At a time when many people are searching for work, there’s a new trend that job applicants have to look out for: job listings that aren’t exactly as they seem.
This is more than simply understating the amount of work that would be done on the job. This is a problem in which a company will post a job listing for one job, then try to sell you on taking on another job entirely.
For example, one TikTok user claimed that they applied for a “social media marketing job.” The job actually involved standing at a kiosk in the mall. Another claimed that the listing was for a $60,000 per year sales job when the true job was selling AT&T products at store checkouts.
Now, another TikTok user has gone viral after claiming that she became “pretty sure” the company was a “scam” in the middle of an interview. Here’s how it happened.
According to TikTok user Anokhi (@_anokhipatel) in a video with over 1.7 million views, she had applied for an Event Coordinator position. However, when she logged on to the Zoom call for the interview, she felt that something was amiss.
“There’s two other people in my interview, and I’m like, ‘OK, whatever.’ One guy’s literally in his car and the other girl’s on the couch—and I’m like, what is happening?” she recounted. “And for a second I thought they worked here. Nope. They were also getting interviewed. I was like, what?”
At this point, one of the people on the call said something that shocked Anokhi.
“The guy literally goes, ‘I did a lot of research on your company, and I found out this was a scam. So thank you for your time. Bye.’ And just ends and drops out of the call,” Anokhi says. The other person on the call dropped out soon after.
After both of the other participants left, the interviewer began describing the job to Anokhi. She says it bore little similarity to the job for which she had applied—and when she brought that fact up to the interviewer, they promptly ended the call.
“Thank God for that first guy to say something that, like, put the red flag off in my head,” she says at the end of the video. “And I just, I hate that I was duped on a Thursday afternoon, but I guess that’s the life of being unemployed.”
In the comments section, Anokhi says that the company is called Highland Management Group. While many posts about the company online are positive, some accuse the job of consisting of door-to-door sales, while others simply claim that it is an MLM.
However, in an email to the Daily Dot, a Human Resources worker at the company said that these allegations are not true.
“Our employees do not purchase any products or services or invest any money in our business whatsoever. Our employees do not recruit their own people,” the HR representative wrote. “We are in no way a MLM.”
“We do retail events as well as residential, which is described in some reviews, and since receiving any negative reviews we have been more clear and given more clarity throughout our interview process so it is never misleading to our employees,” they added. “For our residential side, our Clients provide us with warm leads from customers who have called in asking for follow up or built shopping carts online and we follow up with those customers.”
The representative also noted that, while they respect those who perform this kind of work, “We do not walk around aimlessly knocking on doors.”
In her video, Anokhi appears to criticize the company as having a deceptive Event Coordinator listing. While Workable defines an Event Coordinator as “a professional in the hospitality and event industry who plans and coordinates events,” a recent job listing from Highland Management Group for an “Assistant Event Coordinator” position says that the job requires one to “quickly apply sales and marketing techniques to promote client information,” and that “previous sales experience is helpful.”
@_anokhipatel This is my second scam LMAO but watch out people dont fall for it!!! #scaminterviews #scamstory #jobscamawareness #linkedinscam #jobsearchtiktok ♬ original sound – A N O K H I
That said, the company representative countered that the interview painted an accurate picture of the job as it was described in the listing.
“Our role we offered her 100% aligns with our job listing on LinkedIn,” they wrote. “The position she applied for was our assistant event coordinator position, and this is what the article describes. We represent our clients in big box stores at events they set up for us. We represent them and inform customers about their products. Our employees help plan and coordinate these events along with our clients. She applied to work in the retail stores as described in the job listing. If she read the job listing, she would see they are retail events and understood the interview aligned with what she applied for.”
Regardless, in the comments section, users shared their experiences with deceptive job listings.
“Anytime you hear ‘account manager’ it’s a sales job, most likely door to door sales lmao,” said a commenter.
“One time i got on a ‘zoom interview’ with literally 40 other people. safe to say i left the call,” added another.
The Daily Dot reached out to Anokhi via email.
