Webinar - The Rising Risk of Candidate Fraud and How Hiring Teams are Responding

The Rising Risk of Candidate Fraud and How Hiring Teams are Responding

Candidate fraud has become one of the fastest-rising risks in hiring. Fake candidates are no longer an edge case, and thanks to widely available AI tools, they’re no longer easy to spot. Gartner projects that 1 in 4 candidate profiles will be fake by 2028, and 41% of security leaders say their organization has already hired one.

In this panel discussion, BrightHire co-founder and CEO Ben Sesser sat down with Josh Elmore, Global Head of Talent Acquisition and People Operations at Zoom; Joshua Fattal, a privacy, AI, and data security attorney at Morrison Foerster; and Meric Bloch, a workplace investigator and Fordham Law professor. Together they cover where candidate fraud shows up across the hiring funnel, what it puts at risk, and the practical steps hiring teams are taking to defend against it.

Candidate fraud has become a security risk

For most of hiring’s history, teams could assume the person on the other side of the process was who they claimed to be. Today, AI has made it cheap and easy to fake an identity or fabricate credentials.

The consequences reach well past wasted time for hiring teams. A fraudulent hire is an insider threat with real credentials and system access, exposing the business to IP theft, data loss, ransomware, and even sanctions violations. As Joshua Fattal notes in this discussion, there’s no “we didn’t know” defense: liability applies whether or not a company was aware.

That’s why the panel treats candidate fraud as a security problem, not just a recruiting one, and why hiring teams are feeling the urgency. In live polls during the webinar, respondents shared:

83%
Have faced suspected or confirmed candidate fraud in the past year.

37%
Rank security or ransomware as their top fraud concern.

3 / 5
Average confidence in catching a sophisticated fake candidate today on a scale of 1-5.

Nearly every team has encountered candidate fraud, most now see it as a security issue, and few are confident they could catch a sophisticated fake. Closing that gap is what this conversation is about.

What you’ll learn

Why candidate fraud is now a security risk, not just a recruiting problem

The full scope of what a fraudulent hire puts at risk, from IP theft to sanctions exposure.

Where fraud hides across the hiring funnel

How fake candidates slip through at the application, the recruiter screen, and the live interview, and where they’re hardest to catch.

The red flags worth training your team to spot

The short list of signals experienced investigators and TA leaders watch for first.

What to do when a candidate gets flagged

The human-in-the-loop protocol that stands up to scrutiny, and the legal risk of getting it wrong.

How to detect fraud without creating legal exposure

What the US privacy patchwork and the EU AI Act mean for the data you collect, and how to stay compliant.

“Every touchpoint you have with a candidate is where fraud could show up.” – Josh Elmore, Global Head of Talent Acquisition and People Operations at Zoom

Want to see how BrightHire surfaces candidate fraud signals inside the interview? Explore BrightHire’s candidate fraud detection.