Anyone else dealing with likely “fraudulent” candidates when hiring for remote roles?
Posted by Goingone@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 154 comments
Last week I posted a new job opening on linkedin for a remote backend engineer.
Received ~2500 resumes.
Scheduled ~30 interviews.
Roughly 25% seem to not be to person they say they are on the resume. None of them seem to know anything about the area where they went to college, their experience they can’t explain in depth, and most have LinkedIn profiles with few connections and no pictures.
Anyone else having this issue lately?
ex_geek@reddit
We had a lot of problem with fraud. About 70% of good candidates for our remote jobs are fake! We were using Attesto for their AI screening but now they also have a fraud detection agent which is pretty powerful. It’s marking almost all the fraudulent applications and saving us a lot of time.
thekwoka@reddit
What really sucks is that I am a US Citizen outside the US, and I am pretty sure I'm immediately lumped in with these people.
Goingone@reddit (OP)
I’m sure that happens.
But if it makes you feel any better, the ones I’ve spoken with have been very obviously fake.
thekwoka@reddit
sure, but thats the ones you got to speak with lol
CoolLychee2333@reddit
I would likely also be a US citizen residing outside the US after I get layoff, as my immediate family are outside the country. Like I have no problems living in the US for work, but without a job, I see no reason to be here wasting money on rent, when I can live for free with my parents back in Australia.
I do have a newspaper article from my college days that is still online. Maybe I could attach that onto my job application to prove I'm a real person who grew up in the US.
Kind_Calligrapher6@reddit
This is becoming more prevalent.. It is estimated that 1400+ hires by F500 companies have hired someone from North Korea, and 300 of 500 F500 companies have hired a fraud actor. This is a huge risk to the talent supply chain and the company. If they get in to the company they can cause great damage to the company and brand. Some companies are adding a step to the interview process to verify identity using identity verification tools that check for deepfake, impersonation, and government ID verification. They are also implementing this for contract workers, especially in IT.
Deepfake-Driven Hiring Fraud: Scammers are using deepfakes, impersonation, and document forgery to bypass interviews and background checks, making it nearly impossible to detect fraud with legacy processes.
rjm101@reddit
Another team in my company spoke about how they were hiring and they took on a candidate that was calm and collected and seemed to tick the right boxes and then on the actual start day they get a completely different guy join their meetings. They thought the recruiter mixed something up but nope, super weird 😅
BerryParking7406@reddit
I don't get this? You will just get fired on the spot?
rjm101@reddit
Apparently some companies have a process where the people interviewing are completely different from the people you'll end up working with so they are probably trying to exploit that
BerryParking7406@reddit
Ahh, make sense in its own weird way
He11aren@reddit
That happened with my team multiple times as well. New hire would try avoid turning the camera on. The expertise and knowledge seems like nonexistent in comparison with the candidate we interviewed.
We started taking pictures of candidates regularly. Also noticed that people would cheat on interview reading AI responses line by line.
Electrical-Ask847@reddit
oh yea this is going on forever but kicking into high gear since covid remote work.
we have policy at work to match pictures of person who interviewed with person who joins.
motorbikler@reddit
"I've heard of impostor syndrome but this is ridiculous!"
rjm101@reddit
They didn't even try to look alike. One had a beard then other didn't 😅
fuckoholic@reddit
Was his name Justin Trudeau?
Worried-Release3933@reddit
Howd that work out?
rjm101@reddit
There was an interrogation straight after the standup and obviously said stranger didn't stay😅
jameson71@reddit
Having one person do the interviews and then someone completely different showing up is a trick I’ve seen small consulting shops do for a decade.
bit_shuffle@reddit
Culture matters. If a culture does not have a moral system that values truth, then maybe you shouldn't be hiring from it for scientific and technical roles, since the product for those roles is truth.
Andrew64467@reddit
An American talking about a culture that values truth. Have you seen the news recently?
bit_shuffle@reddit
You talking about CNN or RT?
Odd_Lettuce_7285@reddit
Yes it's a huge problem. Part of the reason why return to office is happening.
Same-Bodybuilder-518@reddit
Where is a good place to hire devops that are not fraudulent? That are vetted? That can do remote work but are easy to vet?
great-pikachu@reddit
Doesn’t LinkedIn have now identity validation using real passport? I thought this would weed out most of those fake identities.
Goingone@reddit (OP)
I have LinkedIn. I’ve never provided any type of identification.
Maybe it’s an optional feature, but there are probably a lot of real people who don’t use it.
Sucksessful@reddit
yeah if you're still hiring lmk lol can confirm i'm real
eemamedo@reddit
Kind of. However, it's not that hard to figure out.
mthunter222@reddit
If you only want US candidates post your openings only on sites that allow verified US candidates.
Goingone@reddit (OP)
Like….
mthunter222@reddit
No idea. I only hire fully remote.
Megamygdala@reddit
Here's the link to an investigative journalism piece released a few months ago about how North Koren hackers are getting jobs applying with fake US identities to simply earn cash in USD. Not saying this is the case for you, but it is happening
Megamygdala@reddit
If you need real applicants dm me the link to the job lmao
PoopsCodeAllTheTime@reddit
One of the basecamp guys said that AI slop is easy to spot because the AI writes "brown", because "brown" is what you get when you mix all the colors. I thought that was.... a good point.
PoopsCodeAllTheTime@reddit
Hey, I am 100% genuine, artisanal, human coder, and I happen to be looking for a job! wink wink
tjsr@reddit
This is an area where there's a gap in the market for recruitment services providing proctored exams. There's a need for companies that can have candidates turn up to provide recorded and verified pre-screening services, that verify the person who attends has government-issued ID.
You could take this service a step further and offer a signing service - where those who review the screening questions can rank candidates and provide a score that compares them to other candidates who were given the same question or problem, eg, "this candidate scored in the top 70% of candidate responses for this question". Hell, it's one of the few actual legitimate useful use-cases for blockchain technologies and smart contracts!
WolfNo680@reddit
...that position still open?
but to the point of your question: yes, I've known a few people hiring that say the resume spamming is hell, and it's only gotten worse
Ecstatic_Wheelbarrow@reddit
I want to see what resumes are getting through the filters to get to interviews because I haven't heard a peep for remote roles and it pisses me off that fake people are getting interviews.
studio_bob@reddit
I'm going to take a wild guess and say that scammers are able to game ATS systems (awful garbage which should be illegal, btw) far more effectively than actual candidates since they aren't constrained by the facts of their actual education and work history. Obvious result: real candidates get filtered out entirely.
I've been looking for a full-time role for over 2 years and my conclusion is this aspect of the hiring system is well past broken. I think the only way to even get considered is to somehow make contact with a real human being who can put you on top of the stack, above whatever the automated systems are spitting out (which is overwhelmingly garbage).
Electrical-Ask847@reddit
oh lord. is market that bad?
studio_bob@reddit
Yes, but also maybe not depending on your own situation. One might say I'm still "early career" in that I had the brilliant idea to switch careers on the eve of the first mass layoff bonanza. I had/have lots of skills but little relevant professional experience, so it was probably always going to be tough but, well, it got a lot tougher the moment I put my foot in the ring, just by coincidence. I've landed a few contracts along the way but nothing permanent. I still apply places but never hear back from anywhere. Anyway, your mileage would likely vary. I basically needed someone to take a chance on me to get my foot in the door at the exact moment that became all but impossible to find. Way she goes.
mugwhyrt@reddit
Yeah, this isn't just an ATS problem, it's an everything that tries to prevent mass unauthorized/unwanted access problem (ticket scalpers, social media account hijackers, etc). The people who are dedicated to scamming the system and figuring out the tricks and loopholes have much more time and drive to figure out how to game those systems. The everyday people who were supposed to benefit from that system (actual concert goers, actual owner of SM account, actual qualified job applicant) get screwed over because they don't have the time and wherewithal to learn the exact right things they need to do to easily make it through the labyrinth.
GlueStickNamedNick@reddit
I’ve never once gotten anywhere applying to jobs on job boards, every role I’ve landed has either been from someone reaching out to me on LinkedIn or by me going to events & conferences and making the effort to talk to the right people.
WolfNo680@reddit
I’m right there with you man. I got notice two days ago that my role is being eliminated so I’ve got 30 days to either find a new job in the company or I’m getting laid off. I’ve already started applying to other places and attempting to make some sort of study plan for leetcode.
Really not looking forward to the grind yet again.
chicknfly@reddit
Just earlier today, I saw a post about someone having the ability to instantly submit 1 million resumes or some craziness. That’s wild!
ihmoguy@reddit
Yeah, I have seen a lot of such posts too. Job board recruitment is really gone.
Bad candidates use automated (LLM) CV generation and submission. The CV looks perfectly fit for the role. They can do it en masse.
My observations how to find job: - referals from friends - local jobs, even hybrid, very often they are likely to negotiate full remote even - passively responding to inquiries on LinkedIn
old_man_snowflake@reddit
All this and I’m still getting form mail “we decided to go with another candidate” without talking to a person.
noobeemee@reddit
We have chinese pretending to be a filipino by using filipino names. Kinda weird because their resume looks legit but when they open their camera for interviews, you will know they are not locals. 🤣
aq1018@reddit
These are North Korean government agents. This is their new way to make money. We encountered a lot of those as well.
Due_Editor@reddit
It does suck, I’ve had times where the person I hired after interview is a different person that turns up on the job.
Even with recruiters the hiring pool is usually low quality. My advice that keeps me sane through the 100s of interviews is don’t be scared to end an interview after 5 mins. In 5 mins you can get a vibe if that person would be a good cultural fit and throw a beginner/mid tier question and do they answer it like the role level you are hiring for.
If you haven’t enjoyed the first 5 mins in most cases it’s not going to get any better.
Ok_Landscape_2405@reddit
How and when did you find out a different person who show up for the job? When you found out, how did your team and HR handle the case?
Due_Editor@reddit
So first off im "fortunate" that these devs are never hired in house, they are hired as a service from an offshore agency. So this means HR is never involved because the current contract setup now is butts in seat meaning we dont have a contract with the specific dev but with the offshore agency, so if we request to replace a dev there is no legal ramifications, so someone can be "fired" instantly.
How it looks like :
I've never accused someone of not being who they are not but its very apparent in the skill levels during interview verse on the job. The main problem is because I never know for sure myself, the interview I do is usually a month before hand, so Ive totally forgotten their face, its usually on a 3rd world internet connection so if i do remember the face it's pixelated,plus i've had a complaint raised against me by the hiring company for being racist for not recruiting their devs (it's actually a skill issue) and im just trying to run a successful team and clock out 9-5, i dont need that BS of complaints against me and upper management being involved so its not something I call out straight away.
But what I usually see is they wont do anything for 2 sprints or the work they do is incredibly bad, we are a senior team and only hire seniors and the work they output is below junior. As I'm the final say on who gets hired it also drags my name if a dev is bringing down the team (takes 4 tyres to drive a care, takes 1 flat to stop a car, is my point of view when it comes to teams), so usually at this point Ill have evidence they are not performing and Ill "request" for them to be let go.
Hasnt happened much lately but during the thick of it I was doing 3 interviews a day, knocking back atleast 50. Go to a point where a person in upper management went behind my back and told the agency to start hiring people without my tick of approval. At that point I thought he was receiving money under the table. Thats where I leave my story because I don't want to be sued but that senior manager "left" the company and the problem stopped .
bstaruk@reddit
I'm super curious -- what is the conversation like when a different person shows up for the job?
The confidence it'd take to actually try something like that is baffling to me. I'd be shitting my pants as I pulled up for my first day.
poipoipoi_2016@reddit
Anecdotally, and some of the anecdotes are mine, you go "Wait what?" because it's been a few weeks.
Then you don't want to rock the boat because that would be racist.
The only way it gets dealt with is if exceedingly senior management is a very specific type of disagreeable.
KrispyCuckak@reddit
Shady staffing agencies have been doing this forever. They keep a professional interviewee on their staff who is really good at interviewing, and does it all the time. That person will not be the one that shows up for the job though.
ewhitten@reddit
I spent almost two months going through this earlier in the year, trying to hire a mid- to senior-level dev for a remote role (which had to be in the US for contractual reasons). 800+ candidates, interviewed about 40 of them, and even half of those ended up being fraudulent.
Lots of people pretending to be in the US, or had fake LinkedIn profiles (with fake company entries, fake websites for those companies, etc. etc.). Resumes that looked impossibly good but timelines seemed unrealistic (e.g. graduated with two undergraduate and one graduate degree in a year), etc. etc.
We finally started telling candidates we would be doing some basic "AI/security" checks at the start of calls. Asking them to remove fake backgrounds/filters, hold their hand in front of their face, turn their head side to side, etc. I also dumped the list of candidates and checked all phone #'s with the Twilio API, disqualified every VOIP entry.
It was brutal. Finally hired someone off a personal reference from one of my team members and he's amazing.
FamilyForce5ever@reddit
VOIP checks will give you a ton of false positives - giving a recruiter your real phone number can be a recipe for disaster.
lphomiej@reddit
I had this exact thing happen. Put up a job for about 12 hours. Got 250 applicants. Shortlisted 20 for first interview. One person dropped out. Several people ghosted. One person was obviously not who they said they were (didn't know company names they've worked for in a screening interview... That kind of thing). Ended up just interviewing 3 of the 20. Pretty crazy.
Ok_Landscape_2405@reddit
My HR team has caught several fake candidates in the hiring pipeline. Their application packages were good enough that the hiring manager and HR scheduled first zoom meetings with the candidates. Then during the zoom meetings, HR saw something was "off" and ended the meetings.
Nofanta@reddit
Yes, it’s an epidemic. You can’t hire using the old techniques anymore.
Goingone@reddit (OP)
Got any good new techniques?
Nofanta@reddit
I just started a new job and what I see them doing here is barely any interview at all. Just taking candidates at their word and hiring them. Then, if it’s obvious after a month they are incompetent they get fired.
studio_bob@reddit
No idea why this is downvoted as it sounds like a perfectly reasonable approach.
forgottenHedgehog@reddit
It's extremely disruptive to the team to have a dead weight and an issue for the manager to get rid of someone.
Nofanta@reddit
Right? The only people negatively affected are people trying to scam their way into a job they’re not qualified for.
Goingone@reddit (OP)
I’m worried these candidates will try to install malware and steal data. Absolutely would not go that route with the ones I’ve spoken with.
ihmoguy@reddit
Ideal candidates with perfect CV and perfectly passing interviews can do the same. And the person who shows up on first or n-th day may be someone else.
If the company is lucrative target then definitely referals from proven employees should increase the score.
newhunter18@reddit
I can't imagine most large corps would bypass the background check.
Nofanta@reddit
Yeah I don’t know how well this technique works and that’s a potential risk for sure. Maybe you could kind of sandbox them somehow during this observation period.
nmur@reddit
The hard filter for us has been to give them a link to a project in github (ahead of time, before the interview) with a bunch of issues. Some are obvious low hanging fruit, some require a deeper understanding of the language/framework/etc. We ask them to share their screen and take us through it and comment out loud as if you were reviewing a PR - identifying issues and providing suggestions.
Some candidates can only manage to spot typos and syntax issues, while others highlight design flaws and antipatterns, SOLID principle violations, etc.
We've had a couple of candidates that were potentially using some sort of screenshot tool feeding into AI in real-time, but even still this was fairly obvious based on how surface-level their comments were, and how they couldn't answer any follow up questions very well
motorbikler@reddit
That's a cool interview style. I think I'm going to use it!
csanon212@reddit
Referrals are huge. if a dev says someone is good and has worked with them before, just take them at their word and give them a culture fit and system design interview. The song and dance of big companies where referrals go through a standard interview is self defeating.
another_newAccount_@reddit
Yep. Got my current job as a senior without a single coding interview. It was like "cool VP vouches for you? You can talk shop and seem like a decent human? You're hired "
ecko814@reddit
I thought that's how it works. I was referred by the CTO. The interviews were super brutal and I was rejected. It's a medium size tech company, so I guess there's no special treatment.
fuckoholic@reddit
Yeah! And my dad in like 60s he walked into a store, looked the manager in the eyes, the manager nodded, my dad nodded and started working right away without a single word spoken.
csanon212@reddit
I got hired like this once. I only knew the guy who referred me as a friend where we didn't work together. That was a huge mistake. I would only do this if it was people I genuinely enjoyed working with and I knew were of a sane mind under pressure.
another_newAccount_@reddit
How is that any different from a job with a "traditional" interview? Not sure what I'm"interview type" has to do with working conditions or how employees handle stress.
Ok_Landscape_2405@reddit
The referral is a great sign that the person is real, but the con is that you just hire people who think and work like the people in your current company/team.
csanon212@reddit
The best experiences I've had are when I'm working with a monoculture team. You want diverse opinions at the strategic level, though to avoid Cuban Missile Crisis scenarios.
catch_dot_dot_dot@reddit
I'm in a smaller city without a lot of big tech companies and this is pretty common. In fact it's getting more common as people realise they can't sift through so many resumes and candidates, and big tech style interviews aren't good at finding good candidates.
BillyBobJangles@reddit
Gotta go to in person interviews, or at least have one in the process.
I swear there is an organized effort to cheat interviews, like it's a service you can purchase or something because I see the same techniques time after time, and every resume is the same bullshit 10 page resume as if one guy is making them all from a template..
nmur@reddit
Yeah I can't help but sigh when recruitment hands us a few new resumes from "promising candidates" and they're all 8-10 pages long, full of supposed 10+ years of experience in .NET, and claim to have lead countless major projects. Not even 10 minutes into the interview and it's clear they have no idea about anything
BillyBobJangles@reddit
Haha yup I see '10+ years experience with Apache Kafka' and ask "can you tell me what consumer lag is"
"No...."
KrispyCuckak@reddit
Indeed there is. And this is only one of many: https://ghostengineer.com/about-us
messick@reddit
The "new" technique of an in-person whiteboard session.
FoolHooligan@reddit
why not?
cold call to phone number in resume would absolutely solve this problem
felfott@reddit
Stop interviewing Indiana
Goingone@reddit (OP)
Indiana, Maryland, Florida...Arizona....fake resumes are from all over.
dvaun@reddit
Maybe I’m offbase here, but what if companies experimented with sending potential applicants to designated “interview centers” nearby?
Similar to certification tests: 1. The computer systems can all be semi-standardized or have basic equipment for use. 2. Standard software/locked-down environments could be used to ensure no AI, etc is used in the process.
Seems burdensome, but what other hypotheticals would work to filter remote candidates and ensure candidate capabilities?
Speaking from the armchair here, but maybe this is a market opportunity since this is a real problem that needs solving, and businesses need a way to continue hiring remote for certain roles especially if they don’t want to grow or enter commercial office space.
Oimetra09@reddit
I have been approached in the past by us citizens offering me to use their identity for me to apply to us based remote jobs as well as by people in asian countries looking to use my identity to try to apply to mx based remote jobs.
So yeah, I'm sure this exists, though I have a hard time imagining someone willing to do something this stupid.
TantalicBoar@reddit
Probably because of this. I've had two reach out to me on LinkedIn. Both times it's been Indians. I'm on mobile so can't paste a screenshot but these are the contents of the message:
We are looking for someone who has extensive experience in software engineering to collaborate on a great opportunity. As a software development company, we have numerous global teams in the world and have achieved significant success in the U.S. market. We seek an individual who can secure jobs in the U.S. market with outstanding technical and interpersonal skills.
◯ Description In this role, you will conduct interviews with personal information of our U.S. engineers to secure jobs on behalf of them.
You will conduct video interviews, including introductory, technical, and cultural interviews using U.S. engineers' names to secure jobs After winning the jobs, one of our engineers will handle the projects 100% so you don't need to work on the secured jobs
◯ Compensation · $50 ~ $100 hourly payment for part-time contract position · $3k ~ $6k regular monthly payment for full-time position · Significant potential to earn up to $10,000 per month
◯ Requirements · Fluency in English is a must and should be fully available in U.S. working hours · Minimum of 6 years of professional software development experience · Current and extensive proficiency in C#/ASP.NET with current hands-on experience · Strong proficiency in JavaScript and modern front-end frameworks such as React and Angular · Proficiency in SQL and experience with relational databases (e.g., MS SQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB, Azure Cosmos, AWS DynamoDB) · Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS and Azure) and their data-related services
This is a fully remote role for HiQ Solutions LLC, which is based in the U.S. (https://www.hiqsolutions.net/).
If you are interested, please schedule the first screening using this link: [a calendly link] and apply for the job here:
Venugopal Govindu Senior Recruiter
mikaball@reddit
What if I provide an evidence for background check? Like a link to a PhD registry in a domain of a know University, as also a digital signature of my ID. Would that pass the background check, at least for some part of the CV?
Ok_Landscape_2405@reddit
Usually, the background check takes place at the offer stage, not at application stage. Asking for ID at application stage is cringe and may be illegal.
For many years, the employers may contact the university's registrar to confirm if an individual went to the school. It gets difficult for foreign schools.
For graduate level, the thesis may be in the universities' library, the thesis defense may be listed in the department's website. You may check for publications in the conferences, but some fields may not be publication heavy. Some folks may publish in fake conferences to boost their credibility. (Detecting fake conferences is another conversation, unfortunately.)
There's no formula because every school, even within the same country, works differently. Sorry, no good answer here.
(I've ask the question for verifying graduate level education because I was trying to vet an individual who claimed to have a PhD.)
TruthOf42@reddit
I'm sure there are services that can prove authorization to work that involve nothing from you. Usually they just require basic info like SSN, name, address, etc. have you tried these?
rnicoll@reddit
The rate you're having issues seems unusually high, but yes completely made up resumes are a thing. Normally recruiters pre-screen candidates, to avoid this. Is that an option for you?
Goingone@reddit (OP)
Unfortunately, not.
But would be nice to have that option.
LastNightThisWeek@reddit
Do you clearly label this job as full remote, like either via some kind of tag or in the job description? Maybe change it to say “requires some in office days”, “hybrid”, “requires two-week onsite onboarding”. Hopefully that will stop these groups from targeting your job since they know they won’t be able to produce someone to show up physically. Once you get candidates that are promising you can tell them actually the role is full remote.
thekwoka@reddit
Plenty of actual remote employees won't wait that long.
bluemage-loves-tacos@reddit
This. I'm a remote employee, and I'll not even bother with a hybrid role.
TruthOf42@reddit
Yup. If it said in person training for a day or so, that's doable though
pythosynthesis@reddit
I think the two weeks onboarding is better, I like it. Otherwise you risk putting off good candidate truly seeking for a remote job. But coming in for two weeks is not a big deal, can be done.
bluemage-loves-tacos@reddit
Caution on this assumption that two weeks isn't a big deal. Candidates who have kids or any other dependants or commitments may not be able to be on site for two weeks.
LetterBoxSnatch@reddit
I'm in that boat but honestly it's a potentially great hack if it works to cut down fraudulent applications, imho, given that there is no mandatory onsite in reality. I would ask about flexibility on that during the interview, and I would think positively about a future employer who was preemptively ready to be flexible with me from the get-go about not doing the onsite.
nxl4@reddit
Agreed here. I'd never consider a hybrid role, but I wouldn't blink at a 1-2 week on-site onboarding.
KrispyCuckak@reddit
Not pre-screening is a total waste of time, for this reason. Because there are a lot of bullshit candidates out there.
The first interview should be a screening call, where bullshitters can be quickly identified and eliminated. Don't feel bad about ending a screening call after the first 2 minutes if the candidate is an obvious fraud. It will ultimately save you a lot of time and frustration.
FoolHooligan@reddit
when you have technically incompetent people at the front of the hiring pipeline for tech jobs... this is what you get
Armitage1@reddit
It's not even technical. Interviewing candidates with no LinkedIn contacts is cringe-level waste of time.
Due_Editor@reddit
Exactly this
Accomplished_End_138@reddit
How we look for developers is absolute crazy anyway. Tech interviews are hit or miss just based on 10k different things (best I've seen is a mock pr review)
adappergentlefolk@reddit
north koreans yeah
fragofox@reddit
It's nuts what some folks are willing to do, and it's these folks who end up helping to make the system/process suck for everyone else.
Proximyst@reddit
I'm mostly curious but perhaps this contains a spec of usefulness as well: what stage are you wasting most time?
I'm assuming these are not entry positions: if you immediately open LinkedIn and reject them if they have less than 50 connections or no profile picture, is it still as bad?
Goingone@reddit (OP)
Initial video calls (screen to see if candidate meets basic requirements) is where most of the time is wasted.
Not entry level, looking for ~5 YOE.
Not a bad idea excluding people without LinkedIn pictures. Don’t think I’ve seen a fraudster yet that had one.
Proximyst@reddit
I'd definitely try to see if you could correctly predict results from LinkedIn or resumes in that case. Maybe you can find a metric (or combo of them) that works out 80%+ of the time?
Goingone@reddit (OP)
that exact task is already assigned to someone. Although, I do wish the sample size of known fake applicants was higher.
Reeces_Pieces@reddit
Yes, this is a thing. Try not to hire a North Korean hacker.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alonzomartinez/2025/04/25/north-korean-hackers-pose-as-remote-workers-to-infiltrate-us-firms/
yourfriendlyisp@reddit
Just had an interview yesterday that my colleagues joined mid interview, they said it wasn’t the same guy they interviewed initially.
SorryButterfly4207@reddit
Once, I got two resumes which were exactly the same, except for the name.
hostes_victi@reddit
To be honest, it's coming to a point when companies have to fallback to traditional hiring methods of face-to-face interviews because of bots applying automatically. I routinely get ads on Facebook or Instagram advertising tools allowing a user to apply to thousands of job openings instantly, or tools to scam the interviewer with the help of AI.
We had a real problem when we posted a remote job position. Most of the candidate CVs we received had zero qualifications, except a mention of a certain keyword from the job position. This means that actual competent candidates are buried somewhere in the sea of fraudulent applications.
We scrapped the opening and told the team to refer friends or family if they fit the requirements.
Goingone@reddit (OP)
We did use AI to narrow down the resumes from 2500 to around 400.
We then selected ones we liked from those 400.
Maybe this somehow picked out a higher percentage of fake candidates.
But this did help to eliminate a lot of the applications that weren’t at all related to the job.
DeterminedQuokka@reddit
Why are you asking them about the area they went to college? That seems irrelevant.
I would say people tend to over exaggerate or over estimate their experience. And that AI sometimes edits a resume to be less true.
I have no feedback on how much my friend who went to Cornell knows about the surrounding area. I only asked her about engineering in her interview.
Goingone@reddit (OP)
I’m asking because I don’t believe they really went to the college.
If you say you went to a college in Dallas and lived around there for 10 years, but can’t tell me if Dallas is a city or farm land, I know you’re lying.
Easy way to catch people pretending to be someone else.
prototypist@reddit
Because they already have a suspicious application, they ask basic questions to reveal that this person did not get the degree on their CV
CPSiegen@reddit
Absolutely. It was bad enough when it was just people fluffing up their credentials with experience they didn't really have. Now, we're getting elaborate conspiracy networks of AI fakery.
It seems go be a business model in places like india. Churn people through a bootcamp style program and then mass apply for them. They use AI to create fake resumes with fake linkedins pointing at fake githubs. The resumes reference fake companies with fake websites and fake employee pictures.
It's all AI generated. So it looks legit at first. You can go to the links and they all have content. But we tried calling some of them and asking them about employment from other AI resumes and they just bullshit through it. They're lying completely. It's so creepy, once you discover the giant web of fake AI profiles and companies applying to your jobs.
xmcqdpt2@reddit
On the other hand, we keep hearing about how gen ai is so great and dev work is being replaced by prompt engineering. Maybe Microsoft, Google etc should just hire the fake candidates, they clearly have relevant experience in vibe coding.
ColdCouchWall@reddit
Yes. People are desperate as hell for jobs right now and on several career subreddits, there is a growing consensus of straight up frauding your resume.
These scumbags are ruining it for everyone and taking away from real candidates.
bonnydoe@reddit
You have to wonder how tight the job offering number vs real applicants number really is. I only hear devs in US complain. Seems like the big salaries over there attract the scammers.
Goingone@reddit (OP)
To be clear, these are 100% not US citizens lying about credentials. These all seem to be foreign candidates pretending to be in then US.
onodriments@reddit
How do you know they are foreign if you can't tell who they are? Just broken English or something?
ColdCouchWall@reddit
We get those too. Like I said, it's people who see a thread on Reddit about 1 person who did it and then 100,000 others think they can too. To them, a remote US job is like winning the powerball and they are running on hope. They don't know or understand (or care) the process involved and legal paperwork required.
Go on r/wfh or r/remotework and half the threads are international people trying to find ways to get a remote US job.
Goingone@reddit (OP)
Fantastic….thanks for the info.
supercargo@reddit
Unfortunately the situation is worse than what you describe. There is another variation of this in which the non-US person recruits an engineer in the US to complete the interview process only to be replaced by the foreigner for the actual job.
orangeyouabanana@reddit
At my company, we started using an identity verification service (not sure which one but I can find out) where the client has submitted identity and basic questions and this weeds out a very high proportion of the fraudsters.
UXyes@reddit
You basically have to go to a referral system. Or you need to be very selective about where you post openings. Aim for curated spaces like slack groups, etc.
lordnacho666@reddit
Problem is you may not have the required person in your network
asurarusa@reddit
I've seen a smattering of blog posts about this, including one that talked about how the applicant was using AI to paste the face from their linked in pic on top of theirs to deceive the interviewer.
I'm thinking as these ai tools get more sophisticated this will become a bigger problem.
pythosynthesis@reddit
Back to the old interviews, at least one in person where you meet with many teams.
dwight0@reddit
All day long until we filled all our roles. The recruiter couldn't figure how to pre filter them because there was no patterns except for the ones they hear a call center in the background. And after the recruiter pre screens the i still get half fake candidates.
There's so many variations of this scheme. Sometimes they switch the candidate after they are hired with someone with no experience. Other times they try and find a reason to be forgotten and collect a free paycheck. Other times they are onshore then try and offshore their work. They use an IP address and identity of someone in the USA.
We are so used to this that our team knows not to tell them when we can hear their other headset with their coach or their call center or whatever. Probably a quarter of the time they try shipping the laptop to another country then try and steal it and we wipe it. This will never happen to our team again but I tried telling others and they think I'm exaggerating.
pacman2081@reddit
Easiest way (and maybe only) to filter out the candidates is to make them fill out an application with address, phone number, email, SSN and driver license.
Either that or have them drive to your office for an interview
newhunter18@reddit
Great way to get sued. Seriously. Bad advice, don't do this.
pacman2081@reddit
"Easiest way (and maybe only) to filter out the candidates is to make them fill out an application with address, phone number, email, SSN and driver license.
Either that or have them drive to your office for an interview"
What part of this will get me sued ?
Hint - you do that for a MacDonald's application
newhunter18@reddit
Asking for a driver's license and potentially SSN prior to offer.
Even when you fill out an I-9, you cannot specify which ID to provide. $10,000 fine and potentially EEOC charge.
Do people do it.? Absolutely. But they also get sued a lot for discrimination.
pacman2081@reddit
sure -- ask for any of the I-9 identification
n3ziniuka5@reddit
Yes, it's getting more and more common. If you have multiple interview stages run by different people, make sure the first person takes a screenshot of the meeting and uploads it to the candidate profile. We had occasions were different people joined our different interview stages, the scammers aren't working solo.
engineered_academic@reddit
Honestly if a candidate is willing to egregiously fraud their resume ti get a position they will also egregiously fraud their employer in other ways (ip theft, etc).
DigThatData@reddit
^
burt514@reddit
Yes I’m dealing with this exact problem and others in my network also have this problem. The candidates also try to cheat through the interview with AI tools.
pa_dvg@reddit
Yes, there’s tons, far more than I’ve ever seen before
Jmc_da_boss@reddit
Very common sadly hiring is a shit show
poipoipoi_2016@reddit
India is the vast majority of the numbers (though Nigeria is coming up), but North Korea is the biggest part of the problem.
No-Economics-8239@reddit
I don't have the specifics, but from my current position for the last six years from talking to HR, I believe that the majority (maybe around 60%) of resumes are culled before they even make it to my desk. Either failing a simple background check or else failing the initial phone interview. And most of our roles are hybrid, not fully remote.
eikkaj@reddit
Yes
Former_Dark_4793@reddit
shit happens mate, gotta suck it up and keep filtering out the bad apples, it is what it is
ninetofivedev@reddit
Yes. Had to deal with it a bunch.
originalchronoguy@reddit
Fairly common in my experience. I've been seeing everything you mentioned as far back as 2015.