The fastest way to verify a recruiter is real: find the role yourself on the company's own careers page, confirm the recruiter's email comes from that company's exact domain, and locate the recruiter's LinkedIn profile listing that same employer. When all three line up, you're almost certainly dealing with a genuine person. When even one fails — the job isn't on the official site, the email is from gmail.com, or the recruiter has no LinkedIn footprint — slow down and dig before you reply with anything personal. The whole check below takes about five minutes, and one rule underneath all of it never changes: a legitimate employer never asks you to pay money or to move money on their behalf.

Start with the email domain — it's the fastest tell

Before anything else, read the part of the recruiter's email address after the @ sign. Someone who genuinely works at Acme Corp emails you from name@acme.com, the same domain as the company website. Two patterns should stop you cold: a free mailbox, and a look-alike domain built to survive a quick glance but not a careful one.

One legitimate exception: agencies and staffing firms use their own domain, not the client's. A recruiter placing you at Acme might email from @roberthalf.com or @randstad.com, and that's fine — provided the agency is itself a real, searchable company and the domain genuinely belongs to it.

Confirm the job exists on the official source

A scammer sends you a link; you ignore it and go find the truth on your own. Open a fresh tab, type the company name into a search engine yourself, and navigate to the real careers page — usually careers.company.com or company.com/jobs — or to its listings on a recognized applicant-tracking system. The URL gives those away: boards.greenhouse.io/company, jobs.lever.co/company, jobs.ashbyhq.com/company, or a Workday address ending in myworkdayjobs.com. Then look for the exact title and location the recruiter pitched.

When the posting shows up in two independent places you reached on your own — the official site and, say, the company's LinkedIn Jobs tab — and the details agree, you've cleared the hardest part of checking whether a remote job is real.

Vet the person behind the message

A real recruiter leaves a real professional trail, because recruiting runs on relationships. Search their name on LinkedIn and confirm the profile lists the company they claim to represent as their current employer. Genuine accounts show history: past roles, a normal connection count (recruiters typically sit in the hundreds or thousands), the occasional recommendation, and activity stretching back over time. Be wary of a profile created last month with a glossy headshot and eleven connections.

Catch a stolen or AI-generated photo

Save the profile picture and run it through a reverse image search — Google Images via the camera icon, TinEye, or Yandex. If the same face surfaces on unrelated profiles or in a stock-photo catalog, the identity is borrowed. AI-generated headshots are common now too; the tells are in the edges — mismatched earrings, glasses that seem to melt into the temple, a smeared or warped background, and the slightly-too-perfect facial symmetry these tools tend to produce.

Then close the loop independently. Don't ask the recruiter to 'prove' they work there; a scammer will cheerfully forge a badge photo. Instead, reach the company through a channel you found yourself — the main phone number or a careers@ address from the official site — and ask whether that person is actually on their recruiting team and whether the role is open.

The 5-minute verification checklist

Run these six steps in order before you send a resume, a phone number, or anything more sensitive. Most fakes collapse on the first two.

Pass all six and you're on solid ground. Fail one and it isn't automatically a scam — but you've earned the right to ask pointed questions before sharing anything more.

Verifying the offer and the interview itself

Verification doesn't stop once the conversation starts; the process itself is a signal. Genuine hiring for a salaried remote role runs through a recruiter screen, one or more interviews with named people you can look up, and an offer letter on company letterhead before any onboarding paperwork. Watch how it behaves.

To pressure-test an offer, ask for a video call with the hiring manager and request the company's full legal name; then confirm it by contacting the company through its official line. A real employer welcomes the diligence. A scammer gets impatient or disappears.

The line that's always true: money is the giveaway

Every legitimate employer absorbs the cost of hiring you. The instant money is meant to flow from you to them — or to pass through you — it's a scam, however reasonable the cover story sounds. Treat this as a hard stop with no exceptions.

If something feels wrong, report it

If you spot a fake — or have already handed over money or data — move quickly. Call your bank or card issuer to stop or claw back payments and freeze any exposed accounts. In the US, report the scam to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov and, for online or wire fraud, to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov; outside the US, use your national consumer-protection or cybercrime agency. If you gave up your SSN or ID, start recovery at identitytheft.gov. A fraud alert placed with any one of Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion automatically propagates to the other two and is free; a credit freeze is also free but must be set at each bureau separately.

Recovery options, the tax treatment of any losses, and reporting obligations vary by country and by your situation, and the rules shift over time; the dollar figures here are approximate as of 2026, and the agencies and platforms named are accurate as of writing but can change. For a sizable loss or possible identity theft, confirm the specifics with your bank's fraud department, and with a CPA or a qualified attorney where money and liability are at stake. The verification habit itself, though, costs only a few minutes per listing — and it stays the single most reliable defense you have.