How leaders are ‘getting played’ by the dark side of HR tech

Last fall, an unemployed software engineer reported using AI to apply for 5,000 jobs, securing 20 interviews. While anecdotal, this story reveals that HR departments are being challenged to keep up with advanced technologies that allow tricksters to slip through the recruiting cracks, says industry analyst Brian Sommer.

“HR and operations leaders are getting played,” because mediocre employees are misleading and even defrauding recruiters, Sommer says. They are doing this thanks to new tech at their fingertips. “We have to recognise these threats exist,” he adds.

Report: 35% of people lie on their resumes

In a recent session in the Road to HR Tech webinar series, Sommer covered the “dark side of new HR tech” that empowers bad actors to “weaponise” tools like AI to their own advantage.

Sommer says that some jobseekers, candidates and even current employees may be using tech to misrepresent themselves, falsify their work, steal or otherwise deceive and defraud businesses. This appears as faking skills, pretending to work, working full-time for more than one firm or falsifying training.

A January 2023 Resume Builder survey of 1,250 Americans found that 35% have lied in the hiring process, and 75% said they have secured a job using an application that misrepresented their education, years of experience, skills or other attributes.

Though recruiters are trained to seek truthful and qualified candidates, the jobseeker pool is increasingly trying to overwhelm or trick the platforms made to support talent teams, Sommer says. To get ahead of this, leaders may need to “radically reimagine” HR tech tools that Sommer says are being rendered obsolete and ineffective by misleading applicant activity.

How candidates manipulate an ATS

Sommer says that “resume fiction” is a long-term issue amplified by citizen-grade generative AI tools. There has long been evidence of “fibs”—such as intentional misrepresentation of education, work history and skills—but today’s inaccurate storytelling is more significant. “People are finding clever ways to cover up or mislead you into thinking something different about them,” says Sommer.

Applicants know that recruiting teams rely on technology to sift through resumes, which has resulted in keyword stuffing. This activity is now bolstered by tech resources that help jobseekers “optimise” their resumes to outsmart the applicant tracking system (ATS) and push their application to the top—even if they are not even close to being the best candidate. “This stuff is just broken, folks,” says Sommer.

How to detect ‘resume fiction’

Look for authenticity, not standardisation, from job applicants and do not forget to focus on proven candidates such as alumni, suggests Sommer.

Detection relies on good people—Sommer says that the ATS always needs a “human co-pilot” to help navigate the interpretation of applications. He suggests in-person interviews, competency verification exams, AI detection tools and A/B testing of applicant pools (conducted by real people) as countermeasures that HR teams can take to prevent these risks.

But watch out for over-reliance on plagiarism or AI-detection tools, warns Sommer. As an HR practitioner, you and your company are still responsible for taking accountability for employment decisions. Lawsuits have popped up in instances where tech “proved” an accusation against an individual, but the tool was, in fact, wrong.

How current employees cheat

Using technology to manipulate employers does not only work against the recruiting funnel. Unethical employees have also tapped into methods that defraud their current employers. Sommer pointed out an example that he found on X in which an individual admitted to having 10 remote engineering jobs at once, pulling in US$1.5 million in wages per year while lying to the employers about having these other jobs.

He says that employers can detect this type of behaviour by having employees come into the workplace, either for meetings or a change in remote policy. He also advises HR leaders to ramp up reference checks, employment verification and post-training testing.

No doubt all HR leaders have heard of the mouse jiggler. This piece of tech keeps computers from sleeping—and attempts to keep bosses from recognising slacking. Sommer identified this behavior as “productivity theatre,” which he says diminishes actual productivity while manipulating co-employees and managers into think work is being done.

Productive theatre can be an indicator of cultural problems in the workplace. In early 2023, Slack asked more than 18,000 desk employees and execs from around the world about challenges and opportunities at work. It found that when people feel they are a valued member of the team, they are more likely to be more productive rather than try to look productive.

READ MORE: Key moments in new hire onboarding that can drive employee retention

While mouse jiggling has become a bit of a post-pandemic joke, Sommer said there are instances of more consequential behaviour; even environments that seem to have ethics buttoned up can fall prey to employee misuse of tech.

In workplaces requiring professional standards, such as accounting firms, some qualified employees are working for two firms simultaneously. “There are lots of people who are maintaining multiple jobs,” says Sommer.

This gets particularly tricky when one of those firms audits the other. And what about employees who sign non-competes? That happens as well, says Sommer. If a professional is willing to violate one professional standard, they likely will violate others, says Sommer.

Background checks and beyond

Periodic employee verification and other “moral” checks that analyse the conditions of an employee’s income or lifestyle are countermeasures to this behaviour, according to Sommer. Equifax and other firms can easily provide payroll information, but background checks can go a few steps further.

Sommer explains that if an employee’s reality does not match up with what their employment situation suggests, it might be time to consider running a background check or getting a private investigator, if allowable. He pointed out red flags, such as employees who own expensive cars, boats or homes, yet are not earning income to support that lifestyle.

That might sound bold, but Sommer says this level of scrutiny is sometimes necessary: “If you think that doesn’t happen, it does.”

About the Author: Jill Barth is HR Tech Editor of Human Resources Executive, where this article was first published.