Fake candidates are a real problem now, especially for remote and tech roles. Borrowed identities, someone else sitting the interview, resumes built by AI for jobs that never happened. Four checks catch most of it before anyone reaches a client. See them live, early. Make the dates and employers add up. Ask something only a person who did the work could answer. And verify identity and work authorization through your proper hiring process, not by eye.
Why this is happening
Remote work made it possible to be hired without meeting anyone. AI made it easy to write a resume for a job you never did. And some groups now run this at scale: one person interviews, another person works, or nobody works and the laptop gets shipped overseas. Staffing firms are a target because they move fast and the client trusts the screen.
Check one: see them, live, early
Turn the camera on in the first screen, not the last. Ask them to hold their ID up to the camera for a moment. Watch for a feed that lags on every answer, eyes that read, or someone who will not turn the camera on at all. None of these alone proves anything. Together, they are a reason to slow down.
Check two: make the file add up
Dates, employers, locations, certifications. Do the jobs overlap? Does the LinkedIn profile match the resume? Does the certification body say the card is current? Call references through the company's main number, not the mobile number on the resume. A real person's file is boring. It adds up.
Check three: ask about a normal Tuesday
"Walk me through a normal day in that role." "What broke last month and what did you do?" "Who did you hand work to?" People who did the job answer easily and with small details. People who did not give you the job description back. For technical roles, ask one practical question live, on camera, with no pause to type.
Check four: verify, do not eyeball
Identity and work authorization are checked through your proper hiring process, the forms and systems your compliance team uses, not by a recruiter looking at a scan. If a candidate's documents will not pass that process, they do not reach a client, however good the screen was.
Write the checks into the submittal
The client should see that the checks happened. One line: "Video screen completed, ID sighted, two references confirmed through company numbers, work authorization verified." It takes a sentence and it is the sentence clients remember.
Where M-Tracker fits
The four checks are part of the standard for a submittal. In M-Tracker, that standard lives with the order, and each submittal is read against it before the client sees it. If the line about the checks is missing, the note says so, in plain words, and the recruiter runs them before the submittal goes.
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Questions people ask
Can I ask for ID on a first call?
Asking to see ID on camera for a screen is common and reasonable. Collecting and storing copies is a different matter; follow your firm's policy and your state's rules.
What if a real candidate is offended?
Say why. "We check everyone the same way because clients ask us to." Real candidates understand. Fake ones drop out.
Do these checks slow down the fill?
By about fifteen minutes per candidate. One fake placement costs more than a year of those minutes.
Work you can trust, without redoing it.
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