We are aware there is a lot of information circulating online misleading candidates from overseas about getting a visa to work in Scotland and we are looking at ways to prevent ineligible candidates.


December 2023 - The Viral TikTok

On Monday 04 December 2023 we logged in to floods of emails from overseas applicants asking for work visa's. At around 2pm, one of the individuals we had been responding to shared a TikTok video with us which we have watched as the video has gone VIRAL across the platform. We are not totally sure what it says as but it is along the lines of "the Scottish Government is giving free visas to overseas workers and their families and paying £8000 to relocate them". Within the video our website is displayed on the screen as the "government website" to apply for jobs.


Since Monday afternoon we watched video views rise from 2.15pm 1.1m > 7pm 1.7m > 9.30pm 1.9m to Thursday 12pm where it currently sits at 3.7 million views.


If you have a TikTok account - please can you try and report the video: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGe8rMK2f/



This is a screenshot sent to us by a candidate.


What have we done?

We were already aware of a number of similar videos across YouTube so we had assumed this was where the traffic was coming from. At 12.45pm we sent out a short infographic on myjobscotland Social Media channels in the hope this would reduce the tickets we were receiving:


We knew a majority of enquiries were coming from people in Pakistan as they were telling us in the emails and at 4pm we could see on Google Analytics that almost as many people accessing the site in the UK were accessing the site from Pakistan:


Due to the nature of the problem it is extremely difficult to apply restrictions without the risk of discrimination. 


However, at 7pm on Monday we were still being flooded with emails, we contacted Spider who implemented a temporary Geoblock on Pakistan:

The emails continued - albeit in reduced numbers - and on Tuesday at 2pm we also geoblocked UAE.


We can see this is working as spotted a comment on the TikTok:


The geoblocks are only temporary as there may well be overseas applicants with the right to work in the UK who are legitimate and perhaps moving home so it is difficult to address this without discrimination.


What does this mean for you?

You have probably noticed a significant rise in applications from overseas workers who do not have the right to work in the UK and potentially emails requesting visas. 


Our recommendation to deal with these applications would be to create a new communication template which you would use when rejecting these applications. We recommend the following considerations:
  • Keep the email very short to the point using plain English - a majority of email contact we have received have had poor English and didn't understand our replies
  • Do not include your contact details - set up the template to send "from" noreply@myjobscotland.gov.uk" - this is a real inbox which we do not monitor and will save your inboxes
  • Unfortunately you will need to shortlist applications to ensure there are no legitimate candidates. However, we generally find that any legit applicants rejected in error are pretty quick to get in touch.

Here is our FAQ for candidates for your information I require a Visa (Sponsorship) - Information


Next steps:

We are looking to organise a conversation with organisations who offer Sponsorship to agree what Visa information can be shared on myjobscotland in order to be as clear as possible to candidates and hopefully reduce queries and unsuitable applications.