I came across this job board today, and my first thought, although a biased one because of the site’s location, was that this had to be a scam.
The Nigerian-based job board is called WazobiaJobs.com, and the site’s founder is Ade Odutola. Odutola said that he created the site because Nigerian expatriate professionals have in the last couple of years been returning to their homeland in droves as the continent’s biggest oil producer reaps an energy windfall that has created vast career and business opportunities, a phenomenom called the “Brain Gain.”
In a press release touting the job board’s triple digit growth over the last year, Odutola said, “”Several firms in Nigeria have returnees in key strategic positions. Nigerian businesses are benefiting from the knowledge and experience of these returnees in the form of international best practices, revenue generating ideas, to mention a few. It is relatively cheaper for multinational corporations to hire a local, or a returning local than to bring in an expatriate.”
There seem to be legitimate companies hosted on the site, like Schlumberger and Cisco, but whether their jobs are real or not remains to be seen. It seems like not a day goes by where my spam box is flooded with emails from rich Nigerian princes searching for heirs or nonexistent companies soliciting me for private informaton. I would definitely ask that job seekers exercise caution before posting their resume on the site.
The portion of the site where companies are asked to pay for job postings is what really set off some alarms. Here’s what it says about payment information:
WazobiaJobs.com credit card payments are handled by WorldPay, a subsidiary of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, the 5th largest banking group in the world. The scale of Worldpay in online commerce allows you to be confident in the security of our online payment system.
Additionally we now accept Naira, the Nigerian Currency
Clients can pay cash in Naira, following these 2 easy steps:
Make payment directly into our account with United Bank for Africa Plc at any of UBA’s 650 branches across Nigeria
Account Number: Available Upon Request
Account Name: WazobiaJobs.com
Send an email to info@wazobiajobs.com with the payment amount, your contact information, and the job posting and/or CV database access option you are interested in buying.
Paying cash for job postings sounds pretty shady to me, but then again, it is a foreign country, and I’m not well-versed on typical transaction processes outside of the U.S.
If this is a scam, I have to admit that it’s a good one. In one fell swoop, the job board has the ability to capture specific and private information from candidates and credit cards from companies. And that kind of information in the wrong hands could be very harmful for many who participate.
The owner of the job board, along with a commentator, has pointed out that this is indeed a legitimate job board that is also an active member of the International Association of Employment Websites. I do apologize to WazobiaJobs and its clients for failing to research this adequately and hereby print a retraction.
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