The Polished Ones Are the Dangerous Ones

As someone being made laid-off next week, I have been spending hours back in the job market and researching how it works now. I've already been watching fake recruiters up close.

They have changed. The old ones were easy to spot. The new ones are not.

I used to spot a fake in two seconds. Too good to be true. Bad grammar. A salary with too many zeros. A stock-photo headshot. The tells were loud enough to bin the message immediately.

That era is over. (Thanks AI!)

They've tidied up the grammar, generated headshots, and now write intros that look better than the real ones. A quick search shows news reports that trace fake recruiters to North Korea. They are organised, well-resourced and target people who need work.

Right now, a lot of people need work. Desperation is the product they farm.

The old advice, watch for typos and dodgy salaries, is worse than useless. It trains you to trust anything that looks clean. The dangerous ones always look clean.

Stop reading the message. Watch the moves.

A polished profile proves nothing. A logo proves nothing. A confident tone proves nothing. All of it can be faked in an afternoon.

What cannot be faked is intent. A scam has a job to do, and to do it, the person eventually has to make a move. The job description or initial message is set dressing. The move is the tell.

There are three. Learn these and you can ignore the rest.

One: they try to get you off LinkedIn

Within a message or two, they want you on WhatsApp. Or Telegram. "Easier to chat here."

It is not about convenience. Off-platform there is no paper trail, no report button, no moderation. They need you somewhere with no referee. A real recruiter is happy to stay put or move to a company email. They are not herding you onto an encrypted app before you've seen a job spec.

Two: they ask for something with value

Real hiring asks for your time and your CV. That is it, for a long while.

A scam asks for something that can be sold or spent. Bank details "for payroll." Your SSN or PPS number "for the background check." A passport scan. An upfront payment for equipment or a visa. A small "verification" deposit you'll supposedly get back.

Another tactic is to get you to buy something, a 'score' for your application or a guide to getting the job that has been reposted or scraped by them. Often its an out of date or expired role. Some of these companies ARE pseudo-legit.

You won't get it back. Nobody credible asks for any of this before an interview.

Three: they manufacture urgency

The window is closing and another candidate is circling. They need your decision today, before you've spoken to a single human.

Pressure is their friend because thinking is yours. A job offer with no interview is not a lucky break. It is the whole con.

The two-minute habit

Before you reply with anything personal, take and breath and check

• Think about whether it is likely that a recruiter in your field, at a company you admire would have no-one in common with you.
• Reverse the photo. Drop their picture into Google Image Search. Stolen headshots surface under a different name fast.
• Read the domain character by character. Scammers love a lookalike address. One recent case turned on an email a single character off the real one, and the target, a cybersecurity pro, nearly missed it.
• Find the role at the source. Go to the company careers page and look for the job. No listing, no job.
• Reach the real human. Find an actual recruiter at that company on LinkedIn and confirm. The real ones thank you for checking. Anyone can SAY they work at a recruitment company on LinkedIn or in an email footer.

You know all of this.

So why do smart people still fall for it?

It's back to the desperation. Because after months of searching, a recruiter with a great role feels like the universe finally noticing you. You want it to be real. That wanting is the vulnerability, and the scam aims straight at it.

The fix is not cynicism about every message. Plenty of real recruiters reach out, and treating them all as frauds will cost you. The fix is to split the hope from the check. Feel the excitement.

Then run the checks anyway, because you're excited.

A real opportunity survives two minutes of scrutiny. A fake one does not.

Pick the next recruiter message in your inbox and run the checks now, while it's safe. Build the reflex before you need it.

If you want the rest of the system, it's in my JobHunt Playbook.

The scammers stopped looking like scammers a while ago. So stop looking at how they look. Watch what they ask you to do.

Sources: Reuters, crypto workers under siege from North Korean hackers (Sept 2025). NBC News, job scams on LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter (Oct 2025).