Lurking on sites like LinkedIn and Indeed, or among your incoming text messages and emails, lies yet another disappointment to dodge in the already lacking job market: fake recruiters.
Posing as representatives from top companies, they’ll contact you out of the blue, offering a job so tempting, that 40% of targets ignore the warning signs and move forward with the “interview.”
More than half of them, 51%, end up being scammed to give up personal data or money.
Those findings came from a survey of more than 1,200 U.S. job seekers published in October by Password Manager. “The prevalence of fake recruiters came to my attention several years ago,” says Gunnar Kallstrom, the cybersecurity expert who conducted survey for the company, which reviews password manager apps. “Since then, the number of fake recruiters has been on the rise . . . posing as recruiters for well-known companies.”
Per the survey, those companies include Amazon, Google, FedEx, UPS, Walmart, Apple, and “Facebook” (identified that way instead of by Meta in the survey), in that order of frequency.
These scams pose real risks for the job seekers who fall for them. Fake recruiters steal Social Security numbers, bank information, and passwords in a variety of ways, some sneakier, or more sophisticated, than others. The Better Business Bureau’s 2024 Scam Risk Tracker Report puts the median dollar loss at $1,500 for victims—no small sum, especially considering that these people are likely out of work.
Not only do they result in material losses; they also put a serious dent in morale for those on the employment hunt. More than half of Password Manager survey respondents said they’re now “less trusting of job opportunities” and “find the process more stressful”—40% say they’ve even let legitimate posts pass them by, too concerned that they’re being tricked again. The trend is a nuisance at best; an active threat at worst.
Still, false job recruiters have many tells that job seekers can use to spot them. Enterprises, too, have become increasingly aware of these scammers’ tactics.
Representatives from some of the companies that fake recruiters most frequently impersonate told Fast Company exactly what job seekers should watch for to avoid falling victim to these insidious hiring scams.
What is the MO of false recruiters?
Generally, fake recruiters “operate exactly like a social engineering campaign,” says Kallstrom, “in which their MO is to create a sense of urgency, legitimacy, and promise of reward for their victims.”
Those surprise text messages you receive saying your resume caught a recruiter’s eye, but the post they’re hiring for needs to be filled ASAP? Don’t give it a second look.
“We simply do not” do anything to “create an undue sense of urgency,” says Brian Ong, vice president of recruiting at Google. He’s heard from Google job candidates and employees about people falsely posing as members of the company’s recruiting team, sending direct messages and emails even to those who haven’t previously applied for jobs at Google. They’ll use emails or websites, Ong adds, that look like they belong to Google, often using the company’s logo.
“We’ve also seen situations where these scams are using our name and brand to ask for money or an immediate in-person interview,” says Ong, “Both of which are misrepresentative of our hiring process.”
Amazon, meanwhile, has noticed customers reporting an “increase in scammers pretending to be Amazon recruiters in September and October 2025,” says Scott Knapp, the company’s vice president of worldwide buyer risk prevention. These “recruiters” will ask for information like SSNs, bank information, or Amazon account details—all information real recruiters for the company wouldn’t solicit.
At Target, No. 9 on Password Manager’s list of most-impersonated companies, the scams tend to focus on “secret shopper” opportunities, per the company’s website. Via emails with subject lines like “job offer” or “influencer opportunities,” scammers will offer free products or cash in exchange for recipients buying items to review online, or for purchasing gift cards and sharing the cards’ information with the false Target reps.
Tactics vary based on the type of company scammers are impersonating, adapting to “whatever feels ‘normal’ for that brand,” Kallstrom says.
FedEx’s fake delivery job offers will arrive via text: “Urgent hiring need—no interview required,” Kallstrom says, a likely enough assertion since delivery companies tend to bring on seasonal employees for busy times, like holidays, without asking for extensive interviews or experience.
For Meta, on the other hand, “since they are a tech company, there may be a fake HR portal, software skills assessments, and fake interviews,” adds Kallstrom, who describes tech company hiring scams as more sophisticated. They may entail full-on skills tests for software engineers that include coding challenges, through which scammers end up downloading malware onto the coder’s computer. The high salaries these fake recruiters offer may also cause applicants to “let their guard down,” Kallstrom says, “because they are enticed by the money.”
Across the board, these companies are chosen by scammers because of their name recognition, says Kallstrom: “They make great bait for a potential unsuspecting victim.”
How do you spot a recruiter impersonator?
“Any request for personal information is likely a sign of a scam,” Google’s Ong says, adding that candidates who’ve applied to Google jobs have already shared information like email addresses and phone numbers. Real recruiters shouldn’t be asking for those—especially not alongside an invitation to a Google Meet or link to a login page where users need to input that information to sign in.
Scammer tells will also appear in their own email addresses. Ong says he and his colleagues have seen fake recruiters with “incomplete websites or misspelled emails” along with outreach “from people who do not have Google in their title or email.” Misspellings, poor grammar, and inconsistencies in general could indicate an impersonator. Emails or websites replete with stock photos, too, should warrant a side-eye.
As obvious as it may sound, any job opportunity that comes with an ask for payment should be avoided—even if it’s indirect payment, like requesting you purchase a gift card. “Amazon will never ask you to provide payment information, including gift cards (or ‘verification cards,’ as some scammers call them) for products or services,” says Knapp.
Ultimately, if you’re unsure whether a job opportunity is a scam, check the company’s website. Companies tend to list their job openings online. Both Google and Amazon representatives point to their companies’ online job boards, where those who’ve received offers to apply for jobs can cross-check that those posts indeed appear on their websites.
Job seekers can also do due diligence on the alleged recruiters doing outreach. “Verify the contact by checking the email addresses,” Ong says, “looking up the person online, such as on LinkedIn. And if something does seem suspicious, flag it to the outlet where it was received.”
What to do if you’ve been targeted?
The first step is to report it. “The more consumers report scams to us, the better our tools get at identifying bad actors so that we can take action against them and protect consumers,” says Knapp, pointing out Amazon’s scams help page where those targeted can report. The company works with consumer groups like the National Cybersecurity Alliance and the Better Business Bureau to create “awareness campaigns” about the latest, most common scams.
Amazon also partners with law enforcement “across the globe,” Knapp adds, to hold scammers accountable, having “initiated takedowns of more than 55,000 phishing websites and 12,000 phone numbers being used as part of impersonation schemes” in 2024.
A representative from Target says that cybersecurity experts from the company’s Cyber Fusion Center “use advanced tools and training to prevent and address potential threats.” That includes tools developed by the company as part of an open source initiative on GitHub, like one that scans files, such as emails, to detect possible malicious activity.
“Anyone can get baited on social media” or “get a text about a job opportunity that’s too good to be true,” says Knapp.
“If something seems too good to be true, it likely is an impersonation scam.”
Discover more from The Veteran-Owned Business Blog
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
You must be logged in to post a comment.