[dsr_]

Every recruiter I have dealt with (on the hiring side) has had a provision in the contract: if they have a documented exchange with a candidate whom we hire during or within (a month, two months...) of the contract end, the recruiter is deemed to have done the work. Contrarily, if we have a documented exchange with a candidate before the recruiter does, the recruiter is not owed anything.

So: the recruiter has an incentive to mention the hiring company as soon as they get a response from you.

If they don't do that, they are either bad at writing contracts or don't actually have authority to recruit. Mostly the second: you would not be surprised at the number of cold emails I get saying that they represent a candidate (or a pool of candidates) who are exactly right for the position that we filled last month.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

That's like domain brokers that contact you, saying they have a certain domain, and would you be interested?

They don't actually have the domain. If you respond, they reserve it, immediately, so you can't get it.

A fun thing to do, is respond, then block them.