How to Prevent Candidate Fraud with Tools and technologies: An HR Guide

Candidate fraud is one of the most worrisome situations for recruiters to tackle, which deters them from effectively filtering the right talent from a crowd. Earlier, candidates used to mislead recruiters by lying about their skills, experiences, and education, which isn’t something new. However, with generative AI today, candidate fraud has now been levelled up with utmost ease.

Candidates can now send convincing texts, videos, images, and other materials to support their lies or misleading statements, making it an existential threat to the companies and their recruitment teams. Thus, it is now essential for the teams to learn & educate themselves on how to prevent candidate fraud by leveraging modern-day tools, technologies, and strategies.

This article is a complete HR guide on different ways or practices you can implement for preventing candidate fraud to the best of your ability. In the process, we will also be guiding you on the various application fraud detection tools and technologies that can be used for efficient and rightful recruitment.

What is Candidate Fraud?

To give you a better perspective on this, candidate fraud refers to any instance where job applicants share inaccurate, fake, or misleading details about themselves. Both intentional as well as unintentional fraud that impacts the hiring decisions are part of it.

Beyond simple resume tweaks, candidates are now heavily relying on AI tools for crafting their job applications, cover letters, and initial employer interactions. Such behaviors might not seem malicious at all times, but can lead recruiters to experience application inconsistencies. Eventually, it will complicate fair and unbiased hiring decisions.

Some of the candidate fraud examples include:

Unverifiable work experience
Fabricated qualifications
Exaggerated past job titles
Outsourcing of skill assessments or technical interviews
Using deepfake videos and manipulated audio content.

What are the Different Types of Candidate Fraud?

There are several forms or types of candidate fraud being adopted by applicants, considering the ever-growing advancements of AI technology. To help you be aware of them all, here are some of the common ones:

1. Identity Mismatch

When a candidate presents himself/herself as someone else, with inaccurate personal information during the hiring rounds, it is referred to as identity fraud. Now, there are several instances of it, which include:

Participating in an interview using someone else’s account credentials or identity.
Using deepfake tools for changing one’s voice or appearance while attending video interviews.
Outsourcing technical or skill assessments to someone else.

2. Resume Tweaking

Candidates now commonly try to polish their resumes, making them appear more aligned with the job description. Resume fraud is the instance where applicants exaggerate on their qualifications, past job titles & responsibilities, and skills. This way, it misleads the recruiters from their real experiences. Some instances of it include:

Rebranding the junior or internship roles as managerial or full-time positions, respectively.
Mask work gaps by extending the employment tenure on the resume.
Misleading recruiters by showing fake experience in certain technical tools, coding languages, etc.
Claim sole ownership of team-based projects or achievements.

3. Interview Cheating

Most companies that prefer remote interviewing can be victims of this fraud. It becomes challenging for recruiters to determine if a candidate completes the assessment all by themselves. Some of the very common examples of interview fraud include:

A second person sits off-camera to give answers and hints to the candidate during an interview.
Candidates using pre-written scripts or off-screen text to answer the questions asked, limiting the evaluation of their actual knowledge.
Using AI text prompters to listen to the interviewer’s question and generate a quick, convincing answer for any candidate to read aloud.
Candidates are using AI avatars to appear for the interviews on their behalf.

4. Fake References

Some candidates also try to fabricate references or provide unverifiable details, which makes it difficult for recruiters to validate their professional behavior or work experiences. Some of such instances include:

Listing out friends’ or supportive coworkers’ names & numbers as professional references.
Submitting completely fictitious contacts just to avoid the reference checks.

5. Misuse of AI

With the advancements in AI technology, candidates have now found new ways to fake their skills, qualifications, identity, and expertise. Thus, it is quite difficult for recruiters to filter candidate fraud using just the traditional screening methods. Some examples of AI-driven candidate fraud include:

Using AI tools for answering the written skill assessments or technical tests.
Enabling real-time translation or transcription apps for getting accurate data-backed answers, presented with a human tone, so candidates to just read them out.
Crafting compelling cover letters and resumes with exaggerated skills.

Such instances and more make it nearly impossible for employers to filter genuine candidates from the inauthentic ones, causing hiring bias and inefficiency. Therefore, it is recommended for employers to introduce next-gen tools and technologies in their recruitment approach to prevent such fraudulent interventions.

How to Prevent Candidate Fraud Using Next-Gen Tools and Technologies?

Gone are the days when just the traditional checks were enough for validating a candidate’s profile and authenticity for the position. Considering the intensity of candidate frauds, powered by AI technology, it is now important to adopt modern-day tools and strategies to prevent them proactively. So, here are some ways you can prevent candidate fraud effectively in your hiring practices:

1. Implement Identity Verification Across all Hiring Stages

Most recruitment teams often wait till the last stage of the hiring funnel for validating the identity of an applicant, which is what leaves room for fraudulent candidates to infiltrate. Make use of advanced real-time identity verification tools with features like facial recognition, at multiple checkpoints of the hiring funnel.

For instance, you must integrate identity verification during the application, interviews, and final rounds. With the rise in AI-driven candidate fraud, verification of one’s identity can’t be treated as a one-time necessity. Instead, it should be an ongoing requirement throughout all the hiring stages.

2. Integrate Real-Time Monitoring in Video Interviews

Earlier, when pre-recorded or one-way interview formats were newly introduced for remote hiring proficiency, candidates found a loophole to mislead the recruiters with manipulated information. However, the modern-day tools and platforms offering one-way interview software are now enabling passive monitoring provisions such as screen recording, live camera monitoring, and candidate activity detection.

Ducknowl offers its one-way interview software, backed by an automated proctoring feature. It tracks all the candidate behaviors and will report the same to the recruiters in the final report. For instance, if multiple faces appear on the one-way interview screen or a candidate makes rapid eye movements, such instances will be flagged. Such cues won’t disqualify a candidate, but will enable recruiters to decide if it’s a potential candidate fraud.

3. Enable Digital Cross-Verification of Resume Claims

You can integrate automated tools that can help you cross-reference candidates’ resume claims with available public data, social profiles, and certifications. Resume claims like education, certifications, employment history, past job titles, and others can all be verified by using digital tools such as Checkr or through custom-built tools integrated to your resume screening software.

Such an approach will help you flag the potential timeline inconsistencies, outdated job roles, unverifiable companies, and other such resume fraud instances. For example, if a candidate has listed work experience at a company that has been shut down for 5 years, digital cross-verification tools can detect the same, giving you a clear picture of a fraudulent candidate.

4. Introduce Structured Interviews and Skill Assessments

By introducing structured interviews and skill assessments, you will be eliminating the scope of manipulation for candidates. It is because you will be asking them the same questions, in the same order and conditions, which will narrow down the margin of scripting, mid-interview substitutions, or coaching.

Furthermore, you must also use smart interviewing tools by Ducknowl to validate the candidates’ skills in real time. Our tools are backed by live monitoring and a timed assessment feature for detecting malpractice or restricting navigation outside the test screen.

5. Foster Employee Training on Tackling Candidate Fraud

Train your recruitment team to efficiently use the smart hiring tools to prevent candidate fraud and facilitate unbiased hiring. With regular and ongoing training programs, you will not just be eliminating the risk of hiring fraudulent candidates, but you will also spread awareness among the team to flag certain signs manually.

For instance, instances like sudden device changes during assessments, inconsistent facial data or voice, potentially scripted answers, and unusual background changes during an interview are some cues that your recruitment team must catch. It is only possible if your hiring team knows what to look for, which is why the training is crucial.

How Can Ducknowl Help You Avoid Candidate Fraud with Smart Recruitment Tools?

At Ducknowl, we provide smart recruitment tools to our clients for scaling their hiring efficiency. We have automated resume screening, one-way interviews, skill assessments, and other such tools to streamline the complete recruitment process for your company.

Considering the seriousness of candidate fraud scenarios, we have implemented multiple malpractice prevention features in our interview and assessment tools, which include:

Real-Time Candidate Monitoring

We make use of the in-device microphone and camera for monitoring the video and audio elements during interviews and assessments. It will help verify the candidates’ identities while they are being evaluated for the job position across different stages.

Secure Assessment Environment

We implement automated proctoring to prevent candidates from cheating in assessments or interviews. It is because our software restricts candidates from navigating outside the test or interview screen.

In-Depth Reporting

Upon flagging the candidate fraud cues, our tools mention them thoroughly in an in-depth report. Recruiters can then evaluate the candidates on all fronts and judge if the flagged instances are fraudulent or genuine mistakes.

With the right recruitment systems in place, it is easier to catch and mitigate the candidate fraud scenarios. Leverage the potential of Ducknowl’s smart recruitment system to filter the inauthentic candidates from genuine ones, and hire the right talent for a position.

To know more about setting up a smart hiring system with candidate fraud prevention features, request a demo of Ducknowl’s recruitment tools today!