How to check if a government job notification is real

6 min read · Updated 4 August 2026

Fake recruitment notices are the most expensive misinformation most people meet, because the ask is money rather than belief. Seven checks, in the order that costs you least to run.

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  1. 1.Find the notification number, then find the notification

    Every genuine government recruitment carries an advertisement or notification number and a dated PDF. Take that number and search for it on the recruiting body's own site. If the forward has no number, or the number returns nothing on the official site, stop there.

  2. 2.Check the domain, character by character

    Official Indian recruitment sites sit on gov.in or nic.in domains; other countries have equivalents. Scam sites imitate them with lookalikes — an extra word, a hyphen, a .com or .org tail, or a subdomain trick where the real domain is the last part before the first single slash. Type the official domain yourself instead of tapping the link.

  3. 3.Apply the fee rule

    Genuine recruiters collect application fees only through the official portal's payment gateway, and never through UPI IDs, personal bank transfers, wallet numbers or agents. Any request to pay a 'registration', 'processing', 'training' or 'security' fee to an individual account is a scam, without exception.

  4. 4.Match the dates against the official calendar

    Scam notices recycle real recruitment drives with the dates shifted so the window feels urgent. Compare the opening date, closing date and exam date with the official notification PDF. A closing date 'in 48 hours' that appears nowhere official is designed to stop you checking.

  5. 5.Test the contact details

    Official notices list a departmental helpline and an email on the official domain. Scam notices list mobile numbers, Gmail or Outlook addresses, or a WhatsApp-only contact. Also be wary of anyone who calls you first about a job you never applied for.

  6. 6.Reject anything that guarantees selection

    No genuine government recruitment offers guaranteed placement, a 'confirmed seat', a bypass of the written exam, or a job in exchange for payment. Those phrases are the product being sold, and the product is fraud.

  7. 7.Cross-check on a verified listings source

    Before applying, confirm the same vacancy appears on an official-only listings source. VeriFix's Verified Jobs section carries government postings sourced exclusively from official recruitment systems, so a vacancy missing there is worth a second look.

Official-only job listings

VeriFix ingests government vacancies directly from official recruitment systems and rejects third-party aggregator listings.

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Frequently asked

I already paid a fee to an agent. What now?
Report it immediately to your national cybercrime portal and to your bank's fraud line — funds recalled within the first hours have the best chance. Keep the message, the account number and the payment reference; those are what an investigation needs.
Is a PDF that looks official proof enough?
No. Letterheads, seals and signatures are trivially copied. The only meaningful test is whether the same PDF is downloadable from the recruiting body's own domain.
Are job notices on social media ever genuine?
Official departments do post on social media, but scam pages copy those posts and change the link. Treat social posts as a pointer, never as the source — always land on the official domain before you enter any detail.
Where can I see only genuine government vacancies?
VeriFix's Verified Jobs section lists only postings ingested from official government recruitment systems; third-party aggregator listings are excluded by design.

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