“You turn the lights on, and the roaches run.” That is how a Chicago-area job seeker named Jones described his work to The Wall Street Journal. For two years he has tracked fraudulent job listings and fake recruiter profiles, and he says he has helped get nearly 60,000 postings taken down, most of them on LinkedIn.
Fake recruiters, real fear
The scams land on people already under strain. In August, 27% of unemployed Americans had been looking for work for more than six months, close to levels last seen in some of the longest stretches of high unemployment outside the pandemic.
Jones says AI has made things worse. Scammers can tailor a message to a person’s résumé and career history, so a fraudulent pitch reads as if someone actually studied the applicant. Some schemes offer paid résumé help. Others go after sensitive details such as driver’s license information or Social Security numbers.
His recent catch: several LinkedIn profiles under the name Linda Anthony. They used the same photograph, had similar work histories and had been created recently. After Jones publicized them, their links reportedly went offline.
Verification is no shield
LinkedIn says its automated systems blocked nearly 90 million fake accounts before users could see them in the second half of 2025. It has added safety measures and worked with the FBI to teach users about employment scams.
Still, Jones has found hijacked accounts tied to legitimate recruiting companies. A scammer in control of one gets a verification badge and a real corporate affiliation in a single package. LinkedIn acknowledged that verification does not guarantee an account or job listing is genuine.
The company plans a feature that would let verified employers immediately remove users from their company affiliations. Hyundai Motor and Capital One have confirmed that they work with LinkedIn to remove fraudulent listings that turn up on their pages.
Jones keeps going alongside driving for Uber, training cybersecurity professionals and looking for permanent work of his own. He often has around 50 browser tabs open while chasing leads, and his browser sometimes crashes several times a week.
