Securing the Future of Recruitment: Navigating and Avoiding Online Scams

The FBI warns of imposters using deepfake technology in remote recruitment. The hardware and software enabling the impersonation of a stolen persona are easily available, and while it is still easy to detect a scam, it will become increasingly harder with technological advances.

Cyberscammers use phished CVs, most often by posting fictitious job advertisements. Further down the line, their targets become companies searching for specialists to join their teams.

How can one protect oneself against such scams?

Candidates should take care to keep their data secure:

1. Check advertisements thoroughly before applying,
2. When applying through an external portal, it is a good idea to contact the employer to confirm the recruitment and the email address to send your CV,
3. Use verified portals or directly from the company or recruitment agency’s website – vacancies published on these sites are secure.

Recruiters have more to do:

1. Don’t assume your background provider is verifying the candidate’s identity, so verify the identity before hiring,
2. Consider adding an in-person interview stage even for fully-remote positions,
3. Focus on skills assessment and testing for technical positions rather than CV-based experience, certifications and education. Imposters are more likely to abandon the recruitment process if it includes test tasks,
4. Put extra effort when recruiting IT professionals as they will have an access to crucial databases in your company. Check criminal records and scan the identity thoroughly. Consider AI fraud detection to evaluate resumes and job candidates,
5. Don’t ask for ID documents (driver’s licence, passport) before you’re certain you’ll hire the candidate, as they can claim discrimination based on age, health or country of birth. 

One of the best ways to hire securely and change jobs without risking identity theft, is to work with established recruitment agencies who verify candidates and partner with reliable companies only.

At Talando, we have over 120,000 verified candidates on our database. We only work with reliable and ethical organisations.  This ensures mutual trust and security at every step of the hiring process.