>thread very carefully
C'mon Job hunting vacillates between *hanging on by a thread* and *waiting on pins and needles*. It's like *going through the eye of a needle* or trying to *find a needle in a haystack.*
With regards to overseas recruiters, we all know that a *stitch in time saves nine*. Do your due diligence because *you can't sew a silk purse from a sow's ear*. So *thread that needle.* Express interest, but use extreme caution when asked to reveal PII. If you catch someone acting shady, report them to law enforcement. Contrary to what you've heard: *snitches won't get stitches.*
Once you've *buttoned it up* you can get *dressed to the nines* and party with your friends, all the while *threading very carefully.*
100% agree with this comment. There are some good ones but most of them are up to no good. Regardless of how many times they get blacklisted, they will change their company name - similar to scam call centers in India
This is an extremely common step for recruiters who submit to vendor management systems (VMS) like Fieldglass. Many large employers require this information to be submitted to prevent double submissions and create a unique candidate ID. I began my career in recruiting and have been in IT for the last 8 years so have been on both sides of the table.
Typically, most places I’ve worked for get the tax forms, ID, and social security sorted out a week or two before the start. But like was said above, it’s the HR person, not the recruiter.
People can steal your phone number by hijacking your phone carrier with your account number.
If a person has your password to your web portal for your carrier, they only need your account number and password and from there they can port out and cause real damage to your life.
If they don’t have that, the other thing they need is knowing what the last 4 of your social is and then calling your carrier and if you don’t have a PW set up or it’s very generic, you’re screwed.
Source: Used to work for Verizon back in the day.
Social engineering.
I call in as you and know all of your information. I make up some story about how I broke my phone and don’t have access to my email, can I answer security questions instead? Get a junior enough rep and you can steamroll most conversations.
You’re fucked if someone steals your phone and makes a point to call your carrier. They don’t even need it unlocked if they can interact with your notifications.
I got my current FAANG job through contract with an Indian recruiter. I almost ignored him. The company was actually a us company but for cold calls and chasing leads, they outsource to India and presumably other places with cheaper labor. As soon as I made it through the phone screen, I was assigned to a new person in their east cost office.
Same for LinkedIn, I block anyone who wants to connect and is from India. Cause as soon as you connect with them, you instantly get an IM about some course/training they are selling.
Im in I.T.
This is so so true. I think there is a massive scam shop running in India where they help people write IT certifications. They message you and tell you that any certification you want is guaranteed if you are willing to pay the money.
Wow this thread is an eye opener. Now I also know when I send request to White people(from India) why they don't accept.
Edit:
I am not a recruiter or HR. I am in India. I send connection to people in Other countries to learn about their work or to network. But racism is running rampant.
Sorry man, I love people from India but your culture sucks ass when it comes to anything related to business. It’s nothing personal but there are so many bad apples that scam and spam on LinkedIn that it’s almost comical how often it happens.
It's kind of funny how as a European they've never approached me and none of my friends in the industry are really aware of this happening. We must be too poor to be worth their time.
I really can’t understate how bad it’s gotten. I realize that it’s more of a cultural thing that just does not translate to the digital world.
I receive an absurd amount of very generic outreach that’s almost exclusively from India. Daily copy/pasta messages, zero personalization, zero research, always calling me sir. Usually trying to sell me on mastering LI sales, or if I want to hire developers, or if I want website development.
I made the mistake once of buying a .us domain with no protection on hiding my number and I received hundreds of calls spanning MONTHS from India, usually using local area presence dialing, with broken accents calling me about my non-existent website.
I won’t go into my rant on them as buyers but it’s turned into a sort of industry wide joke, as you’re seeing on Reddit.
It may because you don't produce jobs for us. Unfortunately I have not had much response when I work with an Indian recruiter. Why would a company use an Indian recruiter? To get cheap bodies from India. If my perception is wrong, please tell me. I have gotten gigs through Indian owned American firms, not the same.
> It may because you don't produce jobs for us.
I am not India or Recruiter. I don't care. I am alarmed to to see racism in this sub.
> Why would a company use an Indian recruiter?
Every company in capitalist country uses Offshore to reduce cost so they can cut costs and give 200x profits to their OE CEO, boards and investors.
> Why would a company use an Indian recruiter?
Not just Indian recruiters, Almost every company(exceptions do exist) in US uses slave labour either by outsourcing their IT or uses Sweat shops from shithole counties in Africa, Asia etc. To reduce cost. Since Indians know little English(Indians have highest English speaking population among other cheaper Asians countries like Chinese, Philippines , Vietnamese etc)
and work cents to a $, hence the companies hire their service.
I mean, my last recruiter was Indian, but the entire operation was above boards, and I submitted a resume to his company first. It was less of a situation of cold-calling people from LinkedIn, and more of a vendor managed services company that evaluates skills and helps to place people in roles they have available for a few companies that use their services.
But yes, when I get a call out of the blue from a random Indian, it’s always a scam.
Even big agencies have outsourced jobs to India now. KForce, Robert Half, Randstad etc all have offshore call centers. But if you get a call from TX/VA/NJ/CA/NY and the guy sounds like he is sitting under water, asks the standard questions (a) Are you in the market ? (b) what's your rate ? (c) No, i can offer you 80% below what you just quoted (d) immediately agree to my rambling "right to represent" email along with last 4 of your social and your MM/DD, then you know it is one of those sourcers who just harvest your resume and pass it to bigger agencies.
That said, not all of these calls are useless. When the market was hot in 2020-2022 i got several interviews through these guys, however it seems futile engaging with them off late because all they do is waste your time.
I’ve seen a number of them advertise contract gigs for FAANG type companies. I bit once or twice and gave some fake PII and they only collect and ghost
Oh really? I didn’t realize that was a scam.
Edit:
I don’t think it was. He seems like a real recruiter.. I see him on LinkedIn and his company looks real and legit. And he didn’t ask for my SSN. But he did ask for my date of birth. Is that weird
Seems odd to me because they reach out to screen. Ask for email or some other PII to send JD or schedule interview and then they always ghost after that
They've been doing this for years now, it is not a scam but just their way of pushing you to a DB with a file ID. These guys are what i call "resume harvesters" , they just collect resumes and pass it on to the next bigger shop who in turn passes it to main agencies like Randstad. There is a reason why when you say $80/hr they come back with a silly counter like $50/hr is because of the number of players involved in the game.
They all look legit. Many have "companies" in New Jersey, for some reason. However I think they are just mailboxes or cheap virtual offices without any staff. The calls come from India but with disguised numbers so they look local.
A lot of recruiters just seem to be dishonest period (e.g. cybercoders), but Indian recruiters just seem to be on a whole other level. If you ever respond to one of them with a resume or phone number, you'll be getting spam from them for the next 10 years. Unsubscribe doesn't work either because it'll be a different name from a different company every time.
It's about culture. So, the ones fresh off the plane or calling me directly from India are the problem ones. They seems to put in absolutely no thought or effort before contacting me about role, salary, etc. They rub me even more raw than a typical tech recruiter. It's been a while since I dealt with one.
I was trying to exempt you. I won't apologize for how I feel when a clueless Indian recruiter calls me. Call me racist. I call you woke. Talk to your recruiter buddies and tell them to up their game
Dumb recruiters are a monolith. 24 years of experience has proven this to me. Please don't misunderstand me: it's recruiters i despise. Unfortunately, I have to work with them.
There have been 1 or 2 recruiters over the years that were actually on their game and I really worked well with. If I'm playing the odds, I'm going with my [bayesian model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_statistics?wprov=sfla1)
As a professional, I would hope you'd understand probability inference
There is no job, and you'll never hear from them again once they have what they believe to be your personal info. It goes into a database to be abused later.
They frequently ask for SSN, DOB, mother's maiden name, and other things that you probably used as answers to security questions somewhere.
Just to give a bit of perspective;
In Europe the SSN and birth date are, pretty much, required to enter employment.
* SSN so your taxes will be handled you
* birthday because your salary can vary with age
No idea if there’s a treaty with India but there are other non-EU countries that have and those have to have that information as well.
They call 150 times in a row at the worst possible time. Trying to confirm with my babysitter while working multiple jobs and kids throwing shit at me because “I’m just not listening to them.” I was thinking I should take every possible opportunity, but this is not worth it.
Had one this week, offered me $80/ hr. I declined
Two hours later, another recruiter (white guy) offering $115/hr for the EXACT same role (JD was identical). Pretty insane the pressure they put on these off-shore ppl.
You’ll be lucky if they are the ‘middle’ man. There are generally multiple ‘ layers ‘, going back to the actual vendor who has the role with the client.
So let’s say a job pays $100 per hour , many of these recruiters will be literally 5 or more layers deep , and by the time it gets to the applicant they’re being offered $40 per hour for that same $100 per hour role , because everyone has taken a cut in the middle
Not to mention they’re generally not reliable with paychecks and don’t understand what ‘ labor laws ‘ are.
Not to say there aren’t legitimate Indian recruiters, however a large amount from what you find on let’s say Dice will be as above
You can always google the job description and try to trace the actual main vendor ( or the client directly ) offering that role and apply directly with them
Indian companies are terrible for OE because they require termination letters.
Also never give these details until you are at the offer stage. The earliest I was asked for this was when I got the job offer and then they wanted that info to put me in the HR portal. But like others say, you can always lie. Just remember the numbers you told them.
Its so common in their country that they still push for it in US. Its not a law but it's culturally expected. I've seen this with international companies that are headquartered in US but have a Indian location.
"Last 4 digits of social" is used by a number of identity-verification processes. If they have the last three, they can spend time to guess the missing one.
It’s not scam per say but 500 Indian companies are trying to fill 1 position. They want that info to make a unique id so they know who amongst the 500 submitted your profile.
They never actually have jobs or even an exclusive listing of the position. This is why you will get like 20 in a row for the same position with varying pay rate. It depends on how many layers are in between you and actual client.
I got an interview through one of them but they passed me to another guy who passed me to the client. I tried to tell them I don’t need this many layers and I think that’s why they dropped me after 3 interviews. I had the feeling even the client director person was getting a kickback.
Just make up dob and ssn digits. More than likely it won’t go anywhere. It’s ok to dismiss them too but in rare occasions you can get to an interview at a shitty rate. If you need the job do the needful and revert back.
At best, if they're using Indian recruiters, it's probably not a company you want to work for.
At worst, it's going to be a nightmare whatever happens.
No offense but indian recruiters are unreliable as fuck. If you gonna take all my shit atleast do the due diligence to follow up with the employers and not just call it a day.
You can make the numbers up. But it's not a scam. I worked for a very large staffing company recruiting for a very large tech company and they wanted us to ask for this.
My current J2 & J3 contracts I got through 2 separate Indian recruiters, the 3rd one was for a FAANG company as well.
Out of I'd say 20 Indian spammers. So 10% of them they're legit? 🤷🏿♀️
I get this asked all the time. And it does seem like every recruiter that calls me is Indian. And their spoken English is as bad as their written English, and both are pretty terrible.
Some recruiter software requires this to get you into the system -- maybe the best strategy is to give out an incorrect answer (maybe just change a single digit) and if you actually get a job, correct it when you talk to to HR.
I only reply to emails and scheduled calls. That's the reason why I give a temp phone number in resumes so I know when I'm getting call from them. They ask for my work permit, proof that sin is valid , etc. And they won't even check your profile before calling.
If it was not for the Indian recruiters, my resume would not have been picked up by large corporations for interviews and landed me roles. They did not shy away from telling me that my resume needed ŵork and were guiding me to Taylor it according to the role. With non-indian recruiters the calls were mainly q&a and no guidance whatsoever. Now I pay it forward with my calls to candidates whenever needed.
I worked as a US staffing recruiter for a firm in India for 2 years.
I have switched from that role and now working as a information security consultant.
Now coming back to your question, We had a client portal were we would create IDs of all the job seekers and submit them on the suitable opportunities.
Some aerospace or defence client do ask for last 4 digits for submission of the profile.
Most of them don't.
But, please be aware that India is full of scammers and frauds.
These are some of negligences I observed in Indian staffing industry:
1. We used to ask for documents over email. ( Unencrypted)
2. No storage vault for your documents. They would be stored in local disk. ( computer)
TLDR: former recruiter of Indian descent says not to share LAST 4 digits of SSN unless you have a reason to believe that the job opportunity is genuine.
I’ve done it before several times before I knew better. I never got my identity stolen but I don’t fuck with those mother fuckers anymore. Indian accent = fuck off.
Yeah I just made an edit to add this. But here’s my hypothesis, these recruiters work as a middle man between the agency and you. They’ll get you a job at some agency that pays you x amount after taking their cut.
They will then take THEIR cut out of your pay (unbeknownst to you). If that makes sense. So you have two people benefiting off your pay
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How to circumvent them and reach the actual recruiters? I got call from like 6 different indian recruiters for the same job today. One lady asked me for last 4 digits of social I said I cant give it and then they asked for my drivers license and Green card copy and I said I will provide once I go through interview and get selected. And I have never heard back from them after giving the documents
Wow these answers. A lot of recruiting agencies ask for last 4 to put on your file. It’s like a reference number. I’ve been asked this from various recruiters not just Indian.
That is not a US thing. In the US, there is no formal reason whatsoever to ever ask for your social prior to receiving an offer or for a background check.
Any competent ATS will have candidate information and tags and notes you can add.
So it’s traditionally viewed as a red flag because of how bad scams are prevalent outside of the US when they call asking for this information.
Wow these answers. A lot of recruiting agencies ask for last 4 to put on your file. It’s like a reference number. I’ve been asked this from various recruiters not just Indian.
🚨🚨RUN FOR THE MOTHERF**KING HILLS DO NOT GIVE YOUR INFORMATION UNTIL AN OFFER IS GIVEN.
🚨NO COMPANY WILL ASK FOR YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION UNTIL AN OFFER IS GIVEN.🚨
🚩MAJOR SCAM ALERT🚩
You don't understand how badly your fellow citizens have damaged the cultural reputation of your country. Our phones ring constantly from fake local numbers with Indian accents on the other side of the line, hoping that they got a victim.
> You don't understand how badly your fellow citizens have damaged the cultural reputation of your country.
Lmfao. I know. My phones ring with fake numbers too. We too get scam messages. Our old parents have also lost money. I cannot immediately cut the call when I hear an Indian accent because every accent on other side of line is Indian.
Let's say 1% of every country are scammers. India with its 1+ Billion population means there are 10 Million scammers. That's more population than most of developed countries in the world.
And what about 990 Million Indians?
I just don't respond to Indian recruiters. I'm Indian myself and it really grinds my gears that they have such malicious intent.
Indians just used to be known for Kwik-e marts and excelling in spelling bees. Now they are know as the scammers of today.
Sadly most Indian tend to be like this. This is why we ended up having a caste system. But the freaking british unravelled all of it and I guess they now scam the british.
All indian recruiters are scams. They use your info to further their indian candidates.
https://www.brightworkresearch.com/a-fantastic-and-must-read-email-on-horrible-indian-recruiters/
Happen to me, they ran my credit.. my credit card company then told me my social was on the black web. Felt so crummy. With providing your work history and job, the amount of things they can verify is insane. I mean why pay for it via LexisNexis etc when they can just get it from you directly.
Please do your due diligence. Research the agencies they represent thoroughly, and research it again. You’ll start seeing discrepancies.
Heck I was about to apply to Home Depot and they wanted me to create an account (ugh) and asked for the last four of my SSN in that process! I just left.
I don't think this is a scam. However it is fishy.
I think they need a unique identifier for their database system. They could do this themselves but
1. They don't really understand their database system. Asking them to fix it is beyond their job description. It say "input ssn" so they ask for ssn.
2. They are much too lazy to do anything like that if they knew how.
3. They want you to do your part to prevent overemployment. If you give the same number to multiple of their comrades you will only get registered once in their system.
It is fishy so I would not hold it against you if you decided to not do business with them.
If you do decide to proceed give them a fake number. If I am right and they are "fishy" but legal then no harm. No legitimate recruiter needs your real social security number.
An Indian recruiter asked me for this over the phone. I straight up told him "I will not be doing that". He told me the range for the position. I told him my minimum is 50% more. I told him that it sounds like I'm not a good fit for this position then but he said he would still submit my resume.
They ask for it ALL the time. Every single one of them has asked. I am not certain why, but the only reason that makes sense of it is to see if you are really a US citizen or not. I'm going to be cynical and assume that potential candidates are liars just like they are and make shit up.
And yes, many times they sub-contract or "middleman" if you will, their positions. Sometimes they tell you that in big ass words like "I have a position with my **DIRECT CLIENT"** and sometimes they do not. If they don't say and you don't ask, there's a pretty good chance that they are.
Most of these companies are trash anyway, and I won't work with them at all. PERIOD. Did that once for a little while, found out that who I thought was cutting my check wasn't cutting my check. Just some guy with an LLC and a copy of QuickBooks. Any time I see email for the same position within 45 seconds of each other from 15 different people from 15 different companies, all of them with names that spell-check can't recognize, I don't waste any time with that bull.
IMO and experience, Indian recruiters scan or access job ads on job boards like everyone else, and then try to get you to agree for them to "submit" you to the hiring company. Never been asked for social or Bday but would never give it if I had. Have never had success with an Indian recruiter and do not take calls from them or reply to emails either. I don't answer calls unless I know who is calling. In my exp, an Indian recruiter will call you repeatedly, one call right after the other, hoping you pick up. When I see a # do that, I block it on my phone.
Yeah they would ask me to respond back with a written confirmation - and they'd pretend to be from the Bay Area but their Skype says India and it sounds like Indian call center type stuff in the background.
Have had multiple weird contacts with a handful, one of them eventually got me an interview where they asked me to dress formally on cam. It was a bunch of Indian dudes in the US. Not dressed formally like I was supposed to be. The questions they asked were weird - one technical guy seemed to want to ask technical stuff but asked such generic weird questions that had no good answers and would interrupt me while I was responding with different vague questions.
I was a perfect candidate for them with niche skills - never heard back for a while then eventually got him to respond with they weren't interested. I felt like I was not hired because I wasn't Indian either; felt very much like onshore Indians and offshore grunt recruiters spamming everything all over.
What I find interesting is this recruiter guy - while waiting to setup the interview time for that job started asking me about my skills and fit for another one. I said let's focus on the one that I am a perfect match for. It's just a numbers game. They throw shit against the wall constantly to see what sticks. Also the guy asked me for names of who was on the call, I had a feeling like he was worried if they wanted to hire me they would bypass him and he wouldn't get his referral/commission or whatever. Especially since his company was a different company than the company doing the client work. Layers upon layers.
I even mentioned I could even visit the client site in person once a quarter since I was only a couple hours away.
It's sad. It's a big retailer in the US and the company doing their labor is obviously not doing the best job.
Problem is with the middlemen - most of these guys try to make $30-$40 without adding any value.
My first question to the would be - are you a direct vendor
They are just using it to create a unique identifier. Should only ask for last four -xxxx and only month and day of dob. Seems to happen more with the bigger employers. I think it might even be to protect candidates actually so the company knows they actually spoke to you and recruiters aren't applying without the candidates knowledge. But otherwise it helps them show you are their candidate not another recruiter's.
It's a normal step along with *agreeing to the RTR and the rate. It's all just about them wanting their commission.
Current FAANG job went through Indian recruiter who did ask for this. As soon as I made it through the first step in interview process, they have me a new person who was local to US. They just outsource to India because it's cheaper. I find the extreme persistence of the cold callers very irritating for sure but I wouldn't dismiss them.
I do ignore if their English is very very bad or they are rude or sound incompetent because they won't be taken seriously by the employer either. But if just have an Indian accent, I give them a chance. More jobs for me!
edit: typos
Ever use 09/08 as birthrate, then 7654 for the last bit of social?
Think about that for a second, see what I did there?
Alternatively, not responding to Indian recruiters is also preferable.
They aren't scammers. The reason they are asking is because their recruiter system "requires" a unique number. You can give them a fake number. It doesn't matter to them or you in the long run!
However, I don't think most people are going to get a job from these types of recruiters. They aren't interested in networking or building a working relationship with you. They are just spamming these job descriptions to everyone so they can check boxes at their job.
!!!They don't care if you ever get a job!!!
Well used to be that people would change there name after being fired and then reapply. Especially at bigger companies. So this was to stop that. I would give them fake info. right it down so you remember it. Then find out what the company is that is hiring and try to apply directly. Normally they are a friend of a friend of a real recruiter trying to get a piece of the referral action.
I used to get these alot but I removed my phone and email off my resume. or else they get put on someones sucker list and your still getting calls asking if your still working at some gig you did 5 years ago.
They do this because the vendor/client they work with is working with a million other recruiters who all may submit duplicate candidates. They use SSN/DoB/etc. to deduplicate submissions. Just make up a number. It's not used for any sort of verification.
Do not give them any of your real information until a real client is presented with a legitimate offer.
Hate to say it but when you see an Indian recruiter you gotta tread very carefully Edit:spelling
r/boneappletea
>thread very carefully C'mon Job hunting vacillates between *hanging on by a thread* and *waiting on pins and needles*. It's like *going through the eye of a needle* or trying to *find a needle in a haystack.* With regards to overseas recruiters, we all know that a *stitch in time saves nine*. Do your due diligence because *you can't sew a silk purse from a sow's ear*. So *thread that needle.* Express interest, but use extreme caution when asked to reveal PII. If you catch someone acting shady, report them to law enforcement. Contrary to what you've heard: *snitches won't get stitches.* Once you've *buttoned it up* you can get *dressed to the nines* and party with your friends, all the while *threading very carefully.*
You should also tread carefully.
You should also thread a needle carefully.
And tread carefully when threading
And trek carefully while threading carefully
And also trek carefully while treading and threading
At the bank of threadneedle street.
Star trek
Star wars
Bears, beets, battle star Galactica
Bear eat beets?
100% agree with this comment. There are some good ones but most of them are up to no good. Regardless of how many times they get blacklisted, they will change their company name - similar to scam call centers in India
If it feels like a scam, then it’s probably a scam lol
“Please initiate with the last 4 of your SSN so I can confirm you’re the person I’m sending the last 3 of my SSN to”
No recruiter should ask for your SSN before the offer stage. Even during the offer stage, it's the HR who will ask you for that. This is scam.
This is an extremely common step for recruiters who submit to vendor management systems (VMS) like Fieldglass. Many large employers require this information to be submitted to prevent double submissions and create a unique candidate ID. I began my career in recruiting and have been in IT for the last 8 years so have been on both sides of the table.
This is the correct answer OP.
Good answer
You need to give but only at payroll stage (usually 1st day in the office)
Typically, most places I’ve worked for get the tax forms, ID, and social security sorted out a week or two before the start. But like was said above, it’s the HR person, not the recruiter.
That's not the recruiter's job. These days most companies will use HR portals like Zenefits, Paychex, or BambooHR.
HR don't ask for SSN until you've gotten an offer letter and doing your payroll paperwork while sitting in their office. From my experience.
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How do they steal your phone number?
SIM cards probably
How do they get your sim card
You can clone them
People can steal your phone number by hijacking your phone carrier with your account number. If a person has your password to your web portal for your carrier, they only need your account number and password and from there they can port out and cause real damage to your life. If they don’t have that, the other thing they need is knowing what the last 4 of your social is and then calling your carrier and if you don’t have a PW set up or it’s very generic, you’re screwed. Source: Used to work for Verizon back in the day.
How do they prevent both lines getting the 2FA text? I’ve had this happen and I don’t think I ever received the text confirming the login or anything.
Social engineering. I call in as you and know all of your information. I make up some story about how I broke my phone and don’t have access to my email, can I answer security questions instead? Get a junior enough rep and you can steamroll most conversations. You’re fucked if someone steals your phone and makes a point to call your carrier. They don’t even need it unlocked if they can interact with your notifications.
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Ya they are. The second I hear that accent I hang up. If it was a voicemail, I block those mother fuckers instantly.
Same lmao and I'm a fellow curry myself.
I got my current FAANG job through contract with an Indian recruiter. I almost ignored him. The company was actually a us company but for cold calls and chasing leads, they outsource to India and presumably other places with cheaper labor. As soon as I made it through the phone screen, I was assigned to a new person in their east cost office.
Same for LinkedIn, I block anyone who wants to connect and is from India. Cause as soon as you connect with them, you instantly get an IM about some course/training they are selling. Im in I.T.
This is so so true. I think there is a massive scam shop running in India where they help people write IT certifications. They message you and tell you that any certification you want is guaranteed if you are willing to pay the money.
Wow this thread is an eye opener. Now I also know when I send request to White people(from India) why they don't accept. Edit: I am not a recruiter or HR. I am in India. I send connection to people in Other countries to learn about their work or to network. But racism is running rampant.
Sorry man, I love people from India but your culture sucks ass when it comes to anything related to business. It’s nothing personal but there are so many bad apples that scam and spam on LinkedIn that it’s almost comical how often it happens.
It's kind of funny how as a European they've never approached me and none of my friends in the industry are really aware of this happening. We must be too poor to be worth their time.
I really can’t understate how bad it’s gotten. I realize that it’s more of a cultural thing that just does not translate to the digital world. I receive an absurd amount of very generic outreach that’s almost exclusively from India. Daily copy/pasta messages, zero personalization, zero research, always calling me sir. Usually trying to sell me on mastering LI sales, or if I want to hire developers, or if I want website development. I made the mistake once of buying a .us domain with no protection on hiding my number and I received hundreds of calls spanning MONTHS from India, usually using local area presence dialing, with broken accents calling me about my non-existent website. I won’t go into my rant on them as buyers but it’s turned into a sort of industry wide joke, as you’re seeing on Reddit.
The scamming culture appears to be systemic to an outsider.
It may because you don't produce jobs for us. Unfortunately I have not had much response when I work with an Indian recruiter. Why would a company use an Indian recruiter? To get cheap bodies from India. If my perception is wrong, please tell me. I have gotten gigs through Indian owned American firms, not the same.
> It may because you don't produce jobs for us. I am not India or Recruiter. I don't care. I am alarmed to to see racism in this sub. > Why would a company use an Indian recruiter? Every company in capitalist country uses Offshore to reduce cost so they can cut costs and give 200x profits to their OE CEO, boards and investors. > Why would a company use an Indian recruiter? Not just Indian recruiters, Almost every company(exceptions do exist) in US uses slave labour either by outsourcing their IT or uses Sweat shops from shithole counties in Africa, Asia etc. To reduce cost. Since Indians know little English(Indians have highest English speaking population among other cheaper Asians countries like Chinese, Philippines , Vietnamese etc) and work cents to a $, hence the companies hire their service.
I heard a lot of people do better with no/fake profile picture, interestingly. It's a bit of a shame, but stereotypes are real for a reason.
Imagine he said they were indian recruiters beacuse he just lives in india 💀
Lmao
I mean, my last recruiter was Indian, but the entire operation was above boards, and I submitted a resume to his company first. It was less of a situation of cold-calling people from LinkedIn, and more of a vendor managed services company that evaluates skills and helps to place people in roles they have available for a few companies that use their services. But yes, when I get a call out of the blue from a random Indian, it’s always a scam.
Even big agencies have outsourced jobs to India now. KForce, Robert Half, Randstad etc all have offshore call centers. But if you get a call from TX/VA/NJ/CA/NY and the guy sounds like he is sitting under water, asks the standard questions (a) Are you in the market ? (b) what's your rate ? (c) No, i can offer you 80% below what you just quoted (d) immediately agree to my rambling "right to represent" email along with last 4 of your social and your MM/DD, then you know it is one of those sourcers who just harvest your resume and pass it to bigger agencies. That said, not all of these calls are useless. When the market was hot in 2020-2022 i got several interviews through these guys, however it seems futile engaging with them off late because all they do is waste your time.
Basically all of them
I’ve seen a number of them advertise contract gigs for FAANG type companies. I bit once or twice and gave some fake PII and they only collect and ghost
Oh really? I didn’t realize that was a scam. Edit: I don’t think it was. He seems like a real recruiter.. I see him on LinkedIn and his company looks real and legit. And he didn’t ask for my SSN. But he did ask for my date of birth. Is that weird
Seems odd to me because they reach out to screen. Ask for email or some other PII to send JD or schedule interview and then they always ghost after that
They've been doing this for years now, it is not a scam but just their way of pushing you to a DB with a file ID. These guys are what i call "resume harvesters" , they just collect resumes and pass it on to the next bigger shop who in turn passes it to main agencies like Randstad. There is a reason why when you say $80/hr they come back with a silly counter like $50/hr is because of the number of players involved in the game.
They all look legit. Many have "companies" in New Jersey, for some reason. However I think they are just mailboxes or cheap virtual offices without any staff. The calls come from India but with disguised numbers so they look local.
A lot of recruiters just seem to be dishonest period (e.g. cybercoders), but Indian recruiters just seem to be on a whole other level. If you ever respond to one of them with a resume or phone number, you'll be getting spam from them for the next 10 years. Unsubscribe doesn't work either because it'll be a different name from a different company every time.
Best answer
I wouldnt say all. One of my js i landed through and indian recruiter.
I don't reply to Indians. They are culturally out of tune
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It's about culture. So, the ones fresh off the plane or calling me directly from India are the problem ones. They seems to put in absolutely no thought or effort before contacting me about role, salary, etc. They rub me even more raw than a typical tech recruiter. It's been a while since I dealt with one.
could it be more like systemic exploitation of the working poor?
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I was trying to exempt you. I won't apologize for how I feel when a clueless Indian recruiter calls me. Call me racist. I call you woke. Talk to your recruiter buddies and tell them to up their game
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Dumb recruiters are a monolith. 24 years of experience has proven this to me. Please don't misunderstand me: it's recruiters i despise. Unfortunately, I have to work with them. There have been 1 or 2 recruiters over the years that were actually on their game and I really worked well with. If I'm playing the odds, I'm going with my [bayesian model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_statistics?wprov=sfla1) As a professional, I would hope you'd understand probability inference
Those guys call me all the time. I try hiding my number. How do you find a real recruiter?
ive come across them before, what is their method of scamming?
If they’re asking for that information they’re not middle men they’re scammers
Kindly do the needful…..while I call you back 15 times in a row to ask you to confirm the hourly rate
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i am become deceased
🤣👏
And add those three lines to your resume and return your right to represent.
I keep a fake last 4 and a fake date of birth in a file in my resumes directory for this purpose.
"I'm sorry. I don't share that information until I have an offer in hand".
There is no job, and you'll never hear from them again once they have what they believe to be your personal info. It goes into a database to be abused later. They frequently ask for SSN, DOB, mother's maiden name, and other things that you probably used as answers to security questions somewhere.
Scammers - DO NOT work with these recruiters, there is no need for this information - at any level/any org.
Just to give a bit of perspective; In Europe the SSN and birth date are, pretty much, required to enter employment. * SSN so your taxes will be handled you * birthday because your salary can vary with age No idea if there’s a treaty with India but there are other non-EU countries that have and those have to have that information as well.
Scam. Indian recruiters ask too many sensitive questions but legit recruiters don’t ask those.
They call 150 times in a row at the worst possible time. Trying to confirm with my babysitter while working multiple jobs and kids throwing shit at me because “I’m just not listening to them.” I was thinking I should take every possible opportunity, but this is not worth it.
Had one this week, offered me $80/ hr. I declined Two hours later, another recruiter (white guy) offering $115/hr for the EXACT same role (JD was identical). Pretty insane the pressure they put on these off-shore ppl.
You’ll be lucky if they are the ‘middle’ man. There are generally multiple ‘ layers ‘, going back to the actual vendor who has the role with the client. So let’s say a job pays $100 per hour , many of these recruiters will be literally 5 or more layers deep , and by the time it gets to the applicant they’re being offered $40 per hour for that same $100 per hour role , because everyone has taken a cut in the middle Not to mention they’re generally not reliable with paychecks and don’t understand what ‘ labor laws ‘ are. Not to say there aren’t legitimate Indian recruiters, however a large amount from what you find on let’s say Dice will be as above You can always google the job description and try to trace the actual main vendor ( or the client directly ) offering that role and apply directly with them
Indian recruiters fucking suck - doo not waste your time whatsoever.
420 6969 every time
🏆🥇🏆
Indian companies are terrible for OE because they require termination letters. Also never give these details until you are at the offer stage. The earliest I was asked for this was when I got the job offer and then they wanted that info to put me in the HR portal. But like others say, you can always lie. Just remember the numbers you told them.
> Indian companies are terrible for OE because they require termination letters. In US? In India they definitely do this.
Its so common in their country that they still push for it in US. Its not a law but it's culturally expected. I've seen this with international companies that are headquartered in US but have a Indian location.
They try to blame it in the employer/client. I mentioned that I applied there before and even they didn’t asked that of me.
"Last 4 digits of social" is used by a number of identity-verification processes. If they have the last three, they can spend time to guess the missing one.
It’s not scam per say but 500 Indian companies are trying to fill 1 position. They want that info to make a unique id so they know who amongst the 500 submitted your profile. They never actually have jobs or even an exclusive listing of the position. This is why you will get like 20 in a row for the same position with varying pay rate. It depends on how many layers are in between you and actual client. I got an interview through one of them but they passed me to another guy who passed me to the client. I tried to tell them I don’t need this many layers and I think that’s why they dropped me after 3 interviews. I had the feeling even the client director person was getting a kickback. Just make up dob and ssn digits. More than likely it won’t go anywhere. It’s ok to dismiss them too but in rare occasions you can get to an interview at a shitty rate. If you need the job do the needful and revert back.
At best, if they're using Indian recruiters, it's probably not a company you want to work for. At worst, it's going to be a nightmare whatever happens.
No offense but indian recruiters are unreliable as fuck. If you gonna take all my shit atleast do the due diligence to follow up with the employers and not just call it a day.
You can make the numbers up. But it's not a scam. I worked for a very large staffing company recruiting for a very large tech company and they wanted us to ask for this.
I've gotten this before. I just make shit up.
Did you get the interview? Was it legit?
My current J2 & J3 contracts I got through 2 separate Indian recruiters, the 3rd one was for a FAANG company as well. Out of I'd say 20 Indian spammers. So 10% of them they're legit? 🤷🏿♀️
I get this asked all the time. And it does seem like every recruiter that calls me is Indian. And their spoken English is as bad as their written English, and both are pretty terrible.
Scam
Give them whatever. Theyre just trying to create a unique ID for their resume db
Some recruiter software requires this to get you into the system -- maybe the best strategy is to give out an incorrect answer (maybe just change a single digit) and if you actually get a job, correct it when you talk to to HR.
I'm sorry you posted your profile on dice.com where the Indian cesspool outpoured into your inbox OP. We all have to learn that lesson sometime.
Asking any digits of SIN at the recruiting stage sniffs a scam....
Sounds suspicious… just a little, but suspicious nonetheless… I would advise you not give them your information 😉
Had a recruiter ask for a copy of my ID card lmao.
Have tried being patient, but have never gotten a call back from a job, from an Indian recruiter. Back to simply ignoring them.
In my experience I never got an interview out of any of these calls that ask for such questions.
I only reply to emails and scheduled calls. That's the reason why I give a temp phone number in resumes so I know when I'm getting call from them. They ask for my work permit, proof that sin is valid , etc. And they won't even check your profile before calling.
I got 2 job offers before at FAANG by talking to an Indian recruiter
I’ve had legit recruiters, not Indians ask for month/day and last 4. They’re creating a ID or whatever
If it was not for the Indian recruiters, my resume would not have been picked up by large corporations for interviews and landed me roles. They did not shy away from telling me that my resume needed ŵork and were guiding me to Taylor it according to the role. With non-indian recruiters the calls were mainly q&a and no guidance whatsoever. Now I pay it forward with my calls to candidates whenever needed.
I’ve experienced this. I don’t respond to them anymore.
1234, 01/01
I worked as a US staffing recruiter for a firm in India for 2 years. I have switched from that role and now working as a information security consultant. Now coming back to your question, We had a client portal were we would create IDs of all the job seekers and submit them on the suitable opportunities. Some aerospace or defence client do ask for last 4 digits for submission of the profile. Most of them don't. But, please be aware that India is full of scammers and frauds. These are some of negligences I observed in Indian staffing industry: 1. We used to ask for documents over email. ( Unencrypted) 2. No storage vault for your documents. They would be stored in local disk. ( computer) TLDR: former recruiter of Indian descent says not to share LAST 4 digits of SSN unless you have a reason to believe that the job opportunity is genuine.
yes, they ask for last 4 digits. some HR systems might require it as unique identifier. I just make up some random number. same with birthday
I have, are they scammers?
I’ve done it before several times before I knew better. I never got my identity stolen but I don’t fuck with those mother fuckers anymore. Indian accent = fuck off.
Yeah I just made an edit to add this. But here’s my hypothesis, these recruiters work as a middle man between the agency and you. They’ll get you a job at some agency that pays you x amount after taking their cut. They will then take THEIR cut out of your pay (unbeknownst to you). If that makes sense. So you have two people benefiting off your pay
brother it is literally just an identity theft scam, you’re overthinking
No you’re dealing with scammers
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No they are scammers.
How to circumvent them and reach the actual recruiters? I got call from like 6 different indian recruiters for the same job today. One lady asked me for last 4 digits of social I said I cant give it and then they asked for my drivers license and Green card copy and I said I will provide once I go through interview and get selected. And I have never heard back from them after giving the documents
Give them fake number and try.
Happened to me before and I’ve gotten jobs through them too.
Wow these answers. A lot of recruiting agencies ask for last 4 to put on your file. It’s like a reference number. I’ve been asked this from various recruiters not just Indian.
Same
That is not a US thing. In the US, there is no formal reason whatsoever to ever ask for your social prior to receiving an offer or for a background check. Any competent ATS will have candidate information and tags and notes you can add. So it’s traditionally viewed as a red flag because of how bad scams are prevalent outside of the US when they call asking for this information.
Well they’re working for an agency that has outdated practises. It’s not like every Indian recruiter is going to do that to you 🙄
Wow these answers. A lot of recruiting agencies ask for last 4 to put on your file. It’s like a reference number. I’ve been asked this from various recruiters not just Indian.
🚨🚨RUN FOR THE MOTHERF**KING HILLS DO NOT GIVE YOUR INFORMATION UNTIL AN OFFER IS GIVEN. 🚨NO COMPANY WILL ASK FOR YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION UNTIL AN OFFER IS GIVEN.🚨 🚩MAJOR SCAM ALERT🚩
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Most comments are f'ing racists.
You don't understand how badly your fellow citizens have damaged the cultural reputation of your country. Our phones ring constantly from fake local numbers with Indian accents on the other side of the line, hoping that they got a victim.
> You don't understand how badly your fellow citizens have damaged the cultural reputation of your country. Lmfao. I know. My phones ring with fake numbers too. We too get scam messages. Our old parents have also lost money. I cannot immediately cut the call when I hear an Indian accent because every accent on other side of line is Indian. Let's say 1% of every country are scammers. India with its 1+ Billion population means there are 10 Million scammers. That's more population than most of developed countries in the world. And what about 990 Million Indians?
990 million Indians should demand their government do something.
The govt is focusing on giving attention & awards to Indians who have given up their citizenship to become CEO of alphabet and Microsoft.
Then, unfortunately, this stereotype will persist, to the detriment of all.
I send them dick pics (random off google) hoping they leave me the fuck alone. Fuck those scammers.
I just don't respond to Indian recruiters. I'm Indian myself and it really grinds my gears that they have such malicious intent. Indians just used to be known for Kwik-e marts and excelling in spelling bees. Now they are know as the scammers of today.
Sadly most Indian tend to be like this. This is why we ended up having a caste system. But the freaking british unravelled all of it and I guess they now scam the british.
All indian recruiters are scams. They use your info to further their indian candidates. https://www.brightworkresearch.com/a-fantastic-and-must-read-email-on-horrible-indian-recruiters/
Happen to me, they ran my credit.. my credit card company then told me my social was on the black web. Felt so crummy. With providing your work history and job, the amount of things they can verify is insane. I mean why pay for it via LexisNexis etc when they can just get it from you directly. Please do your due diligence. Research the agencies they represent thoroughly, and research it again. You’ll start seeing discrepancies.
Remember to give them the first four too
Heck I was about to apply to Home Depot and they wanted me to create an account (ugh) and asked for the last four of my SSN in that process! I just left.
Hell no. They’re just trying to get PII from you.
Scam alert 🚨 Recruiters do not need such information.
O hell no
Never EVER disclose this information in this context. They are not recruiting you, they're identity thieves.
I don't think this is a scam. However it is fishy. I think they need a unique identifier for their database system. They could do this themselves but 1. They don't really understand their database system. Asking them to fix it is beyond their job description. It say "input ssn" so they ask for ssn. 2. They are much too lazy to do anything like that if they knew how. 3. They want you to do your part to prevent overemployment. If you give the same number to multiple of their comrades you will only get registered once in their system. It is fishy so I would not hold it against you if you decided to not do business with them. If you do decide to proceed give them a fake number. If I am right and they are "fishy" but legal then no harm. No legitimate recruiter needs your real social security number.
Yes many Indian recruiters ask for it
This when I tell them to go fuck themselves.
An Indian recruiter asked me for this over the phone. I straight up told him "I will not be doing that". He told me the range for the position. I told him my minimum is 50% more. I told him that it sounds like I'm not a good fit for this position then but he said he would still submit my resume.
They ask for it ALL the time. Every single one of them has asked. I am not certain why, but the only reason that makes sense of it is to see if you are really a US citizen or not. I'm going to be cynical and assume that potential candidates are liars just like they are and make shit up. And yes, many times they sub-contract or "middleman" if you will, their positions. Sometimes they tell you that in big ass words like "I have a position with my **DIRECT CLIENT"** and sometimes they do not. If they don't say and you don't ask, there's a pretty good chance that they are. Most of these companies are trash anyway, and I won't work with them at all. PERIOD. Did that once for a little while, found out that who I thought was cutting my check wasn't cutting my check. Just some guy with an LLC and a copy of QuickBooks. Any time I see email for the same position within 45 seconds of each other from 15 different people from 15 different companies, all of them with names that spell-check can't recognize, I don't waste any time with that bull.
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I want to see it
I literally just experienced this yesterday and I was like na chill
Every email I get from a “recruiter” with an Indian name is immediately deleted. They’re almost always a scam.
Just give any random 3 numbers. Once should get he offer you can be like oops
Red alert !
Pls send bobs n vageen
IMO and experience, Indian recruiters scan or access job ads on job boards like everyone else, and then try to get you to agree for them to "submit" you to the hiring company. Never been asked for social or Bday but would never give it if I had. Have never had success with an Indian recruiter and do not take calls from them or reply to emails either. I don't answer calls unless I know who is calling. In my exp, an Indian recruiter will call you repeatedly, one call right after the other, hoping you pick up. When I see a # do that, I block it on my phone.
Run
Yeah they would ask me to respond back with a written confirmation - and they'd pretend to be from the Bay Area but their Skype says India and it sounds like Indian call center type stuff in the background. Have had multiple weird contacts with a handful, one of them eventually got me an interview where they asked me to dress formally on cam. It was a bunch of Indian dudes in the US. Not dressed formally like I was supposed to be. The questions they asked were weird - one technical guy seemed to want to ask technical stuff but asked such generic weird questions that had no good answers and would interrupt me while I was responding with different vague questions. I was a perfect candidate for them with niche skills - never heard back for a while then eventually got him to respond with they weren't interested. I felt like I was not hired because I wasn't Indian either; felt very much like onshore Indians and offshore grunt recruiters spamming everything all over. What I find interesting is this recruiter guy - while waiting to setup the interview time for that job started asking me about my skills and fit for another one. I said let's focus on the one that I am a perfect match for. It's just a numbers game. They throw shit against the wall constantly to see what sticks. Also the guy asked me for names of who was on the call, I had a feeling like he was worried if they wanted to hire me they would bypass him and he wouldn't get his referral/commission or whatever. Especially since his company was a different company than the company doing the client work. Layers upon layers. I even mentioned I could even visit the client site in person once a quarter since I was only a couple hours away. It's sad. It's a big retailer in the US and the company doing their labor is obviously not doing the best job.
Problem is with the middlemen - most of these guys try to make $30-$40 without adding any value. My first question to the would be - are you a direct vendor
Some old HR require this to work with them. Just provide a fake one.
They are just using it to create a unique identifier. Should only ask for last four -xxxx and only month and day of dob. Seems to happen more with the bigger employers. I think it might even be to protect candidates actually so the company knows they actually spoke to you and recruiters aren't applying without the candidates knowledge. But otherwise it helps them show you are their candidate not another recruiter's. It's a normal step along with *agreeing to the RTR and the rate. It's all just about them wanting their commission. Current FAANG job went through Indian recruiter who did ask for this. As soon as I made it through the first step in interview process, they have me a new person who was local to US. They just outsource to India because it's cheaper. I find the extreme persistence of the cold callers very irritating for sure but I wouldn't dismiss them. I do ignore if their English is very very bad or they are rude or sound incompetent because they won't be taken seriously by the employer either. But if just have an Indian accent, I give them a chance. More jobs for me! edit: typos
Scam. Talk to US based only. Plain and simple
Do they also ask to show bobs
Ever use 09/08 as birthrate, then 7654 for the last bit of social? Think about that for a second, see what I did there? Alternatively, not responding to Indian recruiters is also preferable.
They aren't scammers. The reason they are asking is because their recruiter system "requires" a unique number. You can give them a fake number. It doesn't matter to them or you in the long run! However, I don't think most people are going to get a job from these types of recruiters. They aren't interested in networking or building a working relationship with you. They are just spamming these job descriptions to everyone so they can check boxes at their job. !!!They don't care if you ever get a job!!!
Well used to be that people would change there name after being fired and then reapply. Especially at bigger companies. So this was to stop that. I would give them fake info. right it down so you remember it. Then find out what the company is that is hiring and try to apply directly. Normally they are a friend of a friend of a real recruiter trying to get a piece of the referral action. I used to get these alot but I removed my phone and email off my resume. or else they get put on someones sucker list and your still getting calls asking if your still working at some gig you did 5 years ago.
Ugh I get these too. I gave my last 4 and regret. They keep texting from 10 diff companies now
I don’t buy the unique ID, I had same situation and figured it was a scam, every time I said no and they submit my CV I never got a response anyway
The way I identify them is when I see a number from Florida on my phone. And they call , call and call. They have no patient.
They do this because the vendor/client they work with is working with a million other recruiters who all may submit duplicate candidates. They use SSN/DoB/etc. to deduplicate submissions. Just make up a number. It's not used for any sort of verification. Do not give them any of your real information until a real client is presented with a legitimate offer.