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Even the most seasoned professionals can get caught off guard.
Ron O’Brien from Rockport, Massachusetts, has spent over 40 years of his life piecing together words to represent the values of a company as a communications specialist.
“When I was younger, I would describe myself as risk-averse,” said O’Brien.
His last job ended a year and a half ago.
“I took the opportunity to kind of look at what I had done and look at what I wanted to do in the future,” O’Brien said. “Knowledge is a lifelong opportunity, and so I appreciate the opportunity to learn new things and to try new things.”
He became a full-time student, taking courses in health equity and artificial intelligence.
“Between doing different projects for nonprofit organizations and going to school full-time, it gave me the opportunity to have a section of my resume that speaks directly to this contract and project management role,” said O’Brien.
So, when he received an email about a possible job opening, he didn’t think anything about it. The email was recently created and only used while job hunting. The offer was a role as a head of communications for a company that specialized in using augmented and virtual reality in surgery – a specialty he was very interested in.
“I responded to that and got a response almost immediately...providing me with some instruction on how to pursue an interview with the company and instructions on downloading Teams onto my phone. Chose a time, the appointment got set up, and then the interview was conducted via chat,” explained O’Brien. “I'm a little bit familiar with artificial intelligence and the tools and the way they're used, I thought this was an innovative way for them to be able to interview me.”
It was an interview unlike anything he’s ever experienced before.
“I was instructed at the end of a conversation to type done, so I did. I typed done,” O’Brien said. “This is a real conversation, which is based on someone having a body of knowledge that makes them truly unique.”
Then came the phone interview.
“The person on the other end appeared to be a live person. He went into great detail about the information that I had shared, both through chat and on the telephone interview,” O’Brien said. “And then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to hear the good news? And I said, ‘sure.’ And then they made me an offer.
A $350,000 annual salary that took him seconds to realize it’s too good to be true.
“He said I would hear from the person on the chat who would give me some additional information. I tried a couple of times to initiate [the conversation] but he wasn't responding. And then there was a point at which I wanted to say to my wife, ‘I don't think this is real.’ And I inadvertently typed that into the chat,” said O’Brien. “The last communication between me and the bot is, ‘I don't think this real.’
That's when he contacted someone from the company to confirm his job offer.
“And I said, ‘yeah, I just got a job offer,’ and he said, ‘it's a scam.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He goes, “it's a scam’. I go, ‘you're aware? You're aware that there's a scam?’ And he said, yeah.’ I said, ‘did you contact the authorities?’ He said, ‘no.’ I said, ‘you have an obligation to report this to the authorities if you know that someone is targeting your company with fake job postings,” said O’Brien. “Disappointment is the word that I would use to describe my feeling.
Looking back at the original email, O’Brien was surprised at the effort behind the fraudulent job offer.
“Given how much effort any company has sort of delegated to AI, it did not surprise me at all that a company might be using AI to the extent that this company was. It was extraordinary,” said O’Brien.
A lesson learned from one professional, now passed on to protect others.
“I'm trying to find avenues that I can use to teach and to share the knowledge that I have about communication with other people,” O’Brien said. “That gives me the outlet that I’m looking for in order to make sure that the next generation of folks is prepared to take the jobs that I used to apply for.”
An employee who works at the company O’Brien thought he was applying for posted on LinkedIn a warning about scammers posting as them for interviews and to beware about the fraudulent job postings. They urged people to apply directly on their company website.
Job seekers should always verify any job posting with the company directly. And never send money or provide sensitive information to a potential employer. Luckily for O’Brien, he did neither.
