LinkedIn

Spamming The LinkedIn Way

Posted by Steve on March 15, 2015
Posted in: LinkedIn, Recruiting. Tagged: , , . 4 Comments

Since there are so many ways that as recruiters we’re not getting an appropriate bang-for-the-buck from our LinkedIn investments (and more importantly, in any way aligned to the heights of their marketing bluster), I’m going to focus this week on the many ways that we are spammed via the LinkedIn messaging systems.

So to my frenemies in Trust & Safety, this blog’s for you!

For this week, I’ll focus on the Spam. You’ve received LinkedIn InMail that is unequivocally spamful. You scrunched up your face two sentences in and thought, “WTF?” You checked to see what level connection you have with this social Charlatan.

“*(^%$$%@#%#$, first degree.” You right click on their name and Open Link in New Tab…

You furiously scan up and down the profile of this person whom you let into your “trusted network” on LinkedIn. Your brow is beginning to sweat and your eyes are shrinking into beady little pools of molten lava that are ready to erupt. As you’re ready to shout out “DOUCHEBAG”, you click on Contact, because you want to call and skewer this bastard.

Only you see this:

opayq.com?

“Opayq.com is a domain used for Masked Emails for Abine’s MaskMe and PrivacySuite products. These are real user email addresses, created by users to protect their online privacy.”

Lovely.

Now Spammers are gaining control of LinkedIn accounts, adding their masked emails to your account, and sending your contacts LinkedIn InMails like this (I masked a few things myself to protect this person’s identity); notice the punctuation and grammar:

“I give you 100% guarantee of their legitimacy, a trial will convince you” – made me smile, because I was thinking of another kind of trial.

I hope Paul Rockwell has someone on his staff at LinkedIn who will forward him this post.

Fake Profiles, Dating Requests, Marketing InMails, Account Piracy – how soon before LinkedIn ends up as a running joke on TMZ?

And this is the ultimate tool for most recruiters?

[cross-posted to RecruitingBlogs.com]

Faux LinkedIn

Posted by Steve on February 3, 2015
Posted in: LinkedIn, Recruiting. 4 Comments

Another day, another 2-3 LinkedIn connection requests from fake profiles. Every day they’re received and every day they’re reported to LinkedIn.

Yet more continue to find their merry way into my Inbox. Like this one today from James Owens who’s in the “Millitray”:

LinkedIn Profile - James Owen

So I sent an InMail (LinkedIn, you now owe me one InMail):

Inbox - LinkedIn.clipular
Of course, Captain Owens of the United States of America, responded back (100% unedited):

Dearest One, How are you doing ,My name is Captain James Owen an
American soldier based in Afghanistan on peace keeping ,Being so
ignorant of the internet since but a friend has opened my eyes about the
internet and that is why i am writing you as i have already gone
through your profile and found you very attractive and interesting

It’s
very hard for me to tell you this but I do not have a choice now. I am
just hoping you can keep secrets.Please, read the next paragraph
carefully and comment.

About ten days after I arrived here in
Afghanistan, I was attached to a special tactical unit as a command
relay engineer for an operation which busted a Taliban bunker and the
troop that went for that operation looted the bunker before setting it
on fire. They recovered over 150 million US dollars of the Taliban
funding. The commander agreed with the rest of the troops not to return
the money to the authorities. They split the money among themselves and
in other to have me keep my mouth shut; they gave me 15 million dollars
which I rapped up among my clothing and have been hiding it since then. I
knew it would never be possible for me to leave the base with the money
myself as they have all kinds of security laser scans.

Right now
as I am about to leave Afghanistan, I arranged with that security
courier company who brings medical supplies in and out of the base from
the US to the RED CROSS without security checks to deliver it to you as
my personal effects. The box I mailed to you contains 15million dollars
carefully wrapped up in my clothing and paintings in a luggage sealed
and stamped in your name as the receiver.

There is no other way I
could have been able to bring it out from Afghanistan. I cannot bring
it with me because I will be searched and scanned before I leave the
base. There is no risk involved at all because the courier company is
reliable and will deliver it to you safely without knowing what is
contained underneath my clothes. I would also like for you to honestly
and fairly tell me how much of the money you would like to have as
compensation for the receipt. This is not stealing Friend because
the money is better in our hands than being used for guns and suicide
bombers. We can give a substantial amount to charity to clear our
conscience. Please, be honest with me on this and do not disclose this
information to anybody else until the delivery is made.

I only require your

1) Home Address
2) Full Name
3) Telephone Number
4}Your email Address

Please do reply to this my email Address for security reason owenjames123123@gmail.com

Mind you all this re-gusted from you did not post any risk but only needed for documentation and delivery up keeping

Your Friend
James Owen

Linkedin is unequivocally a fine tool – but it’s certainly not the only tool in both the recruiters’ and jobseekers’ shed. Most of the fake profiles are so painfully easy to spot; many are not. For the ones that are easy to spot – like the one above – I have to wonder about the “expertise” of the people who accept requests from the miscreants who create fake profiles of those currently serving in our Military (notice the spelling).

It’s time that we let our connections know if they’re connected to people with faux LinkedIn profiles; if any of your connections scoff at the notion of eliminating a connection, then I say simply remove them. If you have to use up an InMail in the process of verifying the #LinkedInLiars, then be sure to let LinkedIn know you want an InMail credit.

Above all, we need to keep letting LinkedIn know about fake profiles and the impact they have on our craft both in time and money.

LinkedIn – this problem is beginning to grow legs – and it’s time for you to stop running in the other direction.

For a great tutorial on how to spot fake LinkedIn profiles, you must read John Thomas‘ piece, Dubious HR Profiles & Unrealistic Job Offers At Companies That Don’t Exist.

I Fart in Your General Direction: Stubborn and Arrogant Recruiters

Posted by Steve on December 14, 2010
Posted in: LinkedIn, Recruiting, sourcing. 13 Comments

[Remember one of the first castle scenes from Monty Python and The Holy Grail? It’s one of the inspirations for this post – watch it especially 1:57 in]

A recruiter who could care less what their quarry thinks about them? This brand of headhunter exists? You betcha!

Scott McKearney and Wojciech Zielinski, Moderators Manager for LinkedPHPers, the largest group of its kind on LinkedIn, are rip-roaring mad (as mad as a developer can get which when considering the Wikileaks supporters is pretty darn angry and vituperative):  They’re  deleting recruiters from the Group because these people simply won’t listen to their requests to post jobs in the Jobs section rather than directly in the Discussions.

Here’s the title of the Discussion thread that’s getting:

WARNING RECRUITERS-DELETE, AND BLOCK IN FORCE

IF I FIND THAT YOU HAVE POSTED A JOB IN THE DISCUSSION SECTION YOU WILL BE DELETED AND BLOCKED FROM REJOINING THE GROUP. ASK THE FIVE I JUST DID THIS TO THIS MORNING.

See how mad they are? All caps. Makes me shiver.

One member is referring to recruiters posting  in the discussion as “the plague” – that’s both funny and telling.

These people are serious: “Just a short info for people that still does not believe that me or Scott are really removing people that does not follow the rules – on the Blocked list we already have 163 members and counting…” And correct in their actions – there’s a Job section, can Linkedin make posting jobs to group any easier?

One recruiter even posted back:

“Sorry people, I post my jobs via ShareThis. There is no option for the jobs section. Ban me you want. I’ll continue to post my jobs to my PHP group at [deleted] – Join there if you wish. Have a nice day.”

Pretty stubborn and arrogant.

This recruiter is pretty much saying, “Well, if I can’t play here, I’ll just take my ball elsewhere. Nanny, nanny, poo-poo.” I say find a different app or for a group such as this one with a significant user base, post by hand for which I have to say, “why bite the hand that feeds you?”

Recruiters need to learn to respect the wishes of the people who might end up being candidates; saying FU isn’t the best way to win friends and influence people.

And we wonder where the negative feelings towards recruiters come from?

A Devilish Experiment

Posted by Steve on May 17, 2010
Posted in: Creative, Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media, Twitter. 2 Comments

He’s loud, boorish, opinionated, and priggish but he’s still the SPCA’s poster child. In the same manner that turned a hoop star into an even bigger brand – Be Like Mike – the Recruiting Inferno is now at the forefront of social media experimentation…

Does “Being Mike” actually help your personal brand?

For instance, Brenda sent me a DM after she changed hers: “I’ve gotten about 10 new followers with animal’s avatar…hmmm? Which means mine must be a real turn off?”

Well Brenda, yes and no but let’s find out how much an influence Mr. Animal truly is.

To participate, all you have to do is change your Twitter avatar to one of these of the Recruiting Animal that most closely embodies who you are:

Clockwise from top left to right, we have Original, Bald, Blonde, Gay, Redhead, and Mohawk.

You know the drill: Save the picture you want to use to your hard drive then go into your Twitter settings and change your picture. Then sit back and watch the followers flock to you! Or not…

Just be prepared to deal with the shock when someone comes back to you with a message that sounds “right” but with an avatar that makes you wonder whether you mistakenly sent a delicious Tweet to a person who would have no problem with telling the world what kind of idiot you are.

Oh the heart palpitations!

TRU USA: Tiger Loves Cheese

Posted by Steve on April 9, 2010
Posted in: Facebook, LinkedIn, Recruiting, Social Media, TRU USA, Twitter. 2 Comments

It’s TRU: I call therefore I am

Posted by Steve on April 5, 2010
Posted in: Facebook, LinkedIn, Recruiting, Social Media, Telephone, TRU USA, Twitter. 5 Comments

I’m followed…I call. I’m invited…I call. I’m friended…I call.

I call, therefore I am.

Over the past few months, my little experiment has included calling up some of the people who decided to follow me on Twitter. If you’ve received one of these calls, I suspect your response was shock, followed by more shock. I’m pretty sure everyone I called told me that it was the first time someone had called them after a follow.

Call? You mean using a phone? My reason for calling isn’t a gimmick – it’s how I was weaned into recruiting and I hope I’m not being pompous by saying that I bet my call is remembered more fondly than a “thanks for following me” DM.

The impact of one of these conversations has been better than I could imagine – it was richer and more personal than back and forth DMs or emails could ever achieve…and in a far shorter time frame. I’ve done the same with LinkedIn and Facebook with the same reactions and results.

If you think social media begins with the follow followed by an inane stream of RTs and “Kudos” Tweets, you’ve simply missed the best opportunity to quickly seed a relationship. This is the cornerstone of the oxymoronic anti-social recruiting.

There’ll be many more anti-social recruiting techniques demonstrated at TRU USA in Madison, WI on April 19-20. The description of the Anti-Social Recruiting track with Jerry Albright, Scott Gordon, and me is a bit obtuse but each of us has a good deal of capital built up around social media. The one difference is the personal touch; it isn’t an “either or” proposition but each of us certainly have successfully blended traditional recruitment techniques with social media tools – and we’ll be talking and demonstrating these at TRU USA.

Remember you social media only recruiters – scars are simply tattoos with better stories.

I also plan on showing anyone who wants to learn, the complete way to use the United States Patent and Trademark Office to source and recruit technologists and scientists. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll use your jobs as examples.