Deel is an innovative company that is revolutionizing remote work and recruitment. However, as Deel grows in popularity, some questions have emerged about whether it is legit or a potential scam.
In this review article, we will uncover the truth about Deel Recruitment by examining the company background, services, business model, recruitment process, reviews, and potential risks.
Overview of Deel Company
Deel is a fast-growing startup founded in 2019 that aims to simplify remote team building and management for businesses. Its platform provides comprehensive employer of record services that enable companies to hire remote talent and freelancers globally in a compliant manner.
Some key facts about Deel:
- Headquarters in San Francisco with over 250 employees distributed across the world
- Raised over $206 million in funding from leading investors like Andreessen Horowitz
- Used by over 4500 businesses worldwide, including Coinbase, Shopify, and Revolut
- Integrates with popular tools like Slack, WhatsApp, and Zoom
- Compliant hiring in over 150 countries with expertise in local laws and regulations
Overall, Deel positions itself as an innovative solution to access global talent easily and legally. It handles complex employment tasks like payroll, benefits, taxes, and compliance on behalf of its clients.
Deel’s Services and Business Model
Deel provides the following main services:
Global Payroll and Benefits: Deel enables companies to pay international team members and freelancers through localized payroll integrations run by Deel. This includes payroll payments, tax filings, and access to benefits.
Compliance and Visas: Deel ensures legal compliance in international hiring across over 150 countries. This includes verifying contractor identities, handling invoices, and even sponsoring work visas when required.
Accounting and Tax: Deel files and pays employer taxes on behalf of clients. This relieves the burden for businesses in navigating complex cross-border tax scenarios.
HR Tools: Deel provides self-serve HR tools for tasks like onboarding, time tracking, performance management, and offboarding. This streamlines remote HR processes.
For these services, Deel mainly makes money through two approaches:
- Transaction fees on payroll payments and contractor payouts
- Monthly subscription plans for access to Deel’s platform and tools
This model allows Deel to generate recurring software-like revenue. At the same time, it aligns incentives by only charging clients when they use Deel’s services to hire or pay team members.
Deel’s Recruitment Process
While Deel does not offer traditional recruitment services, its platform does aim to simplify the hiring of remote workers and freelancers. Here are some key aspects of how recruitment works with Deel:
✔️ Job posts: Employers can post job openings to Deel’s job board which reaches Deel’s network of global talent interested in remote work.
✔️ Candidate sourcing: In addition to job posts, employers can request Deel’s support in finding qualified applicants through targeted databases and outreach.
✔️ Screening: Deel provides tools like video interviews and assessments to screen applicants. However, clients handle interviewing and selecting candidates themselves.
✔️ Onboarding: Once a candidate is selected, Deel handles onboarding tasks like contracts, compliance checks, and activating payroll.
A major benefit Deel offers is access to pre-vetted talent interested in remote work. However, it does not provide full-scale recruiting services, with the client managing interviews and approvals.
Assessing Reviews From Deel Employees and Clients
Given Deel’s rapid growth and innovative model, it is important to assess real-world reviews from employees and clients. Here are excerpts from across the web:
Glassdoor (4.2 rating)
- “Fast-paced, exciting environment with lots of room for growth and constant learning. You are surrounded by extremely sharp people who are eager to make an impact.”
- “Leadership truly values the employees and provides ample growth opportunities. Excellent work culture and people.”
Google (4.9 rating)
- “Deel has been a game changer for quickly hiring contractors globally. Their customer service goes above and beyond.”
- “Deel’s platform made it extremely easy for us to find and hire remote talent. Their compliant payroll system is a must-have.”
Overall, these reviews indicate high satisfaction among Deel employees and clients. Workers highlight the exciting culture and growth opportunities. Clients mention that Deel makes global hiring straightforward and compliant.
However, as expected with any fast-scaling startup, some growing pains exist. A few reviews mention the desire for more structure and planning as Deel rapidly expands. But these seem like typical scaling challenges.
Evaluating Potential Risks of Using Deel
While Deel has many positives, it is important to thoroughly evaluate potential risks as well:
✔️ Legal compliance: Deel takes responsibility for compliance. But there is always a small risk of mismanagement that leads to legal issues.
✔️ Cybersecurity: As an HR platform managing sensitive data, cyber risks like data breaches are possible. Deel needs robust security infrastructure.
✔️ Payroll errors: With payroll operations across 150 countries, occasional errors in payments can happen. Rapid growth also increases likelihood of mistakes.
✔️ Service issues: Deel’s tools and support services may suffer occasional outages or delays, especially as it scales. Need sufficient redundancies.
However, Deel seems proactive about mitigating these risks based on the approach it takes:
- In-house legal experts to ensure compliant contracting and licensing
- SOC 2 Type 2 certified security protocols to guard data and systems
- Automated payroll mechanisms with multiple accuracy checks built-in
- Infrastructure design focused on high-availability and uptime
No system is ever 100% risk-proof. But Deel’s measures indicate it takes risk management seriously.
Understanding the Deel WhatsApp Scam
Recently, some fraudulent actors have attempted to impersonate Deel recruiters on WhatsApp to scam job seekers. Here is an in-depth look at how this scam operates and how to recognize fake Deel recruiters on WhatsApp.
How the Deel WhatsApp Scam Works
The scam typically follows this sequence:
- Victims receive an unsolicited WhatsApp message claiming to be from Deel recruiting
- The fake recruiter offers an attractive job opportunity and requests the victim’s resume
- After reviewing the resume, the scammer communicates further over WhatsApp and asks to connect over Telegram
- On Telegram, the impersonator sends fake Deel employment contracts and requests sensitive information like ID photos
- Eventually, the scammer invents reasons to request upfront payments before finalizing the fake job offer
Tactics Used by Fake Deel Recruiters on WhatsApp
Here are some common tactics used to make the scam more convincing:
- Spoofing official Deel branding in WhatsApp messages
- Using Anglo-American names and profile photos of purported “recruiters”
- Leveraging the legitimacy of Deel’s brand to build trust
- Pressuring victims to act quickly on the fake opportunity
- Creating fake Telegram profiles impersonating Deel executives
- Sending doctored Deel employment contracts with spelling and grammar errors
How the Deel WhatsApp Recruitment Scam Works
Here is an in-depth playbook of how the Deel WhatsApp scam typically unfolds in 7 key stages:
Stage 1 – Making Unsolicited Contact: The first step involves the scammer identifying job seeking targets, likely via public social media profiles or job sites. They initiate contact via WhatsApp, presenting themselves as a Deel recruiter.
Stage 2 – Building Trust and Rapport: Upon contact, the fake recruiter attempts to build rapport with their target. They share details about Deel and their role. They express excitement about the victim’s background and experience being a great fit for Deel. This aims to stroke the target’s ego and build their trust.
Stage 3 – Offering a Fake Opportunity: Once trust is established, the scammer shares an attractive Deel job opportunity that perfectly matches the target’s skills. However, they emphasize that this role is exclusive and not publicly listed yet due its high-level status. This creates a false sense of urgency and exclusivity.
Stage 4 – Requesting Personal Details: To formalize the fake job offer, the imposter recruiter requests personal documents like the target’s resume, ID photos, and background information, claiming it is part of the recruitment process. However, they insist on obtaining these over WhatsApp rather than official channels.
Stage 5 – Moving to Telegram: Shortly after obtaining the target’s details, the fraudster recommends moving the conversation to Telegram for “increased security” as per Deel’s policies when handling high-level roles. This aims to isolate the victim from mainstream channels.
Stage 6 – Sending Fake Contracts: On Telegram, the scammer shares fake Deel employment contracts containing intentional errors in formatting, grammar, and Deel branding. At this stage, most victims are already too invested to notice the inconsistencies.
Stage 7 – Requesting Upfront Payment: Finally, the imposter recruiter invents reasons around taxes, onboarding costs, or training fees that require a small upfront payment from the target before formally commencing the fake high-level role at Deel. This is when victims ultimately get scammed.
Who is Behind the Deel Impersonation Scam on WhatsApp?
Most evidence indicates the Deel WhatsApp scam originates from organized cybercriminal groups in South Asia, Eastern Europe, and certain parts of Africa.
These scammers are tech-savvy, English-speaking, and operate in complex networks allowing them to scale up attacks dramatically while protecting kingpins. They often juggle multiple victims simultaneously using structured playbooks.
Livelihood pressures combined with economic incentives drive many to conduct online scams, especially given the low risk compared to high potential payouts. However, make no mistake – these are illegal operations built to defraud vulnerable individuals.
Tactics Used to Make the Scam More Convincing
Here are the key social engineering techniques used by fake Deel recruiters on WhatsApp to manipulate their victims:
- Mirroring: Copying target’s language patterns, conversational tone, and verbal pacing to build subconscious rapport
- Flattery: Using excessive praise on a target’s credentials and experience to stroke ego and gain trust quickly
- Reciprocity: Providing unsolicited favors with the expectation of returned favors, like sharing fake opportunities to get personal details
- Urgency: Manufacturing unrealistic deadlines and limited availability to pressure victims into quick decisions
- Social Proof: Using deception and fake reviews to boost credibility, like claiming the role is exclusive
- Authority: Abusing trust in Deel’s brand and reputation to exploit victims’ instinct to obey authority
How to Detect Fraudulent Deel Recruitment Scams
Given Deel’s rising brand value, recruitment scams trying to impersonate Deel have emerged. Here are signals to detect fraudulent Deel recruiters:
🚩 Contacting candidates directly via unsolicited messages instead of official job posts. Genuine recruiters will not contact you unprompted but rather wait for applicants.
🚩 Using non-company email addresses like Gmail or requesting to chat on WhatsApp. Deel uses official channels like its careers page and company email.
🚩 Asking for upfront payments for employment or recruitment. Deel does not ask candidates for any payments or fees for recruitment or hiring.
🚩 Sending contracts not from Deel’s document template. Real Deel recruiters require formal resume submission and application
🚩 Language errors and inconsistencies uncharacteristic of Deel’s brand. Contracts and communications with obvious grammar, spelling, and formatting issues should raise alarms.
Deel emphasizes it does not do unsolicited outreach or ask for money from candidates. Legitimate Deel job opportunities will always be posted publicly on its website or partner platforms.
If contacted suspiciously, verify recruiter legitimacy by calling Deel’s office or contacting Deel through official channels before proceeding.
To Avoid Falling Victim to Fake Deel Recruiters, here are the top tips to protect yourself from Deel WhatsApp recruitment scams:
- Never engage with unsolicited contact from purported Deel recruiters.
- Insist on using official Deel email and careers page for any opportunities.
- Refuse to share personal details like resumes until completing a formal application process.
- Watch out for high-pressure urgency tactics and too-good-to-be-true offers.
- Never make any payments upfront, no matter the justification given.
- Search for online reviews of alleged recruiters and job offers to identify frauds.
Stay vigilant and don’t let desires cloud judgement when interacting with potential scammers impersonating Deel recruiters. Report them to authorities to protect other job seekers from their criminal schemes.
The Verdict: Deel is Legitimate Despite Some Risks
In summary, while no company is completely risk-proof, the evidence suggests Deel is a legitimate innovative player aiming to transform remote work and recruitment:
Pros of Deel
- Fast-growth and funding from top investors
- Positive reviews from employees and clients
- Proactive approach to legal, security, payroll accuracy
- Valuable services solving remote hiring challenges
Potential Risks
- Compliance, cybersecurity, payroll errors
- Scaling challenges as it expands rapidly
- Fraudulent recruiting scams to be aware of
Given proper due diligence and risk mitigation by clients, Deel presents a real opportunity to access global talent easily and compliantly. The pros seem to outweigh the cons for most.
While healthy skepticism is prudent, there is no material evidence indicating Deel recruitment itself is a scam. Concerns stem more from typical startup growing pains and isolated fraudsters misusing its brand.
In the dynamic world of remote work, Deel is boldly trailblazing. Approach with cautious optimism, and Deel could prove a valuable partner in building globally distributed teams.
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