The LinkedIn résumé scammers
Once a job search is public, an open-to-work profile or layoff post can attract unsolicited messages. They vary in costume but run on one engine: you're easy to find, you may be in a hurry, and hurry is worth money. It helps to know five common costumes.
One is the résumé mill. Someone with "Career Expert" in their headline messages to say they noticed your profile, and unfortunately your résumé is being auto-rejected by the ATS. Luckily, they offer a free review. The review arrives quickly, finds alarming problems, and leads to a paid rewrite. Two things to check. The review may be canned, which you can sometimes test by comparing notes with other job seekers. And the diagnosis is unfalsifiable on purpose: there is no single "ATS scan" your résumé passed or failed. I've written elsewhere about what that software actually does, and it isn't this. A stranger who claims to know why your applications are failing, without ever seeing a specific application, is guessing.
Second, the fake recruiter. The profile looks plausible, the company is real or real-sounding, the role is remote and pays unusually well, and things move fast. There may be an "interview" over chat or a quick offer. Then comes the paperwork request: date of birth, a scan of your license or passport, bank details "to set up payroll before day one." The role was bait for identity theft, and the paperwork stage was the point. Sensitive identity and payroll information should go through a verified employer process, not an unverified direct message or personal email. Contact the company through a channel you found independently before sending it.
Third, the fee-charger, who has a placement for you as soon as you cover a small "processing," "training," or "background check" cost. The mechanism to remember: employer-retained recruiters are paid by the employer, with a fee often calculated from the hire's starting salary. It is not deducted from the candidate's pay. A recruiter asking the candidate for money has told you what business they're in.
Fourth, the overpayment scam wearing a job costume. You're "hired" quickly for remote work, and before you start they send a check for equipment, to be purchased from their "approved vendor." You deposit it, buy the equipment (that is, wire them money), and the check later bounces. A stranger who sends you money and asks you to route some of it elsewhere is giving you the shape of this scam.
Fifth, the slow pivot. A warm recruiting conversation drifts to another messaging app, gets friendly, stops being about the job, and later introduces an investment platform. The job was the introduction. Changing apps is not proof of fraud by itself, but a recruiting conversation that turns into an investment pitch is no longer a recruiting conversation.
Why does this ecosystem live on LinkedIn specifically? Because the open-to-work signal is a targeting beacon, a plausible professional profile costs nothing to fabricate, and a layoff post advertises exactly the desperation the scam needs. I don't think you should hide that you're searching; the reach genuinely helps. But the same visibility that attracts recruiters attracts predators, and they arrive faster.
The defenses are cheap. Look for the job on the company's own careers site. If it is absent, contact the company through a channel you found independently rather than trusting the message. Verify that the recruiter uses a real company or agency domain and that the employer recognizes them. Reverse-image-search a headshot if anything feels off. Send identity and banking details only through a verified employer process. Do not pay a recruiter to place you. And slow down deliberately: urgency helps a scammer, while verification helps you. "Let me get back to you Monday" is a perfectly reasonable answer.
None of this requires paranoia. It requires the same skepticism you'd apply to a stranger who approached you on the street offering exactly what you most need, right now, for a small fee. Minus the professional headshot, that's what a scam DM is.