A few days ago I posted on what I figured was a fairly obvious topic – being very careful when it comes to companies who ask you for money during a job search especially when it comes to online jobs – but it seems that many people have come across this issue and wonder what to do.

A related but different question often comes up when it comes to companies paying interview expenses when it comes to flying you in for an interview for example and you wonder what you should do? I’ve seen cases where someone is promised to be reimbursed for interview expenses but fears having to outlay potentially hundreds of dollars or more for a flight, hotel, food, etc when perhaps they are low on cash or just don’t want to outlay this money up front especially if the company suggests that it could take weeks or months to pay them back.

In my experience when it comes to a company paying back interview expenses, you should trust your gut. You certainly hope and expect that a major corporation won’t rip you off when it comes to the issue of repaying interview expenses. If you are asked to pay for these expenses up front and are promised to be repaid for them the company, try to confirm it in writing including the extent to which the expenses will repaid. You also want to know up front exactly what expenses will be covered and what is considered reasonable when it comes to paying for food, taxis, etc while you are traveling. Make sure you keep all your receipts too.

Last week I saw a job posting that had some really interesting advice that I don’t remember seeing before, at least not in a job posting. It said:

For your privacy and protection, when applying to a job online: Never provide credit card or bank account information, or perform any sort of monetary transaction.

What great advice.

It would probably help solve the issue that I’ve been seeing recently, namely the numerous emails I get from people regarding a certain (fake) oil company that emails people expressing interest in the person even though the recipient of the email never applied to the job or company in the first place. It’s obviously a scam but people keep emailing me asking if it’s a real job and real company and what they should do.

Notwithstanding the fact that this email has all the hallmarks of a fake, phony company and a scam i.e. spelling and grammatical errors in the email, a free email address is used (like an oil company can’t afford a real email address with their company name in it?!), and the fact that in the email they tend to ask for a job visa processing charge or something like that.

Also notwithstanding the fact that the people who have received the email never applied to the company in the first place! Like legitimate companies just happen to come across your email address and offer you a job sight unseen with no interview! Yet people fall for this scam and I see lots of people emailing me honestly wondering if it’s a real company.

Bottom line: when you see anyone asking you online for money or any sort of fee during a job interview process, be very careful. Legitimate companies don’t do this in my experience.

How many times have you heard this phrase recently when talking about job losses in a particular industry or sector? I’ve heard it too many times to remember but it’s true. In many cases, jobs that are being lost will most likely never come back.

In some cases, companies downsize and eliminate jobs and then the remaining staff are simply expected to pick up the slack and do the work that used to be done by the person(s) whose jobs were eliminated.

As more and more jobs – particularly service-related jobs – are sent overseas by major employers, it’s difficult to say if many will ever return. As technology changes, many jobs also become obsolete and they are lost as a result, too.

Customer service jobs are interesting in that some companies such as telcos have faced a backlash and have started to bring their support function back inhouse after sending the jobs offshore years ago.

The general trend though has been for these companies to send middle-skill positions to countries that pay lower wages and most likely these jobs are not returning any time soon.

This situation has been exacerbated by the global recession so if you’re in the market for a new job you might find yourself competing with more people for a fewer number of jobs as many people have already discovered. The difference is that the jobs that were lost aren’t necessarily coming back once the economy picks up.