Introduction
Hiring the right candidate is decisive for any organization’s success. Remote working opportunities and virtual hiring have increased the possibility of interview fraud. Writer Shivangi Singh on LinkedIn notifies that the recruiting team estimates 15-20% of candidates appearing in the interview are dishonest in the way they present themselves. Additional shocking statistics from an article on HirePro includes:
• There has been a 92% increase in interview fraud since the pandemic.
• 21% of candidates engage in cheating in a controlled testing environment.
Hiring the wrong person can lead to costly consequences, including decreased productivity, loss of business, and damage to the organization’s reputation. Moreover, interview fraud, where candidates misrepresent themselves during the hiring process, poses a growing threat to organizations.
Cost of Hiring
Hiring an employee is expensive. The per-hire cost varies based on factors like industry, job role, location, and specific recruitment method. In an article written by Dr. Vishal Sangale (CEO and Co-founder – Traitfit)on LinkedIn estimates the cost per hire is about Rs. 25500 nearly for all industries. This is nearly equal to a salary for a month for an average package of Rs. 3 – 4 lakhs per annum.
Challenges of mass hiring and remote hiring
Interviewees use multiple counterfeit tactics in virtual interviews. Here are some challenges encountered during virtual interviews:
• Camera Issue: The candidate is not ready to be on camera or they may appear on the camera with low lighting.
• Audio Issue: Even if the candidate appears on camera, where the candidate lip-syncs during the interview, while someone else responds off-camera.
• Impersonation: Candidates use video morphing tools to get the interviews cleared.
When hiring at a large scale, assessing the quality of the candidate is a great challenge. Rushed hiring decision leads to selecting the wrong candidate as the interview and payment for the interview panellist are timebound.
Mass hiring may result in a higher risk of onboarding a fraudulent candidate who does not possess the right skillset.
Examples of different interview fraud models
Companies are tussling with impersonation. The person you hire is not the one who comes to work.
Example 1: Remote working Executives at an IT company were speculative why the employee they had hired recently, refused to join video calls. The team lead was confused, as the employee had appeared on camera during interviews while being recruited. So, they decided to call the workforce to the office. When the employee was at the office, the lead met the new employee and realized that this wasn’t the person who had shown up during the interviews.
Example 2: Impersonation During a technical interview, the interviewer was astonished by the technical proficiency of the candidate. However, after a month of joining, the company finds that the candidate is not skilful for the job role. After investigation, the hiring team identified that the candidate was impersonating. This kind of impersonation is happening mostly in IT firms where recruitment is in bulk and when interviews are happening remotely. Over the years interview fraud has been increasing and become a threat to hiring managers.
Introducing the digital verification model – iCatch
Preventing interview fraud is vital for various reasons like protecting the organization’s reputation, minimizing hiring costs and ensuring workforce competence.
Evaluationz’ is presenting an on-demand API–integrated interview impersonation detection tool, powered by AI. This tool precisely identifies the authenticity of the candidate up to 99% across various stages of the interview process in real time. Evaluationz’ verification solution starts from the initial round of interviews and right up to the onboarding of the candidate.
Key features of ICatch
Three-point authentication The three-point authentication is a robust method that combines face recognition, voice identity and government identification proof to strengthen impersonation detection. This API (Application Programming Interface) compares and matches the candidate’s face/ voice, video/audio samples along with identification proof (government ID) during the various rounds of interviews.
• Face recognition – face recognition technology captures the multiple images of the face during live video. The application analyses the face features and compares and cross-verifies the live images with the reference images of the candidate captured on each round of interviews.
• Voice Identity – this is another crucial element of 3-point authentication. This technology verifies the candidate’s voice by assessing factors like pitch, tone and other vocal characteristics and cross-verifies with the voice samples gathered at various rounds of interviews to ensure that the person talking is the one that appears on the camera.
• Government identification proof – traditional identification also plays a pivotal role in 3-point authentication. The data available in the government database establishes the identity of the candidate. Video and audio data gathered during each round is used as a reference to cross-verify at various stages of the interview and ensures that the same individual appears for every round till the physical onboarding stage. 3-point authentication guarantees that identity proof provided by the person is the one appearing on the camera and the same is speaking during the interview. This helps maintain the integrity of the hiring process.
Real-time detection iCatch has an option to live monitor the video and audio feeds. The software flags any discrepancy in the video and audio in real time and sends a notification to the recruitment team whether to reject or withdraw the candidate’s profile immediately. This can effectively lower the cost and time.
Multi-platform support This application is widely supported on any online interview platforms like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom etc.
Integrates with legacy HRMS/HRIS and ATS This API can be easily integrated into any existing HRMS (Human Resource Management System)/HRIS (Human Resource Information System) and ATS(Application Tracking System). This makes the process seamless, and detection is human error-free.
Conclusion
Preventing interview fraud is not just a matter of protecting an organization from deceptiveness; it is crucial for safeguarding the organization’s reputation, overall ethical and operational integrity, and business losses. By implementing iCatch to detect and prevent interview fraud, organizations can ensure that they hire qualified and trustworthy individuals who will contribute positively to their success.