Is This Recruiter Real? Check the Verified Roster Before You Reply

# Is This Recruiter Real? Check the Name Before You Share Anything

You get a LinkedIn message from someone who says they recruit for a company you applied to. The profile photo is polished. The job description sounds right. Then they ask for your driver's license or a small onboarding fee. The question that should stop you is simple: is this recruiter real?

WhoWorks publishes a verified roster of real recruiters. Companies list the people actually authorized to recruit on their behalf. You can check a name against that roster before you send anything.

The first check is money or documents

A recruiter is paid by the employer, so one asking you for money cannot be legitimate. In the scams we flag, the ask is almost always money or identity documents. The story usually involves an onboarding fee, a processing fee, or a background check fee paid by you.

Identity documents are a second signal. In the scams we flag, the request for a passport photo or driver's license comes in the first message, before any real offer or company portal. A stranger asking for a passport photo in the first message is not acting like a recruiter.

What a verified roster tells you

When a company publishes its real recruiters on WhoWorks, you can type in the name from the profile. The result is either VERIFIED or NOT ISSUED.

VERIFIED means the company listed this person as a current recruiter. NOT ISSUED means the name has no active credential from that company. The check takes seconds.

One candidate sent us a message after someone using a recruiter's name asked for a passport photo. The name was not on the roster. The verdict came back NOT ISSUED. The candidate stopped replying.

Check the profile before you reply

Open the LinkedIn profile and look at the details. Does the employer match the company in the job description? Does the profile show a long history in recruiting, or a thin page with no connections? These are not proof, but they give you a reason to pause.

Then check the name on WhoWorks. If the name is not there, do not send documents. Do not send money. Ask for a company email address and a call through the company switchboard.

The question "is this recruiter real" is not rude. It is the thing that protects you from a fake.