A hiring promise is a short page on your own website that says what you will never ask a candidate to do, which email addresses you write from and where your vacancies are listed. A candidate who receives a message in your name can then check it against the page.
The short answer. A hiring promise is a short page on your own website saying what you never ask candidates to do, which email addresses you write from and where your vacancies are listed. This guide gives wording to copy and adapt, and says where to publish it. A promise gives candidates a page to check against, and it does not stop anyone pretending to be you.
Last reviewed 5 October 2026. Based on warning signs published by Take Five to Stop Fraud (United Kingdom), Report Fraud (United Kingdom), the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Federal Trade Commission and the South African Department of Employment and Labour. This is free to copy and adapt. UtilForge does not check or approve anyone’s promise, and publishing one does not mean UtilForge or any agency endorses you.
Why publish one
The agencies above describe the same pattern: someone writes in the name of a real organisation, asks for a fee or for identity documents, and the candidate has no way to tell. In South Africa the Department of Employment and Labour reported in February 2026 that its logo and Coat of Arms were being misused in fake vacancies, and it points candidates to the vacancies published on its own website. A page of your own gives candidates the same kind of reference for your organisation.
The wording
Copy this, replace the words in square brackets, and delete any line that is not true for your organisation. A line that is not kept does more harm than leaving it out.
Our hiring promise
We never ask you to pay anything at any stage of hiring. That includes fees for training, equipment, a background check, a CV service, a visa or a trial task.
We write to candidates only from addresses ending in [yourorganisation.example].
Every vacancy we advertise is listed on our own careers page, at [address of the page].
We ask for identity documents and bank details only after we have sent you a written offer, and only through [how you collect them].
If you are unsure whether a message is from us, contact us at [address or phone number on this page] and we will tell you.
Last checked: [date].
Making each line true
Some roles need checks earlier, for example in regulated industries. Change the fourth line to say what you really do, and when. Candidates are helped by a promise that matches your process more than by one that sounds strong.
Where to put it
On your careers page, in the footer of every advert, in the automatic reply to applications and in the first email a candidate receives. A university careers service can link to its employers’ pages and add a line to its own page telling students to check any message against the employer’s website, using an address they found themselves.
What a promise cannot do
This section is UtilForge’s own reasoning. A promise does not stop anyone from pretending to be you. It gives candidates a page to check against, and it makes the questions in How can I tell if a recruiter is real? easy to answer for your organisation.
Sources
- Take Five to Stop Fraud, job scams (no date shown on the page)
- Report Fraud, recruitment scams (no date shown on the page)
- Federal Bureau of Investigation Internet Crime Complaint Center alert, 1 February 2022: fraudulent job postings
- The Federal Trade Commission consumer advice, job scams, March 2023
- The Citizen, reporting the Department of Employment and Labour, 18 February 2026
Related guides
Free
Candidates can check
a message first.
Before You Reply to a Recruiter runs on the candidate’s own phone or computer. What they type stays on their phone.