4 Strategies To Mitigate The Rising Trend Of Job Candidate ‘Catfishing’

Applying for a new job can be an arduous task, depending on the company and the process they have in place. An unspoken rule for job applicants is to be honest and not be rude during an interview. Many hiring managers reject job applicants when they over rely on AI or lie on their resumes. But the process works both ways. Job seekers have bad experiences, too during the interview process, and 42% of candidates decline offers as a direct result of a bad interview experience. The trend of “catfishing” is often the cause of rejection from either job hunters or hiring managers.

The Rising Workplace Trend Of ‘Catfishing’

“Catfishing” is pretending to be someone else online, and it has become a widespread and well-known challenge in the dating and cyberspace worlds. Now, in the world of work, job candidate “catfishing” is the latest deception facing businesses and hiring managers when it comes to talent acquisition, according to Kara Ayers, Xplor Technologies’ senior vice president of global talent acquisition, total rewards and inclusion.

“Catfishing” occurs when job hunters give fake or rosy information or outright lie to hiring managers. ResumeLab found that 70% of job seekers confess they have lied on their resumes with 37% admitting they lie frequently; 33% have lied once or twice; 15% have considered lying; 15% have never considered lying. Lying rates increase in cover letters and peak during job interviews. The top lies told on resumes are embellishing job titles and responsibilities in general (52%), exaggerating the number of people managed (45%) and overstating length of employment (37%).

“Catfishing” also occurs when job hunters over rely on AI. According to a EduBirdie survey, one in four Gen Z uses AI to supercharge their careers, with 15% crafting better resumes and cover letters. While AI can be a great resource in crafting a resume, under certain circumstances, there are caveats in terms of how far to go when using it. According to Resume Genius career expert Eva Chan, “AI can start the conversation, but it can’t finish it. ChatGPT is a helpful resource in preparing a resume, but it’s critical to be aware of how you use it.”

Overuse of AI can make a resume appear formulaic and impersonal. It can muffle the job seeker’s unique voice and potential. Experts advise that it’s best to use it to improve spelling and grammar without sanitizing your resume at the same time. When job seekers overuse AI and embellish a job title and responsibilities or exaggerate the number of people they managed, the truth usually comes out, and they are immediately rejected for the position. It also can harm their reputation with other recruiters in the same industry.

“Job seekers are using AI to craft their cover letters and resumes, and now many application materials all look the same,” Ayers told me by email. “Some job seekers have even started to use AI when interviewing over video, which is a challenge for global companies who primarily hire remote talent.” She says at Xplor Technologies, most of the fake candidates they’re seeing on video interviews are for tech jobs.

“Alongside this, those in charge of hiring have seen a notable rise in the number of applications received,” Ayers explains. “At Xplor Technologies, we have experienced a 75% increase in the volume of job applications. We’re attributing part of this surge to job candidates’ AI usage, as many are using AI to robo-apply to hundreds of jobs. All of this makes it harder for employers to avoid being misled by job applicants and to distinguish the truly qualified candidates from the fakes.”

Steps Employers And Hiring Managers Can Take

Ayers describes four steps her organization has implemented to weed out applicants who are using AI for bulk applying.

1. Key words and phrases. She described that at the bottom of their job descriptions, they ask the candidate to enter a certain key word or phrase and to place that word or phrase somewhere specific in their application. “If they have read the job description they know to enter a certain word or phrase when applying,” she notes. “If AI is generating the application, it would not decipher this or add those words correctly. We then filter resumes based on who has followed our instructions.”
2. Use of live video interviews. Ayers suggests that business leaders push human resources and hiring managers to use live video interviews more frequently throughout the screening process for each candidate. “Knowing they could prompt generative AI tools to write answers for questions they anticipate getting, hiring managers need to use live calls to gauge each candidate’s enthusiasm and conviction, in addition to assessing their answers—which they may be reading aloud from AI,” she states. “In the age of AI, a candidate’s genuine interest in a job can be more important than their writing samples, which can be generated easily.”
3. Follow-up questions. While consistency and structure are key to ensure fairness when interviewing, Ayers believes it’s helpful to allow for some natural flow and follow up questions that dive deeper into examples of work experience. “Surface level questions are easy for candidates to respond to leveraging AI, even during video interviews,” she says, pointing out the importance of asking follow-up questions that go into more detail about the candidate’s experience and skills. “Never rush or cut corners with this,” she cautions. “And, with the recent uptick in job candidate fraud, employers shouldn’t pull back on key skills testing, either.”
4. The old-fashioned way. “Employers should remember that they can still find promising job candidates the old-fashioned way: by implementing referral programs and incentivizing their workforce to spread the word about open roles,” Ayers suggests.

“We know that AI has its benefits for both candidates and employers. Like many organizations, we are just getting started and exploring how best to keep the hiring process authentic, while creating a fair process where both candidates and employers have a healthy balance of using AI,” Ayers concludes. “We are discussing guidelines for our candidates on where we will accept that they use AI and where it is not acceptable. Once we have made those decisions we will publish guidelines on our external career site to provide a level of transparency to those that want to apply for our jobs and work for us.”

A Final Word: Job Seekers Can Have ‘Shift Shock’

Job seekers are not the only ones with a pattern of “catfishing.” Some hiring managers are guilty of the deceptive practice, too, giving false descriptions about an open position. Research shows that 70% of hiring managers have lied to job candidates during the recruitment process due to pressure to meet hiring demands and protect company interests, with 35% admitting they frequently engage in this practice.

Job hunters realize they’ve been “catfished” after a hiring manager lies or sugar-coats a position to hook them. Once in the job, they discover the hiring manager presented a picture of the role that doesn’t fit with the daily job tasks. This realization—known as “shift shock—was one of the top 10 workplace trends of 2023, and it has risen in 2024. Shift shock is the realization that a job seeker’s new job isn’t what it was cracked up to be. A Muse Shift Shock Survey found that 72% say they’ve experienced shift shock, and 80% say it’s acceptable to leave a new job before six months if it doesn’t live up to your expectations.