7 Telltale Signs of Tech Recruitment Scams Data from 2025 LinkedIn Security Reports

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately sifting through the public-facing security summaries released by the professional networking giant. It’s fascinating, if slightly unnerving, to see the patterns emerging in digital trickery targeted at technical professionals. As someone who spends their days building things, the sheer ingenuity criminals put into social engineering aimed at hiring is something I have to respect, even while I’m trying to expose it.

We are seeing a clear evolution beyond the poorly worded phishing emails of yesteryear. The current wave, particularly hitting software engineers, data scientists, and specialized hardware architects, is far more targeted, often leveraging public information scraped from project repositories and past employment histories. Let’s look closely at seven specific red flags that popped up repeatedly in the recent aggregated data, signals that should make any job seeker pause before accepting that "dream offer."

The first thing that consistently tripped up candidates, according to the security reports, was the insistence on conducting the *entire* interview process outside of established corporate channels. I mean, if you are interviewing for a role at a major enterprise, and they refuse to use their official video conferencing platform, opting instead for an obscure third-party service or even just WhatsApp for the final "offer call," that’s a massive, flashing yellow light. Think about it: established companies have infrastructure; scammers rely on anonymity and non-traceable communication methods.

Another surprisingly common tell involves compensation structures that sound too good to be true—and I mean truly outlandish, even for high-demand roles in major metropolitan areas. Specifically, offers detailing base salaries that are 40% or more above the published market rate for a given seniority level, especially when paired with vague explanations about "proprietary bonus pools," should trigger immediate skepticism. Furthermore, the pressure to sign an employment agreement within hours of receiving the written offer, often citing "urgent budget rollover needs," is a classic coercion tactic to bypass due diligence. I noticed a recurring theme where these offers required a "security deposit" or "equipment purchasing fee" paid directly to a third-party vendor, which is almost never how legitimate high-tier tech hiring works. The sudden pivot to discussing payment methods before finalizing background checks is another serious indicator of a setup. Finally, the inability of the supposed hiring manager or HR representative to answer specific, verifiable questions about the team's current tech stack or recent project milestones often reveals a lack of genuine operational knowledge.

The fifth data point that kept surfacing relates to equipment provisioning. Legitimate companies send pre-configured hardware, often directly from their approved vendors, sometimes requiring a signature upon receipt. Scams frequently involve sending the candidate a check to purchase their own equipment, instructing them to wire the remainder back to a "vendor account" after purchasing the specified items. That check is almost certainly fraudulent, and the wire transfer is the actual theft. Number six involves the interview content itself; while technical questions are expected, a sudden shift during the final interview to requests for access credentials or sensitive internal documentation from previous employers is a dead giveaway of credential harvesting, not actual assessment. Lastly, and this one is subtle: scrutinize the domain name of the initial contact email. Even if it closely mimics a known company, a one-letter substitution or a non-standard top-level domain (like .co instead of .com for a US-based firm) is a persistent, low-effort trick that still catches people off guard.