Ask any recruiter or TA professional what’s maintaining them up at evening. These days, there’s a very good likelihood that the reply is candidate fraud.
What as soon as felt like a fringe concern has rapidly grow to be one of the crucial urgent dangers going through hiring groups. With AI making it simpler than ever to spoof resumes, deepfake interviews, and fabricate credentials, recruiters at the moment are anticipated to play each expertise matchmaker and fraud detective—connecting with actual candidates whereas weeding out any fraudulent ones.
To unpack what this new actuality appears to be like like for TA groups, Make use of’s VP of Buyer Success, Sara O’Donnal, hosted a candid dialog at our current firm kick-off assembly, that includes TA leaders: Victoria Parker, Head of Expertise Acquisition at Coalfire; Dan Daller, Principal Recruiter at TTEC Digital; and Theresa Mazzaro, Recruitment Supervisor at Fairfax Radiology Facilities.
Collectively, they mentioned how candidate fraud is displaying up right now, how groups are adapting their hiring practices, and what they hope the way forward for fraud prevention appears to be like like—sooner somewhat than later.
Behind the Pretend Profiles: What Candidate Fraud Actually Appears to be like Like At this time
Candidate fraud isn’t confined to a single second within the hiring journey. From AI-generated resumes to crowdsource dishonest, it may possibly floor at any stage—placing strain on TA leaders to validate candidate authenticity all through the method.
Based on Victoria, fraud reveals up most frequently on the prime of the funnel, with candidates misrepresenting all the things from their id to their expertise simply to get by means of the door. Nevertheless it doesn’t cease there.
For Dan, what’s most shocking isn’t solely the place fraud seems within the funnel, however how coordinated and skilled it’s grow to be—down to fraudulent candidates working collectively in name facilities and co-working areas.
Widespread Crimson Flags Recruiters Are Seeing
To assist fellow TA execs spot fraud alerts sooner, the panel broke down the pink flags they look ahead to, from resume inconsistencies to the small alerts in the course of the interview that increase early questions.
- Identification inconsistencies (title, e mail, telephone quantity, or deal with don’t seem reputable)
- AI-generated or “too excellent” resumes with generic language, equivalent formatting, or placeholder textual content left in
- Skinny or faux on-line profiles, together with newly created or incomplete LinkedIn accounts
- Scripted interview responses and incapability to reply unscripted follow-up questions
- Totally different individuals showing throughout hiring levels (display screen, recruiter interview, hiring supervisor interview, onboarding)
- Suspicious video environments, resembling call-center backgrounds or off-screen teaching
- Deepfake indicators, together with lip-sync points or unnatural facial motion
How Fraud Reveals Up in Day by day Recruiting
Given how subtle candidate fraud has grow to be, it’s no shock that fraud prevention is now a part of recruiters’ on a regular basis actuality.
What was simple screens now contain validating identities, reviewing recordings, double-checking profiles, and confirming that the identical particular person reveals up at every stage of the method.
It’s a means of verifying, reverifying, and verifying once more.
As Victoria shared, “It’s exhausting for my recruiting crew. Simply yesterday, I woke as much as messages like, ‘I simply interviewed a totally faux candidate.’”
Why Candidate Fraud Is Extra Than a Safety Challenge
An essential observe that got here up all through the dialog is that candidate fraud prevention isn’t nearly maintaining unhealthy actors out—it’s about defending the enterprise, the model, and the hiring operate itself.
When fraudulent candidates make it by means of, the danger isn’t restricted to misplaced time or wasted payroll. The fallout goes past a foul rent, placing delicate methods and knowledge in danger and slowing work in ways in which have an effect on clients and workers. In extremely regulated environments, like healthcare and cybersecurity, the stakes are even greater.
As Theresa defined, “The I-9 verification takes place inside three enterprise days after you begin, so they might have entry to the dominion, all of the affected person info, all of all the things…”
However there’s one other layer at danger: belief.
As fraud turns into extra widespread, hiring managers begin to query hiring alerts. Enterprise companions second-guess recruiter suggestions. And recruiters are compelled to defend choices extra typically—slowing momentum and doubtlessly straining relationships.
Constructing Defenses In opposition to Candidate Fraud
There’s no single checkpoint that stops candidate fraud; nevertheless, the panel shared that they’ve discovered success by layering verification and validation throughout the hiring journey. Which means combining human judgment with know-how. And validating id greater than as soon as.
In apply, that layered method reveals up in a couple of constant methods:
- Recording and reviewing interviews.
- Utilizing video-based screening for high-risk or high-value roles.
- Sharing interview recordings with hiring managers to substantiate consistency.
- Creating clear methods for recruiters and managers to flag suspected fraud.
- Routing flagged instances to HR and Authorized for overview.
- Including id verification earlier than onboarding.
However as Dan identified, generally the very best protection comes all the way down to a easy query.
The Way forward for Candidate Fraud: What’s Subsequent and Tips on how to Put together
Throughout the board, panelists agreed that fraud will solely proceed to grow to be extra subtle, extra coordinated, and tougher to identify. And that actuality is pushing TA groups to shift from reactive responses to proactive methods.
- Design hiring processes with verification in-built, not bolted on.
- Spend money on instruments that help id validation and auditability.
- Practice recruiters and hiring managers on rising fraud patterns.
Nonetheless, Victoria additionally identified the necessity to stability fraud prevention with candidate expertise: “However over-correcting is going to result in an issue that none of us are actually considering of the place we’re breaking the belief of actual candidates in addition to our [hiring] groups. We have to be cautious, however sensible in how we defend ourselves…”
Dan echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that no matter defenses groups put in place, preserving a frictionless candidate expertise has to stay a precedence.
Constructed for Hiring You Can Belief
Over the previous 12 months, candidate fraud has modified the best way hiring groups function—not simply what they look ahead to, however how they design their total course of. Because the panel shared, the groups seeing probably the most success aren’t chasing fraud one incident at a time. They’re constructing prevention into their hiring technique from the beginning.
And they’re leveraging the fitting instruments and know-how to assist them do it.
Able to dive deeper into the candidate fraud dialog? Register for our upcoming Candidate Fraud & Screening Webinar collection, that includes three periods that unpack the ins and outs of fraud prevention in 2026.
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