How to tell a real recruitment partner from a resume mill

If an agency's primary boast is how many resumes they submit in a week, treat that as a warning label. Volume is easy to produce. Interviews that lead somewhere are not.

Ask how they choose which roles to pursue for you. A serious partner will talk about fit, location and hiring-manager access, not a spray of applications across every posting with your keywords in it.

Ask what "support until placement" actually means in writing. Fixed introduction caps, disappearing after thirty days, or pressure to accept the first offer are patterns you can spot early if you ask directly.

Finally, ask what they will not do. Honest firms will refuse fabricated experience, borrowed employer logos as "proof," and guarantees no one can keep. If the answers make you uncomfortable, that is useful information before money changes hands.