With tech companies on the hunt for the best candidates for crucial roles, it's expected that recruitment scammers will be taking advantage of job seekers and employers in the coming months. Through deceptive tactics, these con artists can hijack a company's identity to steal money or sensitive information, and even gain access to data systems. All these can lead to financial and reputation loss, so tech leaders should be proactive to prevent their brand from falling victim to recruitment cons. Here's how tech founders can fight recruiter impersonation scams to protect their job applicants, employees, and customers.
Provide Step by Step Information About Your Hiring Processes
To know what you're up against, you need to understand how recruitment scams work and how scammers target vulnerable job seekers and businesses. These schemes usually involve fake job postings on job boards and social media platforms, creating fake websites and email addresses, and offering jobs with high salaries or benefits that seem too good to be true. In some cases, these scammers will work with other fraudsters and have them apply for tech jobs using fake credentials. Once they get hired, they can gain access to sensitive internal systems or client information, which can lead to data breaches or corporate espionage.
One of the most effective ways to guard against recruiter impersonation scams is to be transparent about your recruitment processes. Consider creating a recruiting and hiring guidelines page on your official website, then outline the exact hiring process, from the initial interview to onboarding, to let job seekers know what to do and what to expect. List down official domains and links to your official social media pages, as well as all the things that you do or never do when hiring. For instance, you can mention that your company will conduct in-person interviews or remote interviews through Zoom, but you'll never insist on interviews through text messages only. You should also say that you'll never ask for payment for processing fees, training, or equipment since this is a common strategy used by scammers.
Constantly Monitor for Company Impersonation
It's difficult to predict when fraudsters will strike, so it's best to be on your toes at all times and have your HR staff monitor job sites and social media apps for signs of brand impersonation. Educate your staff first on common red flags that they should be on the lookout for when monitoring for fake job posts, such as poor spelling and grammar or vague descriptions about the job. They should also watch out for pressure tactics, such as urging candidates to accept a job offer immediately since it's "time-sensitive," or asking them to click on a series of links as fast as they can. These strategies are obviously designed to prevent job seekers from researching the company or thinking about the job offer, which makes them more likely to get scammed.
Some tech companies are confident in the abilities of applicants to identify job scams at a glance. However, even tech-savvy job seekers can become a victim of a recruiter scam as AI tools allow fraudsters to create offer letters and company sites that look like the real thing. They also use AI to make deepfakes of recruiters, HR officers, and even CEOs of companies to make the job offer seem more legitimate. A recent survey has shown that 43 percent of respondents think that the IT sector is the most susceptible to recruitment scams since applicants have to rely on online portals for job listings and offers. To keep applicants safe, assign staff to monitor websites frequently, and encourage them to report suspicious activity as soon as possible.
Implement a Multi-step Verification Process
There's always a chance that your tech company can be infiltrated by a scammer. To prevent fraudsters from getting hired by your HR staff, implement a multi-step verification process to confirm every candidate's identity, work experience, and skills. The process should include employment background checks, identity confirmation, reference checks, and a tech skills assessment test. Have the candidates take the test at your business premises, a designated coworking space, or a private office to prevent other people from taking the exam for them.
Using AI tools can also be beneficial during the hiring process, especially if you want to double check resumes or certificates. These tools or apps can help your staff to identify suitable candidates by scanning resumes for certain qualifications and skills, and those with a high match rate can be prioritized for initial interviews. If you're worried about scammers copying resumes from the Internet, use tools like Grammarly or Copyleaks, or perform a reverse image search on candidate photos to verify authenticity. These methods can flag plagiarized text, copied content, or fake profile images, helping your HR team ensure that applicants are legitimate and qualified.
Identify and Keep Track of Fake Applicants
A lot of job scammers target the same legitimate tech companies, and they do so repeatedly since it's easy enough to take advantage of the busy nature of hiring processes. Bogus applicants can steal names and details from real LinkedIn profiles to appear credible, then make a few minor changes, such as swapping out the actual photo for a fake one. In some cases, they may even use the identity of a deceased individual to deceive your company, so your staff will need to know how to recognize and keep track of these fake applications.
To find out if a LinkedIn profile was copied, have your HR staff copy specific sentences or parts from the profile's summary, paste it onto Google, then add quotation marks. This technique will reveal if the phrases or sentences were used in another LinkedIn profile. Also, if you suspect that the photo included in the profile is fake, do a reverse image search and see if the photo appears in social media profiles or if it's a picture of a lesser-known model or influencer. To be on the safe side and prevent scammers from posing as legitimate job seekers, require all applicants to only send their LinkedIn profile link if it's been verified or authenticated by the platform.
If you're worried about fraudsters using personal details of deceased people to apply for a tech job, consider working with a Fair Credit Reporting Act-compliant background screening service provider. They can perform thorough identity verification by checking an applicant's name, social security number, and even burial databases and mortality records to see if the job seeker is a living person.
Be on the Lookout for Shady Interview Practices
Most recruiters and HR personnel think that doing video job interviews is enough to verify the identity of potential candidates. Doing remote interviews via Zoom or Skype may have been sufficient to verify real applicants back in the day, but the constant evolution of Generative AI technology can make you question whether you're talking to a real person or not. With fraudsters using deepfake videos to craft new personas and identities, creating convincing job scams has become easier and more accessible, even for those with minimal tech knowledge.
According to recent data, about 46 percent of fraud experts have come across synthetic identity fraud, while 29 percent have encountered video deepfakes. Since many people are unable to differentiate between real and AI content, there's a possibility that your staff may hire a candidate for a remote tech job through a deepfake scam, and this can result in dire consequences for your company. There is the immediate risk of bringing on unqualified candidates, which can lead to poor performance and productivity. If they're given critical roles, they may pose a danger or cause harm to other employees, or they can cause your company to lose a significant number of stocks or money to deepfake-driven schemes.
If you're hiring multiple candidates to fill remote tech roles, consider having your HR team train under a cybersecurity expert so they can spot a computer-generated video. Some sure signs of a deepfake that they should be on the lookout for include irregularities in visuals, such as accessories or teeth that are not fully formed, or clothing patterns that don't line up. A lot of AI generated content also come with watermarks, so if the video, for instance, has a bouncing cloud logo, you can be sure that it was created with Sora, which is OpenAI's video creation app. To spot audio deepfakes during phone interviews, watch out for unnatural speech patterns or things that don't seem human, such as continuous talking without taking a breath. A deepfaked voice will sound breathless, or the person will appear to talk at a faster rate than normal.
Recruiter impersonation scams can have a negative effect on your tech business's reputation. Consider these tips to keep scammers at bay while looking for the best candidates to build your team.
