How to check an employer before an interview

1. Write down what you actually have: the company name used, the address of the interview, the sender’s email address, and the number that contacted you.
2. Confirm that the entity exists and that its business licence is current. Two other pages in this guide say how, and the result is only half of the answer.
3. Compare the interview address with the company’s registered address. An interview at a house, in a hotel room, or in a different city from the registered address is a question to ask before you travel, not after.
4. Compare the sender’s email address and phone number with the ones the company itself publishes. Legitimate recruitment runs on the company’s own channels.
5. Look for the same vacancy on a channel the company controls. A vacancy that exists only in the message you received is one nobody can confirm.
6. If you are still unsure, contact the company on a number you found yourself — never the one in the invitation — and ask whether the vacancy and the person contacting you are theirs.

• The company is registered and licensed: what that proves is the company, not the person who contacted you. Using a legitimate company’s name is the commonest pattern in recruitment fraud.
• The registered address differs from the interview address: not necessarily wrong — offices move, and a registered address can be a head office — but it is a fair question, and for a real employer the answer is easy.
• Email from a free domain: plenty of legitimate small businesses use one, so it is a signal and not a conclusion. What is more than a signal is a domain one letter away from the company’s own.
• The job title, the salary and the start date are settled before anybody interviews you: what is on offer is not a recruitment process. An offer letter with a logo proves nothing — a logo is copied in a minute.
• The invitation asks for money of any kind — training, a uniform, administration, or travel booked through a named agent: placement costs may not be charged to a jobseeker, so the request is itself the answer.

• This page says of nobody that they committed fraud. Fraud is a legal conclusion, and a court is what reaches it.
• A registered, licensed company can still treat its staff badly. Checking legality is not checking how a company behaves.
• No register in Indonesia records whether a company is hiring, how many people it employs, or whether it pays on time.
• A young company holds few records, and that is normal. A thin record is not a sign of fraud.

If the invitation does not match the company, hold off going and ask the company directly, through a channel you found yourself — if its name is being used without permission, it is the party that most needs to know. Irregular placement practice is reported to the kabupaten or kota labour office, and once money has moved, to the police — keep the messages, the invitation and the transfer receipts before you break contact.

Search the company name in the field at the top of this page. The profile shows the registered address and the published phone numbers, and those are the two things to compare against the invitation you received. We hold no vacancy data and say of no company that it is recruiting.

• Law 13/2003 on Manpower, as amended by Law 6/2023 on Job Creation
• Minister of Manpower Regulation 39/2016 on Labour Placement
• Law 40/2007 on Limited Liability Companies
• Law 27/2022 on Personal Data Protection

A summary of the rules in force, not legal advice. Rules and thresholds change — check with the relevant authority before you register.

PT, CV, cooperative, foundation and the rest: how they differ and what it means for the owner.