In 2022, over “21 million fake accounts were detected and removed from LinkedIn”. There are a range of scams associated with these profiles, but a common one we often see in tech is for the fake profiles to attempt to collect as many simultaneous jobs with high base salaries (+ draws) at one time and maintain employment as long as possible. These individuals often appear highly qualified, are expert interviewers and yet their stories are 100% fabrications.
Although LinkedIn has attempted to remove as many fake profiles as possible, we have a few recommendations to help you identify fake candidates before it’s too late.
Fake LinkedIn Profile
Number of connections
One of the first places you can spot a fake profile on LinkedIn is to see how “humanized” the profile appears. In reviewing profiles, check how many connections they have. Many fake profiles tend to have less than 100 connections, but certainly less than the visible 500 threshold. Any connections they have will often be from random requests they’ve sent out and not be the cohesive colleague, client, industry connections network that one would expect.
LinkedIn Posts
Another way to spot a scam profile is to check if they’re active on their profile and have engagement. If there’s no activity, posts, reactions, or engagement given or received, this is a big red flag in a profile. A fake profile will have a similar appearance to a new account.
LinkedIn Experience
The experience section of a fake profile will likely show some form of extreme career “achievement”. It might say they have been in a prominent role at several impressive companies, have exemplary quota attainment track records or display unusually long job tenures compared to market standards.
In some cases, they might create a made-up company stating that they support high profile customers like Microsoft or Apple. However, on the company’s LinkedIn page, there are typically only a couple of employees, which is an unrealistic number to support such large accounts.
Checks Outside of LinkedIn
Reverse Google Image Search
If you think that a profile you’re looking at might be a fake profile, try a reverse google image search of the profile photo. If the search results in multiple profiles with different names associated with the photo, you’ve come across a scam profile. Scammers will often use the same photo for multiple accounts.
Fake Websites
You can take it another step further by checking out the website of their company. Though at first glance it might seem like the website is legitimate, a scammer’s website will be very bare-boned. It will be a shell of a website with only a handful of basic pages and very little showcasing an actual product or offering. If they provide an HQ for the company, check the address using Google Maps as they are often fake locations.
Resumés
If someone has slipped past your initial checks to see if they’re a scammer, another place you can check is their resumé. Some scammers will use the names of commonly known companies, but spell the name of the company slightly differently. A quick scan over the companies they’ve worked at might look right, but if you look closely, they aren’t real. They might also put ridiculous achievements under their experience. It is unrealistic to see that they’ve reached 155%+ of their quota every single year for their entire career. Read through resumés with a keen eye.
If you think you’ve come across a fake profile on LinkedIn, report the profile and make note of any scammers in your CRM or company database to ensure no one else falls victim to them in the future.