Veritas HR

How to check if a recruitment agency is genuine

Practical checks before you sign or pay: the MEA eMigrate licence for overseas jobs, GST and MCA lookups, written terms, a real office, and the red flags that separate an agency from a scam.

By

Priya Nair

· Updated

Recruitment is one of the easiest businesses in India to imitate. A logo, a Gmail address, a WhatsApp number and a stack of copied job descriptions are enough to look convincing to a candidate, and often enough to look convincing to a small employer. The checks below take under an hour and rule out most of what goes wrong. They apply whether you are an employer about to brief a mandate or a candidate about to hand over a passport copy.

For overseas jobs, start with the MEA licence

This is the one check with a clear legal answer. Under the Emigration Act, 1983, only a recruiting agent registered with the Ministry of External Affairs may recruit Indian citizens for employment abroad. Registration is not optional and it is not a trade-body membership: it is a licence, and recruiting without one is an offence.

Ask for the registration number and verify it yourself on the eMigrate portal at emigrate.gov.in, which publishes the list of registered recruiting agents. Check that the name, address and validity dates on the portal match the firm in front of you: a licence in a different entity’s name, or one that has lapsed, is the same as no licence. The portal also records deployments to the eighteen countries that require emigration clearance, so a genuine agent will be comfortable explaining how yours will be processed. Our guide to MEA-registered recruiting agents explains what the register does and does not tell you.

For domestic recruitment there is no equivalent national licence. A few states regulate private placement agencies through their own orders or registration schemes, so what you can verify differs from state to state. Where nothing applies, the company records below are the strongest public proof available.

Never pay a candidate-side fee before an offer

In legitimate recruitment the employer pays. Agencies earn a success fee from the hiring company when a candidate joins, and charging the candidate is a common complaint against unregistered consultancies. For overseas placements, reputable agencies are paid by the foreign employer, and what a candidate may be charged is capped by government notification at a nominal service charge plus GST. Any demand for a registration fee, a “processing” charge, a visa fee, a deposit, or payment for an interview is a warning sign in itself, regardless of how plausible the rest of the pitch is.

If you are asked for money at all, ask for a receipt in the company’s name with its GSTIN on it, and ask what happens to the money if you are not placed. Genuine agents can answer both questions in a sentence. Never pay in cash or to a personal account, and never hand over original passports or educational certificates.

Check the company actually exists

Two free government lookups do most of the work.

  • GST. Ask for the GSTIN and run it through the “Search Taxpayer” tool on the GST portal. You should see the legal name, trade name, registration date, the state, the constitution of business and — importantly — a status of Active. A cancelled or suspended registration on a firm that is quoting you GST is a straightforward contradiction.
  • CIN or LLPIN. If the agency is a company or LLP, look it up on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal under “View Company/LLP Master Data”. Check the company status is Active, the date of incorporation against the “twenty years of experience” on the website, the registered office address, and whether the annual filings are up to date. Director names and DINs are visible too, which is useful when the same people appear behind an entity that was struck off.

A sole proprietorship will have no CIN, which is normal and not a red flag by itself; in that case the GSTIN, a Shops and Establishments registration and a PAN in the business name are what you can reasonably ask for.

Look for a real office and real people

Visit, or ask for a video call from the office. A recruitment business that places people has desks, phones and a reception; one that is only a mobile number generally does not. Check that the address on the website matches the address on the GST record and the letterhead. A domain-based email address is a low bar, but an agency corresponding entirely from free webmail and WhatsApp, with no landline and no named consultants, is telling you something.

Ask who will actually work your mandate, and ask that person which roles in your sector and salary band they have closed in the last twelve months. Vague answers here are more informative than any brochure. Employers should also ask whether the agency sources candidates or simply forwards job-portal résumés — both are legitimate businesses, but you should know which one you are paying for.

Get the terms in writing

No genuine agency objects to a written mandate. It should state the fee and how it is calculated, that GST is extra, when the fee falls due — on joining rather than on offer — and the replacement guarantee. Confirm the guarantee period, whether it covers one replacement or several, and whether it applies to termination as well as resignation. Add a line on what happens if a candidate the agency sent has already been in your pipeline, and a line on how candidate data is handled and deleted.

Candidates should insist on seeing the employer’s name before any document is shared, and should receive the offer letter from the employer, on the employer’s letterhead, not from the agency. For overseas roles, the demand letter, the employment contract and the terms of the job should be visible before anything is signed.

Red flags

  • Any candidate-side fee, deposit or “visa charge” before an offer exists.
  • Payment requested in cash or to an individual’s bank account or UPI ID.
  • A job offer without an interview, or a salary well outside the market for the role.
  • Urgency: a seat that expires today, a batch that closes this evening.
  • Refusal to name the employer, or an employer that cannot be found in any public record.
  • No written terms, or terms that arrive only after payment.
  • For overseas work: no MEA registration number, a number that does not verify on eMigrate, or a request to travel on a visit or tourist visa and “convert it there”.
  • Requests for original documents, or for OTPs, banking credentials or Aadhaar authentication.

If something has already gone wrong, keep the evidence — receipts, chat logs, the advertisement — and report it. Overseas recruitment complaints can be raised through the eMigrate grievance channel and with the police; domestic cheating complaints go to the local police station, and the national cybercrime portal covers online fraud.

This is general information, correct as at September 2026, and not legal advice. Licensing requirements and state rules change; confirm the current position with a consultant or lawyer before acting on anything here.

Find help