Job applicants may be desperate to get in the door — and thanks to the ubiquity of artificial intelligence tools, pretending to have the skills needed to land an interview, at least, is easier than ever.

Employers set keywords through applicant tracking systems to find certain skills, but job applicants have long been wise to this strategy. With generative AI tools, they can use those same keywords to bust through screening processes — an “explosion of convenience” that has made recruiting difficult for everyone, Paul Farnsworth, president of Dice, a tech career marketplace, told HR Dive.  

“There’s a volume problem and it’s likely this problem will be something we will be dealing with for a while,” he said.

So what can be done to ensure hiring companies aren’t “skillfished,” or tricked, into hiring a less-than-ideal candidate?

Put in the time

“When it comes to employee selection, I like to use the phrase, ‘Hire hard, manage easy,’” Cindy Parker, instructional professor of management at the Costello College of Business at George Mason University, said in an email.

In other words, employers that take the time to build a selection process that assesses skills, knowledge and cultural fit will avoid skillfishing traps, Parker said.

Though this may indeed extend the hiring timeline, that may not be an issue at the moment. “In today’s labor market, where qualified candidates are plentiful and jobs are scarce, fear of candidates slipping off the hook isn’t a significant concern,” she continued.

Solidify the interview process

In the era of AI tool use, interviews are increasingly key, Parker said.

Pre-screen interviews may have once been about verifying credentials and other aspects of the resume, but these days “skills verification” questions are more common in these interviews, Parker explained.

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