The Job That Wasn't

Last Sunday afternoon, an email landed in my inbox that just about made me sit up straight.

A recruiter — a real, named CEO of a real recruiting firm — was reaching out personally. She'd done her "market mapping," and my name had come up. The role? Chief Financial Officer for a high-performing company in the hospitality investment and operations sector. The package? Nine hundred thousand to two-point-six million dollars.

I'll be honest with you. For about thirty seconds, I felt ten feet tall.

Then the hotel accountant in me woke up.

When the numbers don't add up, neither does the story

If you've spent any time around a P&L, you know the feeling. Something looks great on the surface, and then one number sits there that just doesn't belong. You don't ignore it. You chase it down.

So I wrote back. I told her the truth: I don't have a degree or a designation. I've got a technical diploma and forty years of operational experience. I'm not a finance guy in the corporate sense — I'm an operations and leadership guy who happens to love teaching the numbers. And I live in Montreal.

That's usually where a CFO conversation ends. Instead, it sped up.

Within the hour, the role magically changed. Now it wasn't a CFO job at all — it was a "VP of Hotel Financial Performance," coaching general managers and teaching non-financial leaders how to read their statements. The two-point-six million? A "template error," she said. The real number was $250K to $450K. No degree required. Technical diploma and forty years of experience "ideal."

Now, stop and think about that for a second. The job description had been rewritten to match me — almost word for word — based on what I'd just told her about myself.

That's not a job. That's a mirror.

The tells, in plain sight

I want to walk you through what I noticed, because the lessons here are the same ones I teach you about reading your operation: slow down, ask questions, and trust the numbers over the noise.

Here's what didn't add up:

• The offer was too good, then too convenient. A two-million-dollar swing "by accident" is not a typo. And the moment I described myself, the role bent to fit me perfectly. Real jobs don't do that.

• The email was a free Gmail account. A CEO running a confidential executive search doesn't do it from a personal Gmail. She used a name and a firm that were real — but the address belonged to neither.

• The "confidential" story fell apart. I was told the role was secret and "not posted publicly." A two-minute search showed the real company posts these roles right on their careers site. Both things can't be true.

• Every door to verify her was conveniently locked. I asked her to resend the brief from her company email. "My domain's been flagged, IT's working on it." I asked for a fifteen-minute call with the hiring manager. "They only talk to candidates after they've reviewed your full documents." I sent a LinkedIn invite. "My account's under a security review for the next 7 to 10 days." Email broken. LinkedIn broken. The only channel that worked perfectly was the one she controlled.

When every road that leads to the truth is closed, and every road that leads to your personal information is wide open, you have your answer.

How I closed the loop

Here's the move I'm proudest of, and it cost me nothing. Johanne was the one who suggested it, I objected at first not wanting to bother a complete stranger, but it was the way to go. 

And BTW – my partner is usually right with these things. 

We didn't argue. We didn't accuse. We went around her. I found the real recruiter' actual company email — the one on her real firm's website — and I sent her a short note. I asked her to reply and copy the Gmail address that had been writing to me.

She couldn't, of course. Because it wasn't hers.

She wrote back from her genuine company address: "This is my correct email, and this is the only one I use." When I told her someone was impersonating her to recruit people, her reply said it all: "Yikes. It is not my voice nor how I operate."

Confirmed. The whole thing was a fraud built on a real person's good name.

And here's the part that matters most for you: at no point did I send my resume, answer their screening questions, or hand over a single piece of personal or financial information. The next step in these schemes is almost always "onboarding paperwork" — the part where they ask for your banking details, your social insurance number, a void cheque. I never got there. They got my email and my phone number, both of which are already on my website for the world to see.

What this has to do with your hotel

You might be wondering why a story about a recruiting scam belongs on a hotel finance blog. Here's why.

The exact same instinct that protects your bottom line protects you here. In your business, you don't approve an invoice because it's on official-looking letterhead. You match it to the PO, the receiving document, and the contract. You verify before you pay. You chase the number that doesn't belong.

A flattering offer is just an invoice you haven't verified yet.

The people most at risk for this aren't the careless ones. They're the experienced, accomplished leaders — the GMs and directors and executives who've earned their reputations and are quietly open to "the right opportunity." Flattery is the bait, and a forty-year career makes a beautiful target.

So here's what I'd ask you to remember the next time a too-good email finds you:

• Slow the deal down. Urgency and momentum are the scammer's best friends. They are your enemies.

• Verify through a channel they don't control. Their email, their link, their phone number — none of those count. Find the company's real number yourself. Call it.

• Never give documents or details to earn a conversation. A legitimate employer talks to you first. They don't make you pay your way in with your personal information.

• If your gut and the numbers disagree with the story, believe the numbers.

I came out of this with nothing lost and a good story to tell. The real recruiter is dealing with someone misusing her name, the company's been warned, and I've reported it. All it took was the same discipline I ask of you every day: don't trust the surface. Verify.

Be well, and watch your numbers — all of them.

David Lund
The Hotel Financial Coach