Quick answer
Employers cannot guarantee that nobody will impersonate their brand. They can make a real opportunity much easier to verify: publish every live job on one official careers site, state the email domains recruiters use, explain that the company will not ask candidates to send money for a job, and give people a clear place to report suspicious messages.
How we compiled this guide
Treegarden publishes recruiting software, so this guide may lead readers to request a demo. We reviewed current Federal Trade Commission consumer guidance and the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center's 2025 Annual Report on September 12, 2026. The controls below are practical communication and workflow measures. They do not guarantee prevention, replace an organization's security program, or tell a company how to investigate a specific incident.
Why this belongs in candidate experience
The FTC's April 2026 alert described fake recruiters claiming to represent legitimate companies and offering vague remote roles through messages that look professional. The agency warns that the message can then turn into a fake-check or task-scam request for money. That is a direct candidate-experience problem for the company being impersonated, even when the company did not create the message.
The FBI's 2025 IC3 Annual Report recorded 24,688 complaints under its Employment category and $362.9 million in reported losses. These are reported-incident figures, not a measure of every fake job post online, but they justify treating candidate verification as a visible part of recruiting operations.
Give candidates one verification path
A candidate should not need to guess whether a recruiter or job post is genuine. The simplest control is an official careers page that answers the verification question directly. Keep it current. A page that leaves filled jobs live, changes URLs without redirects, or hides the recruiting contact route creates room for confusion.
| Candidate question | What the company should publish | Operational owner |
|---|---|---|
| Is this role real? | A current job record on the official careers domain, with a clear status when the role closes. | Recruiting operations or the hiring team. |
| Is this person really a recruiter? | The official company email domain and a concise note about expected recruiting channels. | Talent acquisition with communications or IT input. |
| Will I be asked to pay? | A plain statement that the company does not charge candidates to apply, interview or receive a job. | Talent acquisition and legal or compliance reviewers. |
| What do I do if something looks wrong? | A monitored reporting address or form, plus the official careers URL for cross-checking. | Recruiting operations with security escalation support. |
This is not a reason to add a long security policy to every job description. It is a reason to give candidates one visible, repeatable route to confirm the job and report a concern.
Use a short candidate safety notice
Place the notice on the careers hub and link to it from the application confirmation. Keep it factual and easy to scan. Do not promise that all contact will happen through one channel if recruiters sometimes use approved phone, video or job-board tools.
All current opportunities are listed on this careers site. Our recruiting team uses email addresses ending in @yourcompany.com. We will not ask you to pay a fee, buy equipment, deposit a check, or send money as part of an application or interview. If you receive a message that appears to use our name but you are unsure it is genuine, do not send money or sensitive information. Forward the details to [email protected] and verify the role on this site.
Replace the example domain and contact route with real monitored details. If the company uses external recruiting partners, say how candidates can verify those partners rather than leaving them out of the notice.
Create a modest response workflow before a report arrives
Most reports can be handled faster when recruiting, marketing and security know the first few steps. The goal is not to turn every suspicious message into a security investigation. It is to preserve enough information, send the candidate to an official source, and escalate the cases that create a real risk.
- Thank the candidate and avoid asking them to continue communicating with the suspected scammer.
- Record the reported profile, message, URL, phone number, payment request and date. Keep screenshots or originals only through the company's approved process.
- Confirm whether the named role, recruiter and communication channel are genuine.
- Direct the candidate to the official job listing and safety notice. If the role is closed, say so clearly.
- Use the relevant platform's reporting process and route material incidents to security, legal or privacy owners according to the company's policy.
- Update the public notice if a repeated impersonation pattern creates a clear candidate risk.
They may have only a message or a profile link. The first useful response is a safe route to verify the real job and a way to preserve what they saw.
Explain common warning signs without overpromising
The FTC says fake recruiter messages can use a legitimate company's name, vague job details and professional-looking graphics. Its 2026 alert also calls out messages that ask the recipient to reply before the scam moves to a payment or task request. The safe public message is simple: candidates should verify the job on the company's official site and should not pay to get a job.
Do not tell candidates that any one signal proves fraud. A legitimate recruiter might contact someone through an approved job platform, for example. Give people a way to cross-check the job, the sender and the next step against your published process.
Keep candidate protection separate from inbound applicant review
Brand impersonation means someone falsely represents the employer to a job seeker. It is different from a company evaluating a suspicious inbound application. The two problems may share an escalation path, but they require different evidence and communication. Our guide to reviewing suspicious job applications covers the inbound side and should not be used as a reason to treat candidates reporting a scam with suspicion.
Make the official hiring path clear
A candidate-facing hiring workflow works best when the careers page, job record and recruiter communication stay connected. An applicant tracking system can help a team maintain one place for current openings and candidate communications. The operational decision still belongs to the employer: publish a reliable source of truth, keep it current, and make someone responsible for the reporting route.
For related candidate-experience work, read our careers-page conversion guide. A clearer path reduces confusion for legitimate candidates as well as friction in the application process.
Frequently asked questions
How can a candidate verify a job is real?
Give candidates one clearly published source of truth: a current careers page on your official domain. State which company email domains recruiters use, what the usual process looks like, and that the company will not ask candidates to send money to get a job.
What should an employer do when a fake job post is reported?
Preserve the report and the impersonated material, confirm whether the real role exists, publish a clear candidate notice, use the platform's reporting process, and route affected candidates to an official company contact. Involve the company's security, legal or privacy owners when the incident includes account compromise, personal data, or a material brand risk.
Should employers warn candidates about job scams?
Yes. A short notice on the careers page and in recruiting communications helps candidates recognize official channels. Keep it factual: list the official job site and email domain, say that the company does not request money for a job, and provide a way to report suspected impersonation.
Primary sources used
- Federal Trade Commission: job scam consumer guidance
- Federal Trade Commission: that job offer text is probably a scam, April 2026
- Federal Trade Commission: ReportFraud
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: 2025 Annual Report
Keep the official hiring path clear
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