I was recruiting developers for 5 years or so. We've had a few ones who managed to almost slip by like this. Almost... The most obvious was when I started doin

I was recruiting developers for 5 years or so. We've had a few ones who managed to almost slip by like this. Almost... The most obvious was when I started doing it, there was the one who copied a project from Github and presented as his own work. "Hey look what I built!" kind of a thing. The problem is I like work samples (more than whiteboard algorithm puzzles), they perhaps didn't plan on that, so I got excited and start asking questions. Usually that leads to a great time and I learn a lot about their work, attitude, how well they can explain a problem etc. Well it turns out he couldn't explain how it works. I was baffled. Here is this awesome candidate -- personable, friendly and built this great application but was having difficulty explaining the basics. So I asked my coworker during lunch. He went did some research and found the original project on GH. I felt like an idiot after that. But better me feeling like an idiot that spending months on salary and admin work only to find we got a dud.