1. Complete your headline and About section.
2. Save two relevant vacancies and tailor one application.
3. Send one thoughtful connection request to someone in your field.

Your profile is a work in progress. Update it as you gain skills, complete projects, and learn more about your target career.

A practical five-step verification checklist

1. Check the business registry. Search an official registry to see whether the business is registered. A registry entry is useful evidence, but it does not prove that a message or job offer is authentic. Some legitimate businesses may be listed under a different legal name or business structure.
2. Inspect the website and domain. Check the spelling of the website and email domain, contact details, business address, and whether the site provides a consistent history. A recently registered domain can be a warning sign, but domain privacy is common and is not proof of fraud.
3. Contact the employer independently. Find a phone number or contact method through a trustworthy source, such as the company’s official website or a registry. Do not rely only on the phone number, email, or link supplied by the recruiter. Ask whether the recruiter and vacancy are genuine.
4. Confirm the specific vacancy. Look for the role on the company’s official careers page. If it is not listed, contact the company using independently sourced contact information and ask whether the position and recruiter are authorized. Some legitimate vacancies may be advertised elsewhere, so absence from the careers page alone is not conclusive.
5. Search for warnings and protect your money. Search the company name and recruiter’s name alongside terms such as “scam,” “fraud,” or “complaints.” Never pay to get a job, deposit a cheque and send money back, receive and forward money for a supposed employer, or provide passwords or one-time security codes.

Where does tracert and IP WHOIS fit in?

These are useful computer-skills demonstrations, but they are supporting technical clues—not legitimacy tests.

• tracert www.example.com in Windows Command Prompt shows the network route toward a destination and may show its IP address. Some hops may time out, and that is not automatically suspicious.
• IP WHOIS can identify the network or service provider associated with an IP address. Websites may use shared hosting, a content delivery network, or a service such as Cloudflare, so the result may identify an intermediary rather than the company.
• Domain lookup can reveal available domain-registration details, such as registrar and registration dates. Details may be privacy-protected, and neither a new nor an old domain proves that a job offer is genuine.

Classroom activity: Demonstrate tracert www.microsoft.com, discuss what the route and IP information can—and cannot—tell you, then have students independently verify a real business and confirm a specific vacancy. Finish with a fictional job offer impersonating that business and ask students to identify what still needs verification.

A six-step Human-AI resume-writing process

1. Research with AI. Ask AI to analyze a specific job posting, explain unfamiliar industry terms, identify the role’s main requirements, and suggest questions that help you explore relevant experience. Use AI as a coach and brainstorming partner, not as the author of your finished resume.
2. Build your own evidence bank. Make notes about your education, paid work, placements, volunteering, projects, responsibilities, tools you have used, problems you have solved, and successes. Students with limited employment history can draw on school projects, community activities, and transferable skills.
3. Reflect and choose. Evaluate AI’s suggestions critically. Select only examples that are true, relevant, and supported by your experience. Do not invent qualifications, numbers, achievements, or responsibilities to make a resume sound stronger.
4. Write the resume yourself. Open Microsoft Word and construct your own sentences and paragraphs in your own words. Decide what to include and how to explain it. Do not simply copy the AI coach’s suggested wording. Aim for clear, professional language that feels natural to you.
5. Align it with the job. Compare your original draft with the actual job posting. Emphasize relevant evidence and use appropriate keywords when they truthfully describe your abilities. Keep the content accurate and the formatting simple, readable, and easy for recruiting software to parse.
6. Return to AI for feedback. Ask AI to point out unclear statements, identify relevant requirements you may have overlooked, or ask questions about places where your evidence could be more specific. Consider its feedback, make your own decisions, and verify every detail before submitting.

The principle to remember

AI can help you discover your strengths. It cannot supply your experience. Use AI to brainstorm, question, organize, and critique. Use your own judgment to decide what belongs in your resume. Make every claim truthful, connect your experience to the employer’s needs, and ensure you can explain every sentence yourself.

This process builds more than a resume. It strengthens self-awareness, critical thinking, professional communication, and the ability to work with AI without surrendering your own voice.