You’ve graduated and now you’re in the real world. Job prospects are limited and you’re getting desperate. Now you’re a target for less than reputable businesses. One recent Creighton graduate learned this the hard way.

Peter Della Penna graduated from Creighton in 2007 and now lives in Kinnelon, N.J. Currently unemployed and living at home, Della Penna said he has been looking everywhere for a job.

“When you’re in a position where you’re looking for work … you kind of look at things you wouldn’t normally look at,” he said.

The advertisement promising a job with the U.S. Postal Service that he saw every week in the classified section of The Star-Ledger began looking better and better. Eventually, Della Penna called the number in the ad.

At first, no one answered and he was kept on the line with a pre-recorded message.

“It creates this illusion of ‘Wow, this phone must be ringing off the hook,'” he said.

Finally, Della Penna spoke to a representative. The representative said Della Penna would need to pass an exam to get a job with the post office and, for $99.95, the company would send him a testing guide.

Though the deal sounded strange, Della Penna said it still sounded like a good offer.

“When you listen to it on the phone, it sounds like it can’t miss,” he said.

Della Penna gave out his credit card number over the phone and, in addition to the $99.95, had to pay another $30 shipping and handling for a testing guide that would arrive in two weeks.

The representative gave Della Penna a passcode to an online PDF document. The document, which was roughly 200 pages, contained mostly sample questions from the 1999 version of the U.S. Postal Service exam. When the testing guide arrived, it was mostly the same thing.

Della Penna then began looking into the company online. He found the company’s Web site, which doesn’t provide an address for its headquarters and provides very little contact information. Under its FAQs section, there are several instances in which it specifically claims to be a legitimate company.

The company offers a refund under certain circumstances, including if you take the test and fail, but Della Penna said that, after further research, he found the test is offered very rarely. If one buys the study guide but doesn’t take the test, then a refund is not available.

Attempts to verify Della Penna’s story with the company were unsuccessful. Phone calls to its main line and customer service line were not answered by a company representative.

This wasn’t a completely unique experience, Della Penna said. He said he posted his resume on careerbuilder.com and monster.com and has been consistently approached about jobs that don’t exist. However, in this instance, he lost $129.50.

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Jim Bretl, director of Creighton’s Career Center, said stories like Della Penna’s happen, but not all that often to college graduates. When it comes to job scams, non-college-educated job seekers are usually targeted more often, he said, but a down economy can drive people to desperation.

“The more difficult the job market, the more likely people will start getting more desperate,” Bretl said. “And then maybe fall for issues that are a little bit shady.”

Bretl said common job scams involve ads that are trying to sell you a preparation package or training for a certain position. Some services like that are legitimate, he said, like certain securities exchange commission tests. Just because an offer is legitimate doesn’t mean it’s something you should go for. Some jobs are bad fits for recent college graduates.

“If students are at all concerned, or if red flags start going up in their head, come and talk to a career person,” Bretl said. “Anybody in our office could sit down for 15 minutes and probably nail what it is you’re looking at.”

Job scams take on some common characteristics, Bretl said.

“Don’t share your Social Security number online with some place you don’t trust. Don’t give them a credit card number,” Bretl said. “Be careful about upfront money. You can buy career counseling at $75 bucks an hour and you can get an awful lot of career counseling for $300. Quite frankly, [you can] get it free here [at the Career Center].”

Bretl also said a company acting mysterious is one to avoid. If the company doesn’t list an actual, physical office or provide contact information, it may be trouble.

“Another red flag that’s obvious me, but might not be completely obvious to college students: If it’s not immediately clear what the job is, that’s a red flag,” he said. “If it looks like they’re trying to hide something, they probably are.”

Bretl said the Career Center is always free and open to Creighton students as they look for jobs, even students who have moved away from Omaha after graduation, such as the Jobs4Jays link on the Career Center’s Web site. Creighton also has arrangements with other Career Centers, especially other Jesuit schools, he said.

“They help our students; we help theirs,” Bretl said. “There’s a very obvious service component here where they can help the student better than we can.”

Bretl said it is very difficult to track how many illegitimate operations are out on the Internet preying on job seekers because they come and go quickly. Just be sure, he said, to not part with private information without consulting someone first.

“The number of scam artists out there come and go quicker than anybody can keep track of them,” Bretl said. “In many ways, you’re better off just taking a buyer-beware approach.”

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Della Penna said the worst part about the ordeal wasn’t losing money, even though money has been tight lately. He said he considers himself a street-smart individual with a college degree, yet he let himself be taken in.

“When you’re in a position when you’re looking for work, you’re so desperate, you sometimes don’t think rationally,” he said. “You don’t always think straight.

“It wasn’t so much the money. It was just the fact that — I just thought to myself, ‘How could I be so stupid?’

“I felt like I was exploited, more than anything.”