Worried about fraudulent applications? The right data can help

Every hiring team wants to find the right candidates for open requisitions. They shouldn’t have to worry about filtering out fake applicants and job seekers, too.

Between AI helping “fake candidates” land jobs and international schemes designed to secure remote IT jobs for North Korean nationals at U.S. companies, the threat of fraudulent applications is on the rise. While no vendor has a perfect solution to this evolving issue, talent teams can take proactive measures to filter out fake profiles and focus on real, qualified candidates.

Findem has created sophisticated methods for catching and invalidating suspicious profiles, relying on automations and manual review to categorize profiles as genuine, verified, or fake. Keep reading to see how we’re removing such profiles from candidate shortlists and how you can take steps today to stay ahead of the curve.

Strategy #1: Profile verification through 3D data

Findem leverages powerful data to precisely map and verify candidate details, ensuring accuracy across multiple data points. 

We cross-reference profiles and resumes against our Talent Data Cloud and your ATS to detect red flags, ensuring a holistic, verified view of every person. This process verifies key details such as contact information and employment history, addressing potential profile inconsistencies early in the search for talent.

Copilot for Sourcing surfaces verified, high-quality profiles, enriched with Findem’s 3D data, to ensure candidate details are accurate. When you integrate your ATS with Findem, you gain visibility into:

• When candidates last applied
• How many times they’ve applied
• What roles they applied to
• Previous resumes they’ve applied with
• Previous ATS activity (interviews, notes, on-sites, etc.)

For example, if a candidate applied to a software engineering internship six years ago and is now applying for a senior role with a slightly different resume, that’s expected career growth. However, if a candidate applies to 20+ roles with vastly different titles and resumes, this raises a red flag. Findem identifies these discrepancies early, preventing such profiles from reaching the phone screen stage.

Strategy #2: Leverage your employee connections

Findem’s Employee Connections tab helps recruiters evaluate candidate credibility by tapping into warm talent pools within employee networks. By identifying candidates who share work or education history with current employees, Findem provides additional context to streamline the referral process and strengthen candidate evaluation.

Key features of this strategy include:

• Identifying shared connections: Automatically uncover candidates with shared experiences, such as past workplaces or schools, with your current team.
• Requesting introductions: Use the Request Intro feature to send auto-generated or customized emails, making it easy for colleagues to vouch for candidates or facilitate warm introductions.

This feature enhances recruitment efforts by leveraging trusted employee networks, allowing recruiters to prioritize credible candidates.

Strategy #3: Verified attribute matching across platforms

Findem’s platform analyzes over 100,000 data sources — including LinkedIn, Github, and Stack Overflow — to generate billions of data points through 3D profiles. This data helps recruiters to capture a view of a candidate’s career that traditional resumes and LinkedIn profiles often fail to provide. 

Verified attributes ensure that information across platforms, such as LinkedIn and Github, is consistent with submitted resumes. While this may only apply to a subset of candidates, it can be invaluable in flagging discrepancies and reducing manual verification efforts.

By dynamically and continuously enriching profiles with data from multiple sources, Findem helps recruiters:

• Detect inconsistencies across platforms and profiles (e.g., mismatched LinkedIn and Github details or profile images showing clearly different people)
• Filter out suspicious profiles to focus on credible candidates

Findem’s platform reduces manual verification time, providing talent teams with confidence in their candidate pool.

Strategy #4: When in doubt, use Findem’s AI assistant 

Findem’s AI assistant provides a valuable 'gut check' for recruiters by quickly analyzing candidate profiles for potential red flags. By reviewing patterns, vague descriptions, and inconsistent timelines, the AI assistant helps recruiters detect suspicious profiles more efficiently.

While this feature might not solve every issue related to fraudulent applications, it serves as an important tool to bolster candidate evaluations and provide an extra layer of confidence. Whether identifying questionable career claims or highlighting inconsistencies in work history, Findem’s AI assistant gives talent teams an extra edge when assessing candidates.

How can you get ahead of fraudulent applications today?

While no solution can fully prevent all fraudulent applications, process improvements can strengthen your screening efforts. Consider implementing:

• Captchas or other candidate declarations to verify authenticity at the application stage
• Pre-screening questionnaires to gather more detailed candidate information early in the process
• Recorded video responses to application prompts to verify candidate identity
• AI-assisted screening to flag suspicious or AI-generated content

Make Findem’s data your talent advantage

By leveraging Findem's data, automations, and insights, talent teams can take proactive steps to mitigate the impact of fake profiles, protect their time, and focus on hiring top-quality candidates.

The growing threat of fake candidates may expose weaknesses in traditional hiring processes, but with tools like Findem, recruiters can place their best foot forward early in the talent acquisition process to build stronger pipelines down the line. Request a demo today to learn more.