Remote Interview Scams: Best Remote Hiring Practices

Post pandemic, remote recruitment has taken a whole different turn. What was, at one point, a once-in-a-blue-moon event turned into a consistent affair. All organizations hired every candidate remotely in the immediate months, and in the new normal, this isn’t looking to go away any time soon. The lack of face-to-face interviews means verifying candidates remains a constant concern.

Despite the early promise of an experienced and knowledgeable resource, many organizations go on to face disappointment and setbacks that manifest into monetary losses. What went wrong? In many instances, the candidate hired wasn’t the same as the candidate who ended up joining. Your talent acquisition team can avoid these scammers.

Read the write-up to learn the common tactics used by these scammers to dupe overseas companies and the safe practices you need to start following. Let’s get started!

Remote hiring: Significance in recent years

Remote hiring was an afterthought at one point, but in the post-pandemic world, organizations have been hiring more remotely than upfront. COVID-19 accelerated remote hiring and took it to where it has become the principal avenue to recruit candidates. The pandemic changed recruitment dynamics, and brought remote hiring to the forefront.

It comes with its share of benefits, no risk of catching an infection, no candidates crowding the reception area; plus, if hired, these remote workers won’t need office spaces and other peripherals. That’s incredible cost savings. In fact, according to Global Workplace Analytics, IBM has saved $50 million per year in real estate costs due to remote workers.

However, remote hiring has made it hard for Human Resource worker to get a good sense of the prospect’s professional profile, personality, and other aspects. Whatever be the case, remote hiring is here to stay, which means you need to source the right tools to hire the best candidates. Let’s get into what you need to know to avoid getting duped by a prospect.

What are the telltale signs of remote job scams?

Here are some signs that you can look out for to not fall prey to any online interview scams:

1. Apprehension to face reveal: Any candidate who isn’t willing to turn on the camera in any video interview rounds should raise a red flag. If you pretend to be someone, the last thing you want to do is reveal your face. Hence, such prospects will do everything to hide their true self. They’d either come with an excuse or distort the camera to prevent a clear view of their face.

2. Fraudulent LinkedIn Profiles: These candidates don’t have a detailed LinkedIn profile. They fill out the basic demographic details and leave it at that. There is no mention of university, schooling, past company, testimonials, and other information that are pivotal to finalizing a candidate. If you come across a shady LinkedIn profile, raise your guard. Don’t dismiss the candidate, but make a note of this somewhere.

In some instances, you might see inconsistencies between their social media profiles and the resume they submitted. If the information doesn’t tally and there appear to be different dates, company names, designations, or other details, that’s a dead giveaway of a candidate that’s not being very honest. Start looking elsewhere immediately!

3. Unwilling to take assessments: You are hiring a remote development team, but the lead developer isn’t committing to an assignment, especially the live ones, where you can watch them take the test. If this is the case, and you don’t get a credible response for their reluctance, it’s time to look elsewhere. You need that test to know if they are what they appear to be.

Many untrustworthy candidates expect acceptance at face value. They refuse to showcase their skillsets and drop every excuse in the book to avoid an examination. If a prospect is going in this tangent, you want to turn around and exit without wasting any more time and effort. It’s just not worth the risk.

4. Missing contact information: Many candidates provide partial contact information or nothing. A blank contact block is an obvious red flag. However, if one of the elements is missing, the phone number or an email address, then take it up with the candidate. If they provide the info, then good to go; else, you may want to reconsider.

5. Language barriers: Many pretend to be local, but the moment they speak, you know with absolute certainty that they aren’t anywhere near local. These candidates hope to secure a job by pretending to be from the region. If you possessed high-level expertise, you probably wouldn’t even need to go through all this. The lack of skills makes them want to compensate in other ways.

6. Technical gaps: Apart from the earlier mentioned reluctance to technical assignments, many candidates fail to answer basic role-specific questions in interview rounds. Quiz them about arrays, fields, scripts, bugs, troubleshooting, etc. They will most likely stutter their way to a muddled-up answer that makes no sense whatsoever. If this happens, you know what to do.

7. Unrealistic resume skills: Fake candidates want to look overqualified by filling their resumes with all the in-demand skills. They, of course, don’t possess these skills but assume that their chances of getting hired will go up significantly as a result of this. If you come across someone, who shouldn’t know these many technologies this early into a career, it’s time to rethink that resume.

What organizations can do to prevent remote interview scams?

Listed below are some of the best remote hiring practices that organizations looking for remote workers can follow to ensure they don’t fall prey to any scams:

1. References won’t cut it: It’s a good practice to call up the references, but what if the “reference” is in on the scam. In that case, you’ll hear the pre-decided dialogues from the pre-written script prepared word to word by the two. Calling up references is not enough; ring the former employees and universities. Hit as many touch points as you can.

2. Check identification: Having a valid ID card is a good start. At some point, you may want to ask the candidate to submit these identification documents. From driver’s license to passport, anything you can get your hands on will be beneficial to validate the candidates’ identity. What’ll be even better is if you can do a background check through a 3rd party.

3. Request experience letters: A relieving letter from the previous employee that matches the employment history gives you a sense of relief. In most cases, this isn’t enough, as many candidates can easily forge these documents. So, it’s best to do further research and get in touch with the organization to verify if the candidate was ever there in that position.

4. Use Automation solutions: Use Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software with in-built Artificial Intelligence (AI), custom rules, workflow, and Machine Learning (ML) to segregate candidates. You can even employ Applicant tracking System (ATS) software, which comes with a feature that lets you track and filter candidates, besides scoring them on relevancy. According to Markets and Markets, ATS will grow from $1.08 billion (2017) to $1.81 billion (2023).

5. Insist on video rounds: There’s no way around this. You’ll have to insist on video interviews to make it easier on yourself and avoid all the hassle that comes later. This is the best option to verify the candidate at great lengths in a remote hiring scenario. Plus, once you have them in the interview, don’t forget to monitor them closely.

There have been times when candidates agree to such rounds but use various hacks to cheat through the interview. They would either use an assistant around, get fed all the answers from an earpiece, read from a laptop, or move their lips and have a “proxy” around them to answer the questions. Keep a close eye on the candidate.

6. Social media presence: Last but not least, check their social media presence. If they have been working in an organization for some time, there would no doubt be some mention of their time in that company. Check for photos, tags, comments, and other activities that you can use to verify the candidate’s claims.

Conclusion

Vetting and screening candidates is a strenuous process for any recruiting team, especially when you’re looking to hire an offshore development team. Hiring the perfect talent is made even harder by the inability to verify candidates remotely, and this is precisely why many dubious applicants get through in the early rounds.

It doesn’t have to stay this way. BorderlessMind follows a stringent and meticulous procedure to authenticate and filter candidates, so every organization only gets the very best industry talent. Our hiring experts employ the best remote hiring practices to ensure our clients have the best genuine talent in the industry.

We catch scammers early and safeguard you from suffering the penalties of a wrong hire. Our expert recruiters follow a rigorous procedure to ensure no fake candidate will slip through the cracks and become a liability to you.