It seems to be a scam or at least not quite ethical. There's absolutely no reason to pay for any kind of testing although it pretty common for companies to do some kind of personality testing as part of the application process.

How did you find this company? Remember that anything that seems too good to be true likely is.

The ad was on craigslist, and I received two emails from them. I did check it out. Seems craigslist does have a text verification system to prevent spammers from targeting employers who post. This is what they wanted me to do. since i had never heard of it, I hesitated to use it, my phone charges extra for text. I don't use that feature. It just seemed odd, because the first one asking me to take this quiz, added it was so we would have something to talk about at our interview. I was under the impression that job qualification and experience were subjects for discussion at interview. Have things changed that much?LOL At any rate, thanks Mike for the response. I appreciate all of your help.

If you would post a copy of the emails here (minus the actual private/personal info), maybe we could get a better feel for whether or not they are safe.

I really wonder what they would do if applicants didn't have a cell phone, and 'just' had a land line to be reached.

It all sounds very suspicious to me.

Did you take the intelligence test?

I'm wondering what employer would advertise for employees on CL. I could be wrong, but I'm just saying....

To me this sounds like a scam, and I think you may be right about the possibility of charging you for texts. My daughter once received a text with a joke in it, which she deleted. These kept coming every day, and she just deleted them. At the end of the month, she had accrued quite a few dollars worth of charges for the daily jokes. She talked with her cell phone company and found that she had to text back a certain message to get the charges to stop. It seems that the first unsolicited joke said in the fine print that she agreed to receive these texts daily and be charged for them unless she texted back a refusal.

By verifying your phone number, they may have duped you into agreeing to something that you definitely don't want. And they can charge you whatever they want for the "service" they are providing. I suggest you talk with your cell phone provider to see if they can figure this out and help you. I also suggest that you do a Google search on the link plus the word "scam" to see if other people are complaining about this.

I agree that it does sound very suspicious and these days unfortunately craigslist is full of scammers of all kinds. I do have a cell phone but I do not text so I do not have a text plan either it would cost me between 20-30 cents each to text, so my answer to them would be sorry I do not have that ability surely there is another option.

I'd be very worried about how much personal information is in your resume. You've let yourself open for ID theft, too.

I have my name address cell phone and email on my resume. That will not leave me open for id theft. They need social security and birthdate for that, I'm not that dumb. They only get those at interview. I did take the quiz, did NOT put in my phone number for fear of a scam of some sort. It just didn't ring right with me. Both emails had embedded links for quiz and phone number verification, strangely they both had the same url. As of today, I have not received any more emails from them. Have not received any text mssgs. on cell either. BTW, my cell phone is not in my name anyway. My boyfriend and I have them together, under his name, and have done that for many years. That's another reason I didn't see the point in verifiying my phone, it is not billed to me. So, at this point, it does look like some sort of scam, and I will be contacting my cell provider tomorrow. I know there is an option to refuse all text messages, which I will opt for. As for this company, I will also report them to craigslist. Especially if my cell company says there are suspicious charges. Thanks again for all your help, suggestions. I really appreciate it. You all have been so helpful over the years.

Craigslist does verify those posting advertisements in some categories but you can receive a voice call or a text message. Craigslist doesn't verify those responding to an advertisement.

As I said, many companies do some kind of testing as part of the application process. Most are a series of multiple choice questions about what you would be likely to do in a particular scenario. For example, if you saw a co-working stealing would you: (a) report them to your supervisor, (b) counsel the co-worked, explaining that they could loose their job, (c) do nothing. Some may be even more complicated, simulating some kind of work scenario or include basic math skills. Temp agencies will sometimes require skills testing as well. They need, for example, to be able to say to a client that you have some skill level with Excel or Word.

None should require any kind of texting or "verification".