Startup job red flags in India: how to spot fake roles, scams and bad offers

Fake and predatory job postings are common enough in India that every seeker needs a filter. Here is ours.

Hard red flags — walk away

• Any fee: registration, training, security deposit, laptop deposit, "verification". Real employers never charge candidates.
• Hiring only via WhatsApp or Telegram, with no company email domain and no careers page.
• Offer letter before an interview, or an interview that's a single chat.
• Commission-only roles described as jobs, or "unpaid internship, unlimited earning potential".
• Asking for bank details, Aadhaar or PAN before an offer. Those come with onboarding, not applications.

Yellow flags — ask questions

• Salary "as per industry standards" with no range.
• Job title inflated relative to the responsibilities ("Head of Growth" for a 5-person company with no marketing budget).
• Apply link to a personal Gmail or a generic form at a funded company.
• Glassdoor or LinkedIn showing everyone joined in the last three months.
• The posting is copy-pasted from another company (search a distinctive sentence).

What this board does

Every listing we publish must link to a working apply page, and featured roles must state a salary range. Submissions are screened for the patterns above (fees, commission-only, MLM language, messaging-app-only contact) and reviewed by a person. Anyone can report a listing from its page; three reports hide it automatically pending review. Roles pulled from company career boards are labelled with their source.

If you've been scammed

Report to the National Cyber Crime Portal (cybercrime.gov.in) and to the platform where you saw the posting. If a company took a fee, a complaint under the Consumer Protection Act is available.