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Every few weeks a new one appears. A PDF with a logo at the top, a list of posts, a salary column, an age limit, and a line at the bottom saying interested candidates should contact the number given. It gets forwarded through family groups and job channels until tens of thousands of people have seen it. Almost none of them can tell whether it is real.
This article teaches that skill. Not for one company or one year, but as a general method you can apply to any industrial recruitment notice you are ever sent. The examples are drawn from the steel sector, where Tata Steel is the most frequently impersonated name in India, but the checks work anywhere.
Nothing here is a vacancy announcement. It is a guide to reading them.
Start with a question about the channel, not the content
Most people begin by examining the notice itself. That is the wrong first move, because a well-made fake looks better than a real notification. A real one is often a plain document with dense text and a reference number. A fake is designed to be persuasive.
The first question is always: how did this reach me?
If the answer is that you found it on the company own careers website, or on a government portal, the notice has already passed the most important test. If the answer is that someone forwarded it, that a channel posted it, that it arrived by SMS, or that a person you do not know sent it directly, then the document itself proves nothing at all, no matter how convincing it looks.
The correct response to a forwarded notice is never to examine it harder. It is to go independently to the official source and see whether the vacancy exists there. Type the company address into your browser yourself rather than clicking a link in the message. If the role is not on the official site, it is not a role.
Nine things a genuine industrial notification almost always has
Real recruitment documents are written by HR departments working under process requirements, and they carry the marks of that.
A reference or advertisement number. Formal recruitment is tracked. A notice with no identifier is not a document anyone in a company would issue.
A specific location. Not just a company name, but a plant, works, unit or division. Companies hire for places.
One role family, described precisely. Genuine notifications tend to cover a defined set of positions with a stated grade or designation. A single notice offering helper, welder, technician, supervisor, security guard and cashier together is describing a fantasy, because those roles have different eligibility, different tests and usually different departments.
Detailed eligibility. Exact qualification, exact trade where relevant, age band as on a stated cut-off date, and any relaxations. Vagueness here is the strongest single warning sign.
A described selection process. Written test, trade test, interview, medical, document verification, in some order. Fakes skip this because the fake process has only one step: payment.
An application method that is a portal or a formal address, not a personal phone number and not a chat app.
A closing date. Real openings close.
Pay described structurally. A grade, a scale, or a range with the components named. Not a single round monthly figure.
Language that is careful and unexciting. Genuine notices do not use exclamation marks, do not say limited seats, and do not promise a bright future.
The eleven signs that mean stop
Any one of these is enough to walk away. Most fakes carry several.
- Any request for money. Registration fee, form fee, processing charge, training deposit, security amount, medical fee, uniform charge, or a payment to a person who will arrange it. This is the definitive test and it is never wrong.
- A contact number instead of an application portal.
- A free email address used for official correspondence.
- An offer letter before any interview or test. No organisation appoints people it has not assessed.
- A demand for original certificates to be handed over or couriered.
- A request for an OTP, a bank password, a UPI PIN or a card number. There is no legitimate reason for any of these in a hiring process.
- Extreme urgency. Pay today, seats closing tonight, last chance.
- Many unrelated roles in one notice, as described above.
- Salary far above what the role plausibly pays, offered to candidates with no relevant qualification.
- Spelling and formatting errors in a supposedly corporate document, especially in the company own name.
- A link that does not lead to the company real domain. Look at the address carefully, including hyphens, extra words and unusual endings.
How to verify in five minutes
Verification is quicker than most people assume, and it settles the question completely.
Open a browser and type the company official web address yourself. Navigate to its careers or recruitment section from within the site. Search for the role, the reference number, or the notification. If the vacancy is genuine, it will be there or it will have come through a recognised government portal such as the national apprenticeship or employment service.
If you cannot find it, contact the company through the details published on its own website, not through anything in the message you received. Ask whether the notification with that reference number exists. This is the step that scammers rely on people skipping.
For a contract role, verification looks slightly different, because the employer is the contractor rather than the plant. Ask for the contractor registered name, their licence details and an appointment letter on their letterhead. A real contractor can produce these without difficulty.
The pay figure is usually the clearest tell
Fake notices almost always overstate pay, because that is what makes people act. They also state it in a way no employer does.
Real compensation in organised industry is tied to a grade or scale, and it is broken into components: basic, allowances, shift premium where applicable, and statutory deductions. What you receive in your bank account is different from the gross, which is different again from cost to company.
So a notice that says a flat figure per month, for many different roles, with no grade and no structure, is not describing a real pay system. Ranges circulating online, including the ones in the tags on this page, reflect what is commonly advertised in the sector generally. They are not a quotation, not an official scale, and not a promise. The only figure that means anything is the one on a signed offer letter naming you.
What to do if you have already engaged
People find this section by searching for it at two in the morning, so it is worth being direct.
If you have paid money, contact your bank immediately and ask about a dispute or recall on the transaction. Speed matters here more than anything else. Report the matter through the national cybercrime reporting channels and at your local police station, and keep every message, receipt and transaction reference as evidence.
If you shared an OTP or banking credentials, treat it as an active security incident: call your bank helpline at once, block the card or account access as they advise, and change passwords.
If you handed over original documents, ask for them back in writing and keep the request. Report the loss to the issuing authority where applicable, and be careful about applying with the same documents until the situation is resolved.
If you have only shared a copy of your Aadhaar or PAN, stay alert for accounts or loans opened in your name and check your credit record periodically.
Do not be ashamed into silence. These operations are professionally run and specifically designed to convince people who are doing everything else right. Reporting them helps the next person.
Helping others read notices too
Most fake notifications spread through people who mean well. A relative forwards it because they think it might help you. If you can explain the two or three strongest checks in a sentence, you break that chain.
The compact version worth repeating to anyone: if it asks for money, it is fake; if it came as a forward, check the official site yourself; if the salary sounds too high for the qualification, it is bait.
Frequently asked questions
The notice has a real company logo. Does that mean anything? No. Logos are trivially copied. Nothing on the document itself, including logos, stamps, signatures and letterheads, is evidence.
Someone showed me an appointment letter of a person who got the job. Is that proof? No. Fake appointment letters are the standard prop in these schemes, and the person shown is often not real.
Can a genuine company use WhatsApp? Companies sometimes use messaging for interview logistics after you have applied through a formal channel. What does not happen is a first contact offering a job to someone who never applied.
Are consultants who charge candidates ever legal? Treat any request for payment from a candidate as disqualifying. Legitimate recruiters are paid by employers.
What if the caller knows my name and qualification? That information is widely available from job portals and leaked databases. It demonstrates access to data, not authenticity.
Verify through these official channels
- Tata Steel official website — Check any claimed vacancy at source
- National Career Service — Government employment portal
- NAPS portal — Official apprenticeship opportunities
- NATS portal — Apprenticeship training for technical students
- Ministry of Labour and Employment — Labour departments and worker protections
- CPGRAMS — Central public grievance redressal
The one-line rule
If money moves from you towards the employer at any point before you have started working, it is not a job. Everything else in this article is refinement on that single sentence.
Disclaimer: This article is general career information only. It is not an official recruitment notice and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or authorised by Tata Steel Limited or any Tata Group company. Salary ranges shown in tags and elsewhere are indicative of what is commonly advertised for such roles in Indian heavy industry and are not a quoted or guaranteed figure — actual pay varies by plant, location, grade, contract type and employer, and only a signed offer letter is binding. Always apply through the official Tata Steel careers website or a recognised government portal. This is not legal, financial or employment advice.
