How to spot fake and expired job postings

Not every posting you see is a real, open job. Some were filled months ago and never taken down. Some are reposted by aggregators long after the original disappeared. And some are scams built to collect personal information or money.

A few minutes of checking before you apply protects both your time and your identity.

Signs a posting may be stale

There’s no date, or it’s old. If you can’t tell when a job was posted, be cautious. If it’s more than a month or two old, assume it may be closed unless you can confirm otherwise.
It’s only on a board, not the employer’s site. Search the employer’s careers page for the same title. If it isn’t there, the listing may be a leftover copy.
The same posting keeps reappearing word for word, for months, with no change. Some companies keep “evergreen” postings open to collect resumes, which is not the same as an active opening.
The link is broken or redirects to a generic careers page or a different role.

Signs a posting may be a scam

Be very careful, and usually walk away, if a “recruiter” or posting:

Asks you to pay for training, equipment, a background check or a “starter kit”
Wants sensitive details early, like your social insurance or social security number, bank details or a copy of your ID, before any real interview
Offers a job without an interview, or interviews you only by text or chat app
Promises unusually high pay for simple work, or has vague duties
Uses a personal email address (a free webmail account) rather than a company domain, or a domain that’s slightly misspelled
Sends you a check and asks you to deposit it and send part of the money back. This is a classic fraud.
Pressures you to act immediately

Legitimate employers don’t charge you to work for them, and they collect tax and banking details only after you’ve accepted an offer, through their official onboarding process.

How to verify a posting in five minutes

Find it at the source. Go to the employer’s website yourself (not through a link in the message) and look for the role on their careers page.
Check the person. If a recruiter contacted you, look them up on the company’s site or a professional network, and confirm their email domain matches the company’s.
Search the company name with “scam” or “reviews.” Other job seekers often report fraudulent schemes.
Read the posting closely. Real postings usually name a team, specific duties and requirements. Scams tend to be generic.
Trust your gut. If something feels off, it’s fine to stop. A real opportunity will survive a polite question or two.

If you think you’ve been targeted

Stop responding, and don’t send money or documents. If you shared financial information, contact your bank right away. You can report job scams to your national consumer protection or anti-fraud agency, for example the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre in Canada or the Federal Trade Commission in the United States, and to the site where you found the posting.

How FlashApply helps

FlashApply builds results from a live web search. It shows a listing only when it can match it to a page the search actually found, and it links to that page so you can check it yourself. It marks listings found directly on an employer’s careers site, and it shows posting dates only when the posting states them.

That cuts out a lot of noise, but no tool can guarantee that every posting on the internet is genuine or still open. Use the checks above for any job you’re serious about, wherever you found it.