Is there a new cheating crisis?

Not yet, but over a year ago, I raised the alarm about the growing risk of candidate cheating and suggested we, as talent leaders, start talking to our hiring teams about this to develop a point of view (not everyone thinks it’s cheating if a candidate uses AI) and to start to mitigate hiring fraud risks.

In mid-2025, this concern is no longer hypothetical. Advances in candidate AI tools + remote interviewing + inexperienced interviewers who read questions from interview guides + standardized online assessments + an uncertain economy creating more candidates than jobs + identity fraud = current (high) risk.

OK, it’s a risk, but is this really already happening now?

I was leading a TA leadership workshop in New York, and a VP of TA for a big company said she’s now working closely with her chief information security officer to figure out how to mitigate candidate cheating, as it’s already common enough to raise serious concerns about 1) whether they’re hiring the person they think they’re hiring and 2) whether the candidate is lying about their capabilities.

They’re looking at tech to separate real humans from AI in video interviews, as typical recruiters and hiring managers aren’t sure how to uncover if they’re talking to the person they think they’re talking to, whether they can believe what they’re hearing, and what to do on a Zoom call if they suspect fraud or cheating.

Gartner shared this with their CHRO members: “Strategic Planning Assumption: By 2028, one in four candidate profiles worldwide will be fake.” I have no idea what the fake rate is now, but it’s probably increased since 2023. I don’t need to tell you about the fake resumes we’re getting bombarded with — one of our clients said they’re often seeing six to 10 almost-identical resumes coming from the same person or bot, with minor changes to names, emails, and bullets to improve their perceived chances of passing through our filtering. I’m not going to mention the names of the companies that will blast your resume to 5,000 recruiters and career sites for $100, but you know that finding the signal in the noise created by mass-apply bots is going to be terrible going forward.

Earlier this year, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai suggested hiring managers return to in-person interviews due to concerns about identity fraud, while Deloitte U.K. shifted its early career interviews back onsite after fraud indicators emerged.

Bottom line: If you’re running virtual interviews or assessments today, cheating is already happening. The question isn’t “If?” it’s “How much?” And, more importantly, “What are you going to do about it?”

What’s changed in 2025 — and what’s coming next

Here’s how cheating and fraud have evolved this year, and why it could get worse in 2026:

• Real-time AI prompting tools now whisper answers to candidates or pop responses on mirrored screens. Picture real-time teleprompting tools. One of our clients had a candidate invite their own personal AI bot to join the Zoom interview to “take notes.” In reality, it was listening to the hiring manager’s questions and prompting the candidate with near-perfect answers.

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