18 ms·

Sadly, a new risk with "100% remote anywhere" culture. Employers need to stop trusting blindly and do more due diligence. People like these are the reason why s

Sadly, a new risk with "100% remote anywhere" culture. Employers need to stop trusting blindly and do more due diligence. People like these are the reason why some employers will never trust remote employees. I suggest calling the candidate in person for 1 day at a co-working location and meet them in person once you are ready to make an offer. Pay for their time since you have anyway decided to hire them. Yes, this adds cost to you but it will be a huge deterrence for fraud. If a candidate doesn't like it, they can move on.

gtirloni 4y ago
How's that different than one person showing for an on-site interview and then another person on the first day at the job?
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  Ease of doing so.
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
As an interviewee I'd consider the 1 day of co-working an indication that the job isn't as "100% remote" as the posting says. It's a problem now as some employers start trying to claw workers back into the office and pretend the last few years of productivity never happened. But I also have a good quality camera I turn on for interviews and meetings, so you can be sure it's me the whole time.
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  How is that a problem though if the employer is upfront and honest that its to make sure you are who you say you are, and everyone honestly wants to get to know one another? As an interviewee I'd take this as a very good sign that the company is serious about offering me a long term position. If I'm living on the west coast and my employer is on the east coast and my contract says 100% remote I'd seriously doubt the company is trying to fool me by wanting to meet me for one day, on their own dime, without further interviews.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    It absolutely shows commitment to me getting a job, sure, but it shows that the company fundamentally doesn't trust remote workers. I would assume that I'd be spending a lot of time being asked to fly out as time went on.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      > it shows that the company fundamentally doesn't trust remote workers There's a difference between trusting remote employees and aspiring employees. I wouldn't hold it against the company if they want to do proper due diligence on a prospective employee especially given real-world accounts of such frauds occurring.
      - Goronmon 4y ago
        There's a difference between trusting remote employees and aspiring employees. Why should an aspiring employee trust that a company is going to allow 100% remote if the first thing the company expects you to do is to travel into the office?
        ghaff 4y ago
        Fully remote does not necessarily mean zero travel and very often doesn’t.
        nottorp 4y ago
        Then it's not fully remote.
        lmm 4y ago
        adverb: fully 1. completely or entirely It absolutely does mean zero travel.
  - nottorp 4y ago
    > How is that a problem though if the employer is upfront and honest that its to make sure you are who you say you are, and everyone honestly wants to get to know one another? Are they? I've been recently contacted for remote positions that turned out to be not remote twice.
masterof0 4y ago
I think you would have a hard time getting a valid candidate from Louisville, MO, to take a ~5 hours flight to LA, for a job that was supposed to be remote. Maybe the reason the candidate is looking for a remote job, is they don't have to travel? But I get what you say, maybe this approach is better when hiring in the same city/area.
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  Put it on a Friday, let them stay the weekend, and pay all the expenses. My company does that for a less glamorous location than LA and I loved it. It is essentially a vacation, and if you are deciding to relocate, a good opportunity to explore potential homes/neighborhoods. But I like exploring new places. I’m not sure how popular all expenses paid weekend vacations are.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    The very reason I want remote is to stay around my family, this seems to be made to appeal to the young and/or unattached.
    - fknorangesite 4y ago
      I love my family, but that doesn't mean I would object to a weekend away.
  - drc500free 4y ago
    Having worked in business travel tech, and run a LOT of customer interviews, travelers have very different views on it. Some love it, some hate it, some are in it for the points or for the tourism. The only thing business travelers have in common is that they all think everyone views business travel just like they do.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  really? At my company, full time WFH still expects a couple trips a year to meet up with the team.
abeppu 4y ago
Maybe I'm missing something basic, but why is this a remote issue? The person who interviewed is not the person who tried to start working, and the company immediately saw this. In the old days one could also try to fraudulently arrange to have the person who did in-person interviews be different than the person who shows up on day 1 ... and you'd likely still be caught, right? Is the only additional risk of remote work that fraudulent applicants have a broader pool of fake interviewees to hire? Generally in my experiences as a candidate, _someone_ on the interview loop is with the team one would end up working with, and should catch this kind of thing. Generally as an interviewer, whether remote or onsite, it hasn't been part of the process to check the ID of the person I'm speaking to (and I'm not confident I could spot a fake anyway). Thinking back to a time where I did a day of interviews at a BigCorp and I don't know that any of my interviewers were on the specific team I'd work with ... I don't recall any rigorous attempt to establish my identity on the day.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > Maybe I'm missing something basic, but why is this a remote issue? Far easier to blend in as a remote employee. Usually when this happens, the fake employee will come up with excuses to leave video off: They'll say their camera isn't working today or that their internet connection isn't good enough to turn the camera on right now. If they do turn it on, it will be massively backlit so you can't see their face. Many companies don't even expect people to have video at all. The identity-swapping fraudsters are hoping that their companies fall into this category.
  - lumost 4y ago
    I'm suspicious this is also affecting the hiring pipeline at top-tier firms. Student hiring programs rarely include an interviewer from your future team, It would be incredibly easy to pay someone a few thousand to crush the leet code rounds. The ROI of such a fraud would easily exceed 10-100x. I'm not entirely sure there is a good fix for this, the problem would have always existed with in-person work as well - however the perceived risk/reward ratio would be different.
vsareto 4y ago
>People like these are the reason why some employers will never trust remote employees. So what? Those are irrational beliefs. Why should we care that someone never trusts remote workers? You can never be 100% secure against fraud just like you can never be 100% secure against hacking. We should certainly try to reduce the incidence of fraud, but only if you don't sacrifice the ability to hire who and when you need to.
- lazide 4y ago
  Arguably not irrational, but even if it was, it matters because it causes a chilling effect for hiring. Which WILL result in folks not being able to get hired that otherwise would be. It also will result in positions not being filled that are important at companies we likely depend on, resulting in lower quality of service and/or failures of those services. It’s poisoning the remote employment well, essentially.
fundad 4y ago
Yes or at least check a copy of their ID and run a background check.
apohn 4y ago
>Sadly, a new risk with "100% remote anywhere" culture. I think this is a new risk when it comes to hiring engineers. This kind of fraud has been present outside of Engineering orgs for a long time. I used to be a hiring manager in a well known company that was 100% onsite. This was on the business side, not IT/Engineering. We were looking for a BI person as a contract hire. Our HR org said they had a staffing agency they had worked with for years. The staffing agency sent us a bunch of resumes that were surprisingly similar, filled with every buzzword and feature (e.g. I made a bar chart) and obviously weren't written by the candidates. After throwing those out, there were a few that looked decent. We had some phone screens and then a single onsite interview, but concluded there was something fishy going on. I confronted rep from the staffing agency with with this and their response was that typically somebody in a managerial position (at our company) picked a few resumes, had a phone call (not video, just phone) with them, then hired somebody based on the phone call. My team was the first one that had actually done more than that. Who showed up on the first day, who actually did the work, I don't think anybody had any clue. The non-technical managers didn't have the skillset to properly evaluate these candidates. So they saw the keywords and picked the person that sounded the best. Engineers hopefully have the skillset to evaluate and interview other Engineers, so the fraud is different and more sophisticated now. IMHO, if you're the type of manager who hires somebody like this and what you wanted done gets done, you've probably got bigger problems than a staffing agency scamming you. If you think it's rocket science to build a couple of charts in a BI tool and you're happy when the person you hired takes 6 months to build a couple of dashboards at $100/hr...good luck to you.
ilamont 4y ago
Not only that: Make it clear in the job listing that an in-person interview will be part of the hiring process even for remote positions. This will avoid wasting time later in the process as most fraudsters won't bother applying.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  And most candidates.. win-win?
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Sue them for fraud? If employers are being bamboozled by this why aren't they suing? If there are no consequences it'll keep happening.
- nradov 4y ago
  It would be difficult for an employer to show actual damages in a lawsuit. The cost of litigating outweighs any possible benefit.
fallingknife 4y ago
Why not just screenshot the interview call and check against when they show up on their first day?

gtirloni 4y ago

How's that different than one person showing for an on-site interview and then another person on the first day at the job?

xboxnolifes 4y ago
Ease of doing so.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

As an interviewee I'd consider the 1 day of co-working an indication that the job isn't as "100% remote" as the posting says. It's a problem now as some employers start trying to claw workers back into the office and pretend the last few years of productivity never happened. But I also have a good quality camera I turn on for interviews and meetings, so you can be sure it's me the whole time.

Ancalagon 4y ago
How is that a problem though if the employer is upfront and honest that its to make sure you are who you say you are, and everyone honestly wants to get to know one another? As an interviewee I'd take this as a very good sign that the company is serious about offering me a long term position. If I'm living on the west coast and my employer is on the east coast and my contract says 100% remote I'd seriously doubt the company is trying to fool me by wanting to meet me for one day, on their own dime, without further interviews.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  It absolutely shows commitment to me getting a job, sure, but it shows that the company fundamentally doesn't trust remote workers. I would assume that I'd be spending a lot of time being asked to fly out as time went on.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    > it shows that the company fundamentally doesn't trust remote workers There's a difference between trusting remote employees and aspiring employees. I wouldn't hold it against the company if they want to do proper due diligence on a prospective employee especially given real-world accounts of such frauds occurring.
    - Goronmon 4y ago
      There's a difference between trusting remote employees and aspiring employees. Why should an aspiring employee trust that a company is going to allow 100% remote if the first thing the company expects you to do is to travel into the office?
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Fully remote does not necessarily mean zero travel and very often doesn’t.
        nottorp 4y ago
        Then it's not fully remote.
        lmm 4y ago
        adverb: fully 1. completely or entirely It absolutely does mean zero travel.
- nottorp 4y ago
  > How is that a problem though if the employer is upfront and honest that its to make sure you are who you say you are, and everyone honestly wants to get to know one another? Are they? I've been recently contacted for remote positions that turned out to be not remote twice.

masterof0 4y ago

I think you would have a hard time getting a valid candidate from Louisville, MO, to take a ~5 hours flight to LA, for a job that was supposed to be remote. Maybe the reason the candidate is looking for a remote job, is they don't have to travel? But I get what you say, maybe this approach is better when hiring in the same city/area.

n8cpdx 4y ago
Put it on a Friday, let them stay the weekend, and pay all the expenses. My company does that for a less glamorous location than LA and I loved it. It is essentially a vacation, and if you are deciding to relocate, a good opportunity to explore potential homes/neighborhoods. But I like exploring new places. I’m not sure how popular all expenses paid weekend vacations are.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  The very reason I want remote is to stay around my family, this seems to be made to appeal to the young and/or unattached.
  - fknorangesite 4y ago
    I love my family, but that doesn't mean I would object to a weekend away.
- drc500free 4y ago
  Having worked in business travel tech, and run a LOT of customer interviews, travelers have very different views on it. Some love it, some hate it, some are in it for the points or for the tourism. The only thing business travelers have in common is that they all think everyone views business travel just like they do.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
really? At my company, full time WFH still expects a couple trips a year to meet up with the team.

abeppu 4y ago

Maybe I'm missing something basic, but why is this a remote issue? The person who interviewed is not the person who tried to start working, and the company immediately saw this. In the old days one could also try to fraudulently arrange to have the person who did in-person interviews be different than the person who shows up on day 1 ... and you'd likely still be caught, right? Is the only additional risk of remote work that fraudulent applicants have a broader pool of fake interviewees to hire? Generally in my experiences as a candidate, _someone_ on the interview loop is with the team one would end up working with, and should catch this kind of thing. Generally as an interviewer, whether remote or onsite, it hasn't been part of the process to check the ID of the person I'm speaking to (and I'm not confident I could spot a fake anyway). Thinking back to a time where I did a day of interviews at a BigCorp and I don't know that any of my interviewers were on the specific team I'd work with ... I don't recall any rigorous attempt to establish my identity on the day.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> Maybe I'm missing something basic, but why is this a remote issue? Far easier to blend in as a remote employee. Usually when this happens, the fake employee will come up with excuses to leave video off: They'll say their camera isn't working today or that their internet connection isn't good enough to turn the camera on right now. If they do turn it on, it will be massively backlit so you can't see their face. Many companies don't even expect people to have video at all. The identity-swapping fraudsters are hoping that their companies fall into this category.
- lumost 4y ago
  I'm suspicious this is also affecting the hiring pipeline at top-tier firms. Student hiring programs rarely include an interviewer from your future team, It would be incredibly easy to pay someone a few thousand to crush the leet code rounds. The ROI of such a fraud would easily exceed 10-100x. I'm not entirely sure there is a good fix for this, the problem would have always existed with in-person work as well - however the perceived risk/reward ratio would be different.

vsareto 4y ago

>People like these are the reason why some employers will never trust remote employees. So what? Those are irrational beliefs. Why should we care that someone never trusts remote workers? You can never be 100% secure against fraud just like you can never be 100% secure against hacking. We should certainly try to reduce the incidence of fraud, but only if you don't sacrifice the ability to hire who and when you need to.

lazide 4y ago
Arguably not irrational, but even if it was, it matters because it causes a chilling effect for hiring. Which WILL result in folks not being able to get hired that otherwise would be. It also will result in positions not being filled that are important at companies we likely depend on, resulting in lower quality of service and/or failures of those services. It’s poisoning the remote employment well, essentially.

fundad 4y ago

Yes or at least check a copy of their ID and run a background check.

apohn 4y ago

>Sadly, a new risk with "100% remote anywhere" culture. I think this is a new risk when it comes to hiring engineers. This kind of fraud has been present outside of Engineering orgs for a long time. I used to be a hiring manager in a well known company that was 100% onsite. This was on the business side, not IT/Engineering. We were looking for a BI person as a contract hire. Our HR org said they had a staffing agency they had worked with for years. The staffing agency sent us a bunch of resumes that were surprisingly similar, filled with every buzzword and feature (e.g. I made a bar chart) and obviously weren't written by the candidates. After throwing those out, there were a few that looked decent. We had some phone screens and then a single onsite interview, but concluded there was something fishy going on. I confronted rep from the staffing agency with with this and their response was that typically somebody in a managerial position (at our company) picked a few resumes, had a phone call (not video, just phone) with them, then hired somebody based on the phone call. My team was the first one that had actually done more than that. Who showed up on the first day, who actually did the work, I don't think anybody had any clue. The non-technical managers didn't have the skillset to properly evaluate these candidates. So they saw the keywords and picked the person that sounded the best. Engineers hopefully have the skillset to evaluate and interview other Engineers, so the fraud is different and more sophisticated now. IMHO, if you're the type of manager who hires somebody like this and what you wanted done gets done, you've probably got bigger problems than a staffing agency scamming you. If you think it's rocket science to build a couple of charts in a BI tool and you're happy when the person you hired takes 6 months to build a couple of dashboards at $100/hr...good luck to you.

ilamont 4y ago

Not only that: Make it clear in the job listing that an in-person interview will be part of the hiring process even for remote positions. This will avoid wasting time later in the process as most fraudsters won't bother applying.

ipaddr 4y ago
And most candidates.. win-win?

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

Sue them for fraud? If employers are being bamboozled by this why aren't they suing? If there are no consequences it'll keep happening.

nradov 4y ago
It would be difficult for an employer to show actual damages in a lawsuit. The cost of litigating outweighs any possible benefit.

fallingknife 4y ago

Why not just screenshot the interview call and check against when they show up on their first day?