[trod1234]

Interesting, I was thinking about doing something similar just the other day given all the shennanigans going on with ghost jobs.

There's a lot of time wasted individually by candidates vetting companies. For instance I've had to resort to using OSINT techniques and public records to weed out fake jobs because my cold interview->conversion rate is abyssal (1:1000+).

I've seen companies and positions being advertised where when you look up the secretary of state info, its either been shut down/suspended, or the directors/owners listed are dead people (i.e. semi-recent obituaries +- 1 year). The positions posted are always newer than the deceased person. I've also seen a lot of business info posted resolving to a UPS store address. Definitely presents as red flags when looking.

It would be useful to be able to crowdsource a lot of the due dilligence that must be done individually that could easily be automated as well as see the average turnaround time before rejection, and identify job postings that continuously roll (identical and reposted every 3-6 months)

[dtgmzac]

> There's a lot of time wasted individually by candidates vetting companies. For instance I've had to resort to using OSINT techniques and public records to weed out fake jobs because my cold interview->conversion rate is abyssal (1:1000+).

Do you automate the whole process? That's really a lot of applications.

> It would be useful to be able to crowdsource a lot of the due dilligence that must be done individually that could easily be automated as well as see the average turnaround time before rejection, and identify job postings that continuously roll (identical and reposted every 3-6 months)

Currently the platform does this! On the company page, you can see job postings split into "Opened" and "Closed" statuses, as well as when people applied and the turnaround time.

I'm also looking into automated approaches like a browser extension which could be useful if more people uses it.

[pogue]

Can you share some of the techniques you used? It might be helpful to get some simple scripts up to check if the address listed is a UPS store or registered agent or something and create a browser extension for job search sites that would automatically hide listings on job search sites that meet those criteria.

[trod1234]

I use a wide range of techniques, quite a few are covered in Michael Bazzel's book on OSINT and its a large amount of material. The book is well worth getting if you haven't had exposure to these things.

I'm basically looking for red flags, so inconsistency in website information vs. business and government records. This includes Secretary of State information which may need fuzzy matching, but includes Agent of Service, Address, and Company Leadership, as well as renewal dates, business status, renewal status. Legitimate businesses are not inconsistent here.

I look at the website for how they get customers, and I verify their contact information is functional (usually through a VOIP number). A business without a phone line is usually not a business. Having a listed phone in the reassigned numbers database is a pretty big red flag as well.

I'll look for social media business accounts, county court records, coroner reports, etc. blackbookonline.info and judyrecords.com have been my goto for awhile. The latter search engine was broken for awhile though because they provided too much info and were sued. Aside from that sometimes I get hits on OpenPayrolls.

Companies that hide salary/company name, and postings that were posted without disclosure by recruiters are pretty big red flags as well. I'm sure there's plenty else but that's what I've been doing.

[pogue]

Very helpful, thanks. I came across this site from the FCC for reassigned numbers, but I'm not quite sure how to use it. Is this the right site? www.reassigned.us

Was the Michael Bazzell book you're referring to "Open Source Intelligence Techniques: Resources for Searching and Analyzing Online Information" or the "OSINT Techniques: Resources for Uncovering Online Information" (both around $44 on Amazon)?

[trod1234]

There are a number of services that allow you to query that database. I'm not familiar with reassigned.us

> OSINT Techniques...

Yes that's the one. Its in its 10th edition now I believe, pubbed in 2023. ISBN 9798366360401

[pogue]

Do you have any suggestions for a free tool to query the reassigned numbers database?

Thanks for the help!

[trod1234]

Unfortunately I'm not aware of any free tool that lets you query it. Each query costs me a few cents so I try to minimize queries. Twilio has a package available in their API to do this.

https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/reassigned-number