The job search
shouldn't be a trap.
TruJob is an AI-powered scam detection tool for job seekers. We catch recruitment scams, verify companies and roles, and benchmark salaries, without ever reading or storing your email.
The story behind TruJob
Why this product exists, in the founder's own words.
In late 2025, I was part of a mass layoff at Verizon. Thirteen thousand people were let go at once. Many of them were colleagues I had worked alongside for years. Talented researchers, designers, engineers, and product managers, all suddenly navigating the same uncertain job market at the same time.
My newborn daughter arrived a few weeks later.
I don't say that for sympathy. I say it because those two things together changed everything about how I approached what came next. She made the stakes feel real in a way they hadn't before. I couldn't afford to waste time chasing fake opportunities. I couldn't afford to hand over personal information to the wrong person. I couldn't afford to get this wrong.
So I started paying close attention to what was happening around me.
The LinkedIn posts started almost immediately. Former colleagues, sharp and experienced people I had built products with for years, describing close calls with fake recruiters. Someone who nearly submitted their Social Security number to a company that turned out not to exist. The pattern was consistent every time: the email looked legitimate, the company seemed real, and the ask for personal information came gradually, after trust had been built over days or weeks.
What struck me as a researcher was not just that it was happening. It was how deliberately it was designed to happen. These scams were built around the emotional state of a job seeker: hopeful, motivated, a little desperate, and moving fast. They worked precisely because they targeted the moments when a person's judgment is most compromised.
The people they target are already vulnerable. Worried. Scared. Out of work. They use predatory tactics to take what little a job seeker has left. That made me angry. It still does.
I went looking for tools that could help. I found nothing built for the job seeker's side of this problem. Every fraud detection product I came across was built for employers, to protect companies from fake candidates. Nobody was protecting candidates from fake companies.
I also knew that whatever I built could not become another liability. A job seeker opening their inbox to a new tool is already an act of trust. TruJob processes email metadata in memory and discards it the moment the scan is complete. No email content is ever stored, transmitted, or logged anywhere. What we do retain is anonymized scan signals, never anything that ties back to you. That data helps TruJob get smarter over time, so the next person is better protected.
That gap is what I built TruJob to fill.
Not because I had all the answers. Because I had the skill set to try. Five years at Verizon across software engineering and UX research, a career before that across social media, community management, and the Boy Scouts. A working understanding of how people make decisions under pressure, and enough technical knowledge to know what was possible. I could not justify not trying. Not with a newborn daughter at home and 13,000 former colleagues in the same market.
I built TruJob so I could enjoy the time with my daughter without looking over my shoulder. So you can do the same with whoever's depending on you.
The job search is already one of the hardest things a person can go through. It should not also be a trap.
What we believe
The principles that guide every decision we make about how TruJob is built and operated.
TruJob is designed from the ground up to collect the absolute minimum data necessary to operate. We never read, store, transmit, or log the content of any user's emails. The extension processes email metadata ephemerally, in memory only, never written to disk or transmitted to any server.
If TruJob does not have the data, it cannot be breached, subpoenaed, or misused. Every architectural decision starts with one question: "If this database were fully exposed in a breach, could any record be used to harm a specific user?" If the answer is yes, the design is wrong.
TruJob's role is to detect recruitment fraud before harm happens and to surface trusted resources when patterns warrant. We are not a legal service, a hotline, or a victim advocacy organization. The orgs that do that work are better at it than we will ever be. Our contribution is upstream signal, sent to those organizations.
Every promise we make about your data is a promise we keep. We will not sell it, share it, or quietly change the terms. If the policy ever needs to change, we will tell you in plain language before it does and give you a meaningful chance to leave.
The basics
Get in touch
We read every message. The right address gets to the right person faster.
Report a vulnerability. See our security page for the disclosure policy.
security@trujob.ioFor journalists
Working on a story about job-search fraud, recruitment scams, or AI in trust & safety?
Colin is available for interviews on recruitment fraud, the design of consumer-facing trust products, the privacy architecture decisions behind TruJob, and the broader landscape of job-search scams in 2026.
Press kit, founder headshot, product screenshots, and key facts available on request. Email press@trujob.io with your outlet, the story angle, and your deadline. Response within one business day.