LinkedIn Swindler: How to Spot a Candidate’s Fake LinkedIn Profile – Working as a recruiter means that you must be prepared to face various problems or challenges when recruiting prospective employees. Starting from finding candidates who ignored your recruitment process invitation to finding candidates who falsified data on CVs and LinkedIn profiles.
CVs and LinkedIn profiles are often the things that recruiters evaluate. Generally, candidates will arrange these two things as well as possible by providing some information related to personal data ranging from contacts, work experience, skills, to education.
Then, what if the data that the candidate inputs in their CV and LinkedIn profile are fake? This is of course quite difficult and requires precision because it cannot be distinguished at a glance. Even so, there are many tricks you can do to find out whether or not candidate data is fake through LinkedIn profiles.
Well, for those of you who are curious about the trick, in this article Algobash will show you how to spot a candidate’s fake LinkedIn profile so it’s not wrong.
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How to Spot Candidate Fake Linkedin Profiles?
As a recruiter, of course, you want to recruit the best candidates for your company’s team. Unfortunately, realizing this is not an easy thing.
You will be faced with various challenges in the recruitment process. One of them found candidates who falsified their data in their CV and LinkedIn profiles.
To minimize errors when selecting candidates, here Algobas presents several ways how to spot a candidate’s fake LinkedIn profile.
4 Ways to Spot a Fake LinkedIn Profile
1. Research Candidates Using Various Web
To find out whether the data that candidates enter into their CV or profile is correct or not. The first thing you can do is research candidates optimally using a variety of existing websites.
As a recruiter, you should not only judge candidates based on their LinkedIn profile. You should also research candidates in depth to minimize cheating.
You can research candidates via the internet, collect as much data as possible about your candidate from social media, accounts, or company websites where they were previously, and so on. This will help you to find out more information before actually including them in the selection process.
This research method may not work for some candidates especially those who are still in junior positions in their previous jobs. However, researching on the internet will certainly help you in gathering information before making a decision.
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2. Double Check Candidate LinkedIn Profile
Even though they structure their LinkedIn profile well to attract recruiters’ attention. Usually, there are still some gaps that could be a sign that the data they have entered is correct or not. So, double-check their profile carefully. In some cases, they usually create cloned accounts (dual accounts) to apply for several different positions. So, optimize LinkedIn’s search feature and enter their name to see if they did this or not. When a candidate includes work experience in certain companies. Usually, they will also have connections with several other employees who are also in the company. If you don’t find other employees connected to the candidate, this could be a sign that they are falsifying work experience data.
In addition, you can also analyze other specific things such as the candidate’s technical skills that are included in the LinkedIn profile.
For example, if the candidate you are hiring has worked as a programmer at company A and you know that the company used to use a certain programming language at work but the candidate did not include it as their technical skill on LinkedIn. This can be one of the red flags that you need to be aware of because they could falsify data.
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3. Pay attention to the LinkedIn Templates Used
Some scammers don’t usually build their LinkedIn profiles alone from scratch. They could just plagiarize other people’s LinkedIn profiles to make them look more attractive. Take a look at the descriptions they use for LinkedIn profiles and find out what templates are trending on LinkedIn. If you find an irregularity, it could be a sign that the candidate falsified their data.
4. Contact the Company Where They Worked Before
To ensure that the data that the candidate enters in the CV and LinkedIn profile is correct or not. You can contact their previous employer, a candidate who falsifies his data will be easily caught this way.
Well, that’s how to spot a candidate’s fake LinkedIn profile. Maximize your candidate screening strategy so you don’t spend a lot of time judging candidates who falsify their data in their CVs and LinkedIn profiles.
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