Recruitment professionals are facing a new challenge in today’s digital landscape: scammers posing as legitimate recruiters. These scammers are increasingly targeting remote work job seekers, causing some candidates to become wary of all recruitment outreach.

Job seekers are reporting contact (often via LinkedIn) from recruiters who claim to be from big-name companies or job boards and offer remote positions with high pay for minimal qualifications. These fake recruiters create pressure with “limited spots” or time-sensitive opportunities, but refuse phone or video interaction. They often ask for personal or pitch paid services early in the process.

For legitimate recruitment agencies, this trend creates serious business implications. When candidates at large become suspicious of recruitment outreach, it can lead to a declining response rates and shallower talent pools. The negative effect of scammers can bruise your reputation as a legitimate recruiter and hurt your efficiency.

Proactive Verification is a Competitive Advantage

We’ve seen some recruiters begin implementing a proactive verification strategy when reaching out to candidate. Rather than waiting for candidates to question their legitimacy, these agencies provide verification information upfront to differentiate themselves from scammers.

This approach doesn’t just protect your candidates; proactive verification can create a meaningful competitive advantage. By addressing legitimacy head-on, your agency could increase candidate response rates, experience stronger initial engagement, and have more productive recruitment pipelines.

This kind of verification doesn’t need to be complicated. It just requires some forethought and basic business practices like using your company’s email domain consistently, being as detailed as possible about opportunities you offer, giving candidates your direct phone number, and providing recruiter names and images on your website and LinkedIn.

“How to Verify Our Recruiters”

Free Template for Recruiting Agencies

We’ve provided a template which you can use as a proactive verification tool. Just replace the info in [brackets] with your actual company details. Use as you see fit in a documents, email sequences, LinkedIn message, and so on as part of your initial outreach.

How to Verify [Agency Name] Recruiters

At [Agency Name], we understand that job seekers need to be cautious about who they share their information with online. Here’s how you can verify that you’re working with a legitimate recruiter from our team:

Our Standard Communication Practices
  • We primarily use corporate email addresses ending with @[yourcompanydomain.com]
  • Our initial outreach always references specific details about your experience or the role
  • We never charge candidates for resume reviews, interview preparation, or placement services
  • We’re happy to schedule a video call to establish a face-to-face connection
  • We maintain complete LinkedIn profiles with our company listed as our current employer
How to Verify Our Identity
  1. Check our company website. All our recruiters are listed on our page at [yourcompanywebsite.com]
  2. Call our office at [xxx-xxx-xxxx]. Ask to speak with your recruiter.
  3. Check up on our LinkedIn. Our recruiters maintain active LinkedIn profiles with connections to other team members and company leadership.
  4. We always use our @[yourcompanydomain.com] email domain for official communication.
Red Flags That May Indicate a Scammer

Be cautious if someone claiming to be a recruiter…

  • Sends something from a generic email address (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.)
  • Cannot provide specific details about the position beyond what’s in a job posting
  • Asks for payment or suggests paid services for resume evaluation or interview prep
  • Requests sensitive personal information (SSN, banking details) early in the process
  • Is unwilling to conduct a video call or speak by phone
  • Has very few LinkedIn connections or a sparse, recently created profile
Our Commitment to You

At [Agency Name], we value your privacy and security. We will never…

  • Share your personal information without your explicit permission
  • Pressure you to make hasty decisions about opportunities
  • Charge you for our recruitment services
  • Use automated bots for initial candidate communication

If you ever have concerns about communication you’ve received from someone claiming to be from our team, please contact us directly at [email@yourcompanydomain.com] or call [xxx-xxx-xxxx].

PCRM — the CRM and Recruitment ATS hybrid built specifically to empower and scale with solo recruiters and growing agencies — is now available.

The New CRM + Recruitment ATS from PCR

Streamlining processes and building strong client relationships are key to making successful permanent placements. With the core functions your business needs, PCRM provides a configurable, specialized customer relationship management tool and applicant tracking system all in one platform.

Building on years of experience, we’ve created a fresh new platform to help you keep candidates and clients organized, maintain strong relationships with automated assistance, track your process with tools that conform to your needs, and share activities, notes, and milestones with your team.

PCRM Deals Workflow
‘Deals’ in PCRM helps you visualize, execute, and monitor your recruitment biz dev processes in a centralized view. You can manage tasks, set reminders, filter views, and communicate directly about your prospects.

In short, it does much of what you already do with PCRecruiter but with a refreshed user experience and many new enhancements to workflow and design.

PCRM’s empowers recruiters…

  • Simple Sequencing for quickly customizable, task-based recruitment workflow automation.
  • Deals workflow for visual monitoring and interaction with your business development process.
  • Intuitive and consistent navigation that makes finding your way around your data easy.
  • Widget-based customization that lets you put your data exactly where you want it with easy drag/drop.
  • Fast record creation to build your database and connect related items quickly.
  • Open AI to help search your database and draft emails, summaries, and job descriptions faster.
  • Scalability to serve the needs of anyone from solo recruiters to growing teams.

All this and more, built on modern, reusable code that will make deployment of future updates and features more rapid and reliable.

If you’re already using PCRecruiter, trying PCRM is easy. And if you’re not a PCR user, now is a great time to see how our new CRM and ATS can bring your company to the next level.

Learn more today at PCRsales.com or contact sales@mainsequence.net