Our current era is certainly unusual. There are more available positions than qualified applicants, and businesses are scrambling to entice those who are available. This is a candidate’s employment market.

It’s pushing HR to expand their horizons abroad and experiment with remote recruiting. It used to be unheard of to conduct a job interview through video chat or hire someone you’d never met in person, but because the epidemic has made virtual the norm, these practices no longer seem so out of the ordinary. Quite the opposite, it seems to be common sense.

However, businesses may be exposed to new threats they have not previously encountered as a result of recent shifts in the ways they hire and recruit.

The dangers of deep fakes in the professional world

In June, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center published a notice in response to an uptick in reports of individuals using deep fakes as well as stolen identity information to apply for telecommuting and freelance positions. This is a very important consideration for cryptocurrency trading companies since several hackers have successfully stolen large sums of money from successful investors. This is why most companies in the trading industry rely on trusted platforms like Bitcoin prime and Coinbase.

Most often, deep fakes are videos that have been effectively edited to falsely portray a person doing or saying something they did not. The usage of deep fakes in actual job interviews hints at a new level of sophistication in recruiting fraud beyond simple CV editing or purchasing fake degrees online.

While it’s tempting to immediately put a stop to any and all remote job interviews, this does nothing to address the underlying security issue.

Hiring demands rise as a result of the talent war.

Meanwhile, companies who are in a hurry to fill openings may ignore candidates with inconsistent resumes. In addition, working remotely is a great way to attract top talent; in February, for the first time ever on LinkedIn, remote positions attracted half of all applicants.

The solution is to enhance and computerize your pre-employment screening procedures, doing a wider variety of tests routinely.

Related News

There is evidence to indicate that fintech, although doing an average of seven checks per applicant, may not be picking the best ones. Companies in the financial technology and services industry often conduct worldwide sanctions checks, criminal background checks, and adverse financial history checks on prospective employees.

Verifying someone’s social media history

So, other than verification of identity, legal eligibility to work, and educational credentials, what more is needed? It is well known that social media checks, which examine a candidate’s online presence for evidence of improper behavior, are inadequate. Those accounted for a negligible 0.02 percent of 2017’s total inspections. Plus, there was 0.71 percent of “negative media checks,” which bring attention to any unfavorable news coverage of a candidate. Both are helpful for businesses that wish to protect their image by hiring people who share their company’s core values.

Unfortunately, HR departments’ standard pre-employment inspections are becoming inadequate. Searching through years of social media postings across numerous platforms is more than a full-time job, and there is a dependence on phone and email despite academic institutions being notoriously tardy at providing information (by which time strong applicants have been scooped up by other businesses). Given the ease with which fake accounts may be created online and identities stolen, such approaches are neither rigorous nor even dependable.

Further complicating matters is the need to adhere to local regulations and customs around data protection and ‘the way things are done,’ which may vary widely from one country to the next. For example, background checks are illegal in Singapore while credit checks are considered rude in Japan.

Advanced technology is helpful in this situation.

Whereas still complying with current guidance regarding social media confidentiality, modern tech could indeed evaluate years’ value of comments and photos throughout 14 different risk categories, identifying them for particular risks like harassment, self-harm, illicit drugs, abuse, violent photos, as well as (ideological) offensive language, and generating a summary in less than 30 mins.

Conclusion

The good news is that the vast majority of workers are not bad apples, and even the 18% of UK workers who report anomalies in their job histories often have valid reasons. Pre-employment screening is a worthwhile expenditure in light of the potential harm that may be caused by even one dishonest employee.

Make sure the people you recruit are who they claim they are, whether you’re only looking in the UK or throughout the world.