is that they'll they'll send you checks,
Speaker 1: and what you're supposed to do is use those checks
Speaker 1: to make purchases, and then you are supposed to send
Speaker 1: a check that's good for the remainder. Right. So I
Speaker 1: get a check that's for dollars, and I'm told to
Speaker 1: purchase this one computer, but the computer only cost twelve,
Speaker 1: so I use that check to try and purchase this computer. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I'm sending off a check back to the scammer for
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars, so the difference, right, only the check
Speaker 1: they gave me as a bad check, and it eventually bounces,
Speaker 1: and so then I'm out three hundred dollars plus whatever
Speaker 1: the cost is for trying to process a bounce check,
Speaker 1: and the scammer has my money and runs away. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So uh, however, I might have a have to have
Speaker 1: a computer in the bargain for a short while before
Speaker 1: I have to return it. Um, yeah, it's not great, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, And if you had to, if you shipped
Speaker 1: off whatever it was you bought, then the scammer gets
Speaker 1: both of the money and the item. So that's one
Speaker 1: to look out for any time they're asking you to
Speaker 1: make purchases on behalf of them, and especially if you're
Speaker 1: spent sending money back to them. That's a huge, huge
Speaker 1: red flag. So once should you do oh and oh,
Speaker 1: I kind of talk about this kind of scam too.
Speaker 1: There's also this thing called multi level marketing. I do
Speaker 1: not think that I've heard about that one multi level marketing.
Speaker 1: Uh one, you've heard about one sub group of multi
Speaker 1: level marketing. It's called the pyramid scheme. So this is
Speaker 1: multi level marketing is like all right, So in a
Speaker 1: traditional sales role where you're working on commission, you have
Speaker 1: a salesperson who is selling some sort of goods or
Speaker 1: services and they get money every time they make a
Speaker 1: successful sale. Right Glen Garry, Glenn Ross real estate in
Speaker 1: Florida that you should never buy. But otherwise, you know,
Speaker 1: it could be anything. Again, it could be completely legitimate.
Speaker 1: There's nothing illegitimate about that other than the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, some people take advantage of the US and
Speaker 1: also contrive people to desperation depending upon the goods that
Speaker 1: are trying to sell. Multi level marketing adds another element
Speaker 1: to this, which is that when you recruit people to
Speaker 1: come into the organization and sell stuff, you get money
Speaker 1: not only for recruiting, but you get a percentage of
Speaker 1: their sins well. So some people go so far as
Speaker 1: to say all multi level marketing strategies are essentially pyramid schemes,
Speaker 1: no matter what you call them. Others are say, no,
Speaker 1: there are legitimate ways of doing this, but one thing
Speaker 1: does appear to be true, which is that the more
Speaker 1: it depends upon that that bring people in and you
Speaker 1: will get some of their money. The more it depends
Speaker 1: on that, the more likely the whole thing is going
Speaker 1: to collapse once you have reached saturation and you cannot
Speaker 1: bring more people in. And then once it collapses, the
Speaker 1: only people who are left holding anything at all are
Speaker 1: the ones who are at the top of the pyramid.
Speaker 1: Everyone else suffers as a result. So that's something else
Speaker 1: to look out for. If it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where you know, you go through this whole process us
Speaker 1: and they're going to train you up, and then you
Speaker 1: find out that you're going door to door to recruit
Speaker 1: people to be part of something bigger, that's more of
Speaker 1: an indication that this is probably something that you don't
Speaker 1: want to be a part of. Uh, Now, what do
Speaker 1: you do if you've all victim to a scam? I
Speaker 1: took this list from from a website that was all
Speaker 1: about consumer alert, uh, consumer awareness of this sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: and their suggestions are pretty drastic and and they they're
Speaker 1: not easy things to do. So I'm going to go
Speaker 1: through the list, but keep in mind like that this
Speaker 1: is if you've fallen victim to a scam, this might
Speaker 1: be necessary for you to be able to get your
Speaker 1: life back on track, because scammers can do massive damage
Speaker 1: to you and your online presence and your financial stability overall.
Speaker 1: What we're saying is that it's much better to never
Speaker 1: give people your social Security number, your bank account, any
Speaker 1: any personal information that is highly sensitive like that until
Speaker 1: after you have signed a whole lot of paperwork that
Speaker 1: hires you into the organization and you and you have
Speaker 1: and you are reasonably confident that the organizations on the
Speaker 1: up and up. Yeah, and you know, talk to other
Speaker 1: people who are in that organization and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and and do research on it before because
Speaker 1: otherwise this is what you gotta do. Close all bank
Speaker 1: accounts at the bank where the scam took place. So
Speaker 1: if you have more than one bank account, if you've
Speaker 1: got a savings account and a checking account, you've gotta
Speaker 1: close both of them. It's a good idea to change
Speaker 1: banks completely and try so that you can avoid any
Speaker 1: sort of social engineering attempts that the scam folks do. UH.
Speaker 1: Social engineering that, of course, is when someone comes up
Speaker 1: and says, hey, you know, I work for such and such,
Speaker 1: I just need that password so I can get into
Speaker 1: this system, or you know, anything along those lines. It's
Speaker 1: really it's all about manipulating people to get access to
Speaker 1: a secure system. UM. So you close all those bank accounts,
Speaker 1: order a credit report from all three this is for
Speaker 1: the US, for all three credit bureaus. UH, every couple
Speaker 1: of months, and watch for unusual activity, and as soon
Speaker 1: as you see any you have to start reporting fraud alerts.
Speaker 1: So that's fun. I've had to do that personally when
Speaker 1: I had a card stolen, so that was fantastic. Identity
Speaker 1: theft is all over the place. UH. If you are
Speaker 1: a victim of a payment forwarding scam, you should contact
Speaker 1: Secret Service because that's the agency that handles this sort
Speaker 1: of stuff in the United states. A lot of us
Speaker 1: think of the Secret Service as the the bodyguards as
Speaker 1: the president and the president's family and former presidents, but
Speaker 1: they handle international fraud as well. Uh. Any you should
Speaker 1: also file a police report with your local law enforcements officials,
Speaker 1: and you should report the company name, the job posting
Speaker 1: and all contact names to the job sites where that
Speaker 1: scam was posted. So whether that's you know, Monster dot Com,
Speaker 1: career Builder, all those kind of sites, you need to
Speaker 1: alert them saying, and you should close all email addresses
Speaker 1: that were associated with that job fraud. Yeah, then you
Speaker 1: have to send on a message everywhere like hi, guys.
Speaker 1: You know I used to have this email address I
Speaker 1: don't use anymore. Yeah, it's it's ugly stuff. So of course,
Speaker 1: the best strategy is don't get involved and don't get scammed,
Speaker 1: which you know, it's easy to say in hindsight, but
Speaker 1: knowing this stuff ahead of time gives you the tools
Speaker 1: you need to be able to avoid it. Now, let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the stuff that does work.
Speaker 1: I don't want this all to be doom and gloom
Speaker 1: about you know, great night. What was just getting into
Speaker 1: the job market and now I feel like there's no
Speaker 1: way to succeed. That's not true. However, one of the
Speaker 1: things that has kind of come to light is that
Speaker 1: networking is probably the most important skill you can have
Speaker 1: when you're in the job market. You know, talking to friends,
Speaker 1: to family, to fellow students, if you got out of college,
Speaker 1: joining professional groups and meeting up that way exactly. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there were I remember I went to a an organization
Speaker 1: that was all about developing things like resumes and cover
Speaker 1: letters when I needed to find a job, and that
Speaker 1: helped me form relationships with other people that led to
Speaker 1: some some actual progress in my job search. Uh. This
Speaker 1: was years ago, but it still applies today. Um. The
Speaker 1: Impact Group did a survey and they found that the
Speaker 1: most effective method was networking that that came in at
Speaker 1: and the the second most effective was finding an online
Speaker 1: job posting and responding to it that had a twenty
Speaker 1: success rate. Um. And then behind that became the importance
Speaker 1: of getting a referral from within the organization. So someone
Speaker 1: who already works there who knows you like that, you know,
Speaker 1: full disclosure. Uh, there's someone who worked at how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works who knew me, and that got that got me
Speaker 1: uh some attention. It didn't it didn't get me hired
Speaker 1: because she wasn't she didn't have a management position at
Speaker 1: that time. But it at least gets here. It gets
Speaker 1: your your so called foot in the door. It gets
Speaker 1: someone who is not a robot to read your resume
Speaker 1: and take it into extra special consideration. Right. It definitely
Speaker 1: didn't guarantee me a job. The standards here are quite high,
Speaker 1: and I had to really work hard to land it.
Speaker 1: But that helped because it was one of those things
Speaker 1: where instead of being in a huge pile of resumes,
Speaker 1: I was in a slightly smaller pile of resumes. But
Speaker 1: that happens a lot. And they also found that the
Speaker 1: next most successful way of getting a job nine percent
Speaker 1: of the time was getting a referral from outside the company.
Speaker 1: But it was apparently, you know, a high enough person
Speaker 1: from outside the company in another position that was another industry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy knows his stuff. You should hire him, Like
Speaker 1: we're not hiring, but you should totally hire this guy
Speaker 1: or this woman or whatever. And so it's interesting to
Speaker 1: see that. I mean, apparently networking is particularly important for
Speaker 1: high paying jobs. So I mean that makes sense too,
Speaker 1: in the sense that you know, if it's a if
Speaker 1: it's a high paying job, it's a high level position. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people really respond more to
Speaker 1: that person to person interaction about Hey, you know, this
Speaker 1: guy seems like a great guy as opposed to a
Speaker 1: piece of paper, especially when you start seeing some very
Speaker 1: very high ranking people, uh fibbing a bit on the resume.
Speaker 1: I mean we've all heard about you know, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can fudge a little bit here and there, and you know,
Speaker 1: not to the extent necessarily of getting one of those
Speaker 1: fake diplumas. But yeah, Scott Thompson, yeah, who CEO had
Speaker 1: to step down after there was the scandal that he
Speaker 1: had included fake credentials on his resume, which really said
Speaker 1: that he had a degree that he did not possess.
Speaker 1: So networking is really important, what no matter what the
Speaker 1: position level, but if it's a higher paid position, particularly important.
Speaker 1: Also research the companies you are applying to. Research them thoroughly.
Speaker 1: I had a friend who got a job offer from
Speaker 1: a company and she asked me to look into it
Speaker 1: because she thought that something wasn't quite right. And when
Speaker 1: I did research, it was a company that was supposedly
Speaker 1: managing various uh real estate property uh throughout the city
Speaker 1: of Atlanta, and it was giving these weird addresses and
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't even know that the street
Speaker 1: goes that far, and I would. I started going to
Speaker 1: Google Maps and searching, and some of the addresses were
Speaker 1: completely fake. Some of them were real, but there was
Speaker 1: a totally different building at that address than the one
Speaker 1: that was on the website. And worst yet, I took
Speaker 1: a block of the text from there and to search
Speaker 1: and found identical websites in different cities that use the
Speaker 1: exact same language but different addresses, claiming to be this
Speaker 1: company that was hiring on people. So it was a
Speaker 1: total scam. I don't know, I don't know what specific
Speaker 1: scam they were trying to pull, but it was obvious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: knowledge it. So do your research and also use social
Speaker 1: networking in a in a smart way. So not only
Speaker 1: are you do you want to put forth your best
Speaker 1: self on social networks, use them to help try and
Speaker 1: network with people, find out what's out there, ask questions,
Speaker 1: be genuine and uh use things like LinkedIn. There are
Speaker 1: more and more companies that are actually using LinkedIn, and
Speaker 1: there are more people who use LinkedIn who will if
Speaker 1: they hear that you are in need of a job,
Speaker 1: they will they'll look at their their contacts and see
Speaker 1: is there someone out there, is there some position out
Speaker 1: there this person would be a good fit for and
Speaker 1: participate in conversations. You know, it's you can't you can't
Speaker 1: expect something out of a network if you're not putting
Speaker 1: anything back in, right. And I remember reading some It
Speaker 1: was in a CNN article. As I recall, there was
Speaker 1: some throwaway statistic. And again I don't know what study
Speaker 1: this came from, so uh, take this with a grain
Speaker 1: of salt, But they said that the average American when
Speaker 1: hunting for a job, would spend forty minutes a day
Speaker 1: doing it while spending three and a half hours watching TV. Uh.
Speaker 1: So that obviously also prioritize, prioritize your job search. So
Speaker 1: you know, if you follow these then you are more
Speaker 1: likely to avoid the pitfalls and find success. Uh. A
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff I learned the hard way when
Speaker 1: I was searching for a job, because, like I said,
Speaker 1: I was out of the job market for so long
Speaker 1: that the search method had changed dramatically when I needed
Speaker 1: to look for it again. And uh, and maybe as
Speaker 1: time goes on, both online education and the jobs that
Speaker 1: we can get access to online will evolve and become
Speaker 1: more robust and become more reliable. Um, that's probably going
Speaker 1: to be the case, but right now it's still this
Speaker 1: trans kind of weird, weird mettal period, the whole wild
Speaker 1: West thing. The same sort of stuff we saw with businesses,
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen twenty years ago, we're starting to see
Speaker 1: now in education and jobs in general. Uh And and
Speaker 1: like I said, you know, once once you get through
Speaker 1: all the the the stuff that you should be ignoring,
Speaker 1: there are things out there that are worth paying attention to.
Speaker 1: So don't get discouraged. Just make sure you use critical
Speaker 1: thinking and and just be careful because you know, this
Speaker 1: is your life and you don't want to you don't
Speaker 1: want to sit there and say, well, there were like
Speaker 1: three years of my life that I really regret because
Speaker 1: it was just this this s yeah. Um So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's that's our advice to you. If you guys have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for future episodes of tech stuff, things that
Speaker 1: we you think we need to uh to tackle. You
Speaker 1: have a particular concern or maybe there's a there's a
Speaker 1: gadget you've always wanted to know more about, or a
Speaker 1: company that you think is really cool. Let us know,
Speaker 1: send us a message. You can contact us by our
Speaker 1: email address that is text stuff at Discovery dot com,
Speaker 1: or let us know on Facebook or Twitter. You can
Speaker 1: find us there with the handle text stuff H. S
Speaker 1: W and Lauren and I will talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: is it has staff works dot com