Someone tried to pretend to be me and email a candidate for their resume. The email looked like this:
The Katrina (Kat) Kibben is a nice touch, but this is fake. Everyone should know how to spot a spam recruiter email.
Recruiter Scams To Look Out For
Unfortunately, emails like this are becoming even more common. Still, not everyone knows what to look for in a recruiting email to figure out what’s real and fake. It’s not even about being tech savvy - I know a Gen-Z tech lover that bought a *lot* of Target gift cards for their new boss before realizing it was a fake email.
A quick dig into the data confirms it’s not just my inbox getting these messages. About 33% of Americans say they have encountered a job scam, up almost 15% from 2024 (Norton Research 2024, 2026).
These scams come in a few different varieties. Fake job posts (more on that here). Email, LinkedIn, and text messages, too. The worst part? The emails are targeting susceptible people. No matter how good you are at spotting a scam, it’s easy to get your hopes up when looking for a job. Those little things you might notice on any regular day that scream “this is a scam” are easier to miss.
How You Can Tell That Recruiter Email Isn’t Real
If I wanted to know if a recruiter was real, I would go through these checks. As of April 2026, I feel pretty confident that if you follow all these steps, you will know if that recruiter and the job are real.
Note: from my POV? None of these individually are absolute deal breakers, but if 2 or 3 don’t match? I’d say it’s a no. Trust your gut, even if the role sounds like it's a perfect match for you. Scammers know how to manipulate - and they'll do whatever they can to feed on desperation.
- Look at the email address. If something looks weird there - extra characters, spaces, numbers or dashes that don’t seem like a professional email, it might be a scam. Copy and paste the recruiter’s name and email address into Google and search. See what comes up. There should be a link to a real person in at least one result if it’s a real person.
- Hover over any links in the email to see where they go and if they take you to a real website. Do not just click on a link without checking if it is real first. There is a new scam out now for social security that can completely hack and monitor all your behavior for long periods of time simply by clicking a link, so this is a really serious one.
- Search for the company name and/or job title. If a job is real and active, it will be on the company website.
- Contact a person you know is real on LinkedIn and ask - just like this nice person did. They sent me a screenshot of the email and asked, “is this real?”
With scams on the rise, we can’t rely on the basics anymore - AI helps scammers avoid the things that used to be a dead giveaway, like typos. Being offered a new job, especially a more senior role that pays more, can be tempting to respond to, but remember that not all cold pitches can be trusted. That goes for recruiters, too.
