What “Verified employer” means

1. A work email at the company's domain

The work email's domain must be the website's domain; we check that it can receive email and how old it is.

To add a company or claim its page, a person enters an email address at the company's own domain. We send a link to that address, and it works for 24 hours; nothing happens until it is opened. Personal mailboxes such as Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo are refused, and the website given at sign-up must be on the same domain as the email. Colleagues join only by an invite sent to an address at the same domain.

If we have no confirmed address at the company's domain on record for its team, the badge does not list this check.

2. Automatic checks on the domain and website

We check that the company's website opens over HTTPS and whether it is a parked page or a free site builder.

We look for the company's name on its site, and for about, careers or contact pages.

When a company signs up by itself, we look at its domain and open its home page once, without asking it anything. Each finding below is shown to the person who reviews the company; none of them refuses a company by itself.

• The website does not open over HTTPS
• The domain cannot receive email (no MX records)
• The domain was registered less than 180 days ago
• The name or domain is close to a company already listed
• The website looks like a parked domain or a domain for sale
• The website is hosted on a free site builder
• The website is a single page: no about, careers, contact or privacy page
• The company's name does not appear on its home page
• The domain has no SPF record (soft signal: email set-up is incomplete)
• The domain has no DMARC record (soft signal)
• Some checks could not run; look at the domain by hand

The badge lists a check only when it ran and found nothing: the website opens over HTTPS, the domain can receive email, the domain was registered more than 180 days ago (from its public registration record), the name and domain are not close to another company already listed, the site is not a parked page or a free site builder, and the company's name and its about, careers or contact pages are there. A company that claimed a page already on the site, or was added before these checks existed, shows none of them.

3. A person checks the business register

A reviewer matched the company's name, country and status to its official business register.

A person, not a script, decides. They open the website, read the checks above and look for the company's LinkedIn page. At sign-up we ask for the register's number under its local name (UEN, Companies House number, SIREN and so on); we flag a number that does not look right but never refuse one. The reviewer opens the official register and ticks what matched: the legal name, the country and that the company is active. Sole traders and some employers have no number; the reviewer then matches the website and the owner's identity (the site, LinkedIn, the domain's age) instead, and the badge reads “Verified sole trader” so nobody takes it for a register match.

Verifying a company is its own step and records who did it and when; approving a job never verifies a company. The date on the badge is the day of that step. A company whose page was claimed and confirmed before this review existed is not verified: it shows a “Claimed” mark, its popover says no person has checked it yet, and it has none of a verified company's standing until a person reviews it.

4. For agencies: the recruitment licence

For a licensed agency, the reviewer also matched its recruitment licence on the regulator's register, and noted when it expires.

Where a country requires recruitment agencies to hold a licence, we ask for its number, who issued it and when it expires. The reviewer finds it on the regulator's register or, where there is no public register, asks for a copy by email. Only then does the badge read “Licensed agency”; an agency whose licence was not matched can be verified as an employer only.

An agency whose jobs move workers abroad from the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Thailand or Kenya also needs that country's overseas-placement licence. Our understanding, not legal advice and under counsel review, is that a remote job done from home for a foreign employer is not such a move.

5. Checked again

We check again every 12 months, or when a licence expires; a badge whose check is overdue is taken down.

The reviewer sets the next check when verifying: 12 months on, or the licence's expiry if that comes first, and our review queue lists companies two weeks before it is due. An agency whose licence has expired shows as a verified employer, not a licensed agency, until a new licence is matched. If a check is more than 30 days late, the badge comes down and the company's pages say its re-check is overdue.

What changes once a company is verified

• It may have 25 open or waiting jobs at a time instead of 10.
• Only a verified company can earn trust: after we approve its last 3 jobs in a row, clean jobs go live without waiting for a person, until 60 days or 10 such jobs have passed; then a person looks again. A change to a live job's title, description, pay, apply link or location always comes back for review.
• Any company, verified or not, can be blocked: all its jobs come down and its domain is refused.

What the badge does not promise

Beyond the register match and, for a licensed agency, its licence, it is not a check of the company's finances or legal standing, of the people who work there, or of any job's outcome. We do not check identity documents. It says the company passed the steps above on the date shown. Jobs that ask applicants for money, pay in crypto or gift cards, or limit who may apply by gender, age, religion, marital status, ethnicity, disability or pregnancy are refused for every company, verified or not. If something looks wrong, report the job from its page; see also how to spot a fake job.

Where each job comes from

Every job page says how the job reached us:

• From the company's careers site: we read it from the hiring system the company itself uses for its careers page (such as Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable or Recruitee), shorten it, and link to the original. Applying happens there. These companies have not necessarily signed up with us, so most of them carry no badge.
• Posted by the employer: someone at the company posted it here after the work-email step, under our posting rules. A person reviews it before it goes live unless the company has earned trust as described above.

See also: trust and security, for how we review jobs, handle reports and keep data.