Job scam alert in Sri Lanka!

We know that many Sri Lankans seek employment overseas (particularly in the Middle East) and often times, they do this for very petty salaries. But it's their thought that at least that money can be made if they worked overseas, rather than struggle to survive in their own land. Then again, this is not always the case, as there are well-paid jobs too...

Now to the subject of recruitment... We know that recruitment agencies play a vital role in liaising with the foreign employer to send our folks abroad. These agencies seem to be very complex in their operations and a typical recruitment involves communication between various other organisations both locally and abroad.

Sometimes prospective employees (job-seekers) can be misled by the name of the recruiting agent. For example, you may find an old agency that used to offer a great service in the past, continuing to exist, but their services may have turned out to be horrible. The same goes to some old schools that are only popular because of their past but today they're not even close to being descent.


Here's a story... This case is hypothetical. However, I feel that they're very possible. So I'd like you to read through these cases and share your thoughts on this subject. Perhaps hearing your own experiences may be useful to someone else.

 A popular agency offered many teaching positions in a Middle Eastern country (not Saudi Arabia). They even conduct a written test which they called an IQ test. But in reality, this was one of those personality tests that you can find on-line, for free.

Nearly all teachers were selected based on this test. It was rather strange, how one can select teachers without knowing their skill in the subject or without even looking at them.

Subsequently the teachers were told to pay up their advances (a pretty descent amount) to them. At this early stage, the teachers were told to go for their medical tests, submit their passports and get their documents attested by the foreign ministry and the respective embassy. All this meant money. There were people who even borrowed money to carry out these chores. It is a custom for Sri Lankans to sell or pawn some of their belongings to collect cash for such things. Hoping for early departure, some of these people even quit their current jobs. How sad!

The agency denies that they ever requested the teachers to leave their current jobs but they did certainly promise departure within 3 weeks. So what would you expect these folks to do other than quit?

Strangely though, departure within 3 weeks never happened even after 3 months.

A very interesting thing happened during the group interview. Yes, that's what I would like to call it. One of the senior agency staff made a presentation addressing a group of about 50 prospective employees. He said what he wanted to say, and then opened for questions. This is when hell broke out.

Some people asked him the wrong questions (at least that's what he may have felt). Here are some of these questions...

1. Where do we land in that country and who's going to receive us? Answer: I'll check and let you know.
2. What is my salary? Answer: I'll check and let you know.
3. What is my visa category - is it teacher or labourer? Answer: I'll check and let you know. And it doesn't matter.

Like this, there were many questions that brought out the captain-cool-fool "I don't know" answers... In response,  one clever chap who couldn't keep his mouth shut said that if it weren't for the name and fame of the agency, he'd have thought it was a fake or hoax. This got the senior speaker angry.

And now it was filtering time. The speaker requested the names of these interrogators and guess what - yes, he chopped them off... He didn't want any trouble.

Coming back to the ones who were selected... Some months had gone by but the selected people weren't gone yet...

And then it was the day they all waited for... Nope, not the day to go. Rather it was the day to stay! Yes, these selected people now were told that due to a visa issue or something like it, they weren't going.

Apparently, another person was told that the agency discovered that these vacancies never really existed!

Another story was that the overseas recruiter didn't exist in reality.

What now? Will anyone take action against the overseas recruiter (if they really exist)? Will anyone bring the agency to justice? Is this the only case of its kind? Will the agency repeat this? We do not know!

The above is untrue and is only a story, full-stop.

Do you have real story to share? Please comment and share your thoughts. Someone may be helped.