4 ms·

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 imme

by 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.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Risk/reward is different, and also physically and psychologically more committing going in person to the companies location and interacting with other employees. It’s plausibly a crime too (actual fraud), if pushed hard enough, though most courts will just laugh at companies and tell them they clearly didn’t do enough due diligence, so most people trying it will be worried about being arrested in person. If doing fully remote, they could be dialing in from another country and immune from arrest. Makes it much easier to do.
    - lumost 4y ago
      > If doing fully remote, they could be dialing in from another country and immune from arrest. Makes it much easier to do. This also substantially increases the reward. Traveling to SF for a 2 month con as a mid-level software engineer isn't a good deal. Working remote from a low cost location for a 2 month con might be a fantastic deal.
      - lazide 4y ago
        For sure. It wouldn't surprise me if a successful con like this - even if it only went on a month or two - could net them the equivalent of a 1-2 years of normal income locally or more. If they got lucky and they ended up in a situation like a prior co-worker of mine did at IBM (he wasn't scamming them, just a Software Engineer caught in the middle of a raft of corporate acquisitions and overwhelmed leadership) where they set him adrift for YEARS without direction or line management, it could be their retirement. Bonus - chances are, little to no taxes compared to the other option too, depending on how they structured the scam. The cut-out/middle man would get left holding the bag, but what else is new. Other Bonus - they wouldn't be using their real name, so chances are, no longer term impacts to the patsy either, unless they happen to end up trying to work legitimately with someone involved at the target company years later. Pretty unlikely to bother folks involved in this type of scam, IMO.
    - FerociousTimes 4y ago
      > though most courts will just laugh at companies and tell them they clearly didn’t do enough due diligence, so most people trying it will be worried about being arrested in person. There's a contradiction here, right?
- flowersjeff 4y ago
  Totally confused why folks are not understanding/believing what you've stated. I can attest, this is happening and at 'top' tier places. I can't tell you how spot on you are regarding the camera off strategy.
  - _siis 4y ago
    Honestly, this has been happening for decades, long before remote work was a 100% thing. If they lie you fire them plain an simple. Company needs to do its due diligence, and the fact that complaints like this keep coming up trying to drive a corruptive narrative instead of performing due dilligence is just stupid, and that's on the company. Trying to characterize having the camera off as being a nefarious tactic because you can't see them working is beyond asinine. There are many good reasons to have the camera off while working. One being you are there to do work, you are being paid to do the work. One thing video has never gotten right inherently is the whole eye contact part of a video chat. When you don't look directly at someone (the angle is wrong) while you are communicating its a non-verbal sign of disrespect or in-congruence, and it causes non-verbal communication issues regardless of intent. The camera has never adjusted your eye angle, so you will always have that issue of people distrusting those communicating over video to a lesser or greater degree. With a flat picture and a phone call, you don't have that. You focus on the work and get things done. If the candidate misrepresented their expertise, fire them. If they aren't doing the work, fire them. If they plain just aren't working out for other reasons, fire them! (after due dilligence). I don't see why you have to bemoan your lack of due dilligence and instead blame it on something ludicrous like anyone with the camera off is doing this (when they aren't). Lets call this plug what it is, you want to surveil your employees like a micro manager instead of actually doing due diligence (i.e. the job of hiring). Seriously how hard is it to just fire someone that's a new-hire? Its a new position, if it doesn't work out, hire someone else, and terminate the temporary contract with the appropriate legal clause and time periods. Most work is an 'at will' position, so as an employer, if they lied, use that and 'fire at will'. Excessively surveilling your employees while they do work only does one thing, and that's drop productivity through the floor. Not only that, it shows serious deficits in Upper Management, and any skilled/experienced candidates will walk away from positions with redflags like that. You either want work to get done, or you just want to pretend that while doing something else. What's your actual priority, making money and doing the job (due dilligence is part of that), or watching your employees work in minutia and spinning a narrative. You can't have both.
- rob_austin 4y ago
  > that their internet connection isn't good enough a person who wants to work remotely but doesn't figure out how to have a good internet connection, then they are not a good fit for remote work. If a person decides to travel to a location where internet connection is not good on the day of the interview, you can imagine what he/she will do when it's a regular work day. Somebody shows up for a remote job and doesn't have a good internet connection is too big of a hiring risk to even both continuing the interview.
- sanderjd 4y ago
  What about 1:1s with their manager, though? I guess I just don't get this at all. If an organization has a bunch of people and absolutely no individual supervisory relationships with those people, then that's a much more general problem and I don't think it has all that much to do with remote work.
- Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
  Remote workers where I work have company provided business broadband, company laptop, webcam, etc. At any company serious about remote work these aren't things they should be stingy on. It's crazy that they are.
- smallerfish 4y ago
  This is why embedded is better than fully remote teams. Your engineering managers should start building relationships with candidates pre-hire, and then be doing 1:1s post hire. Even with camera off, you'd notice if somebody is not the same person, unless you have too many other responsibilities.
  - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
    what do you mean by "embedded"?
    - smallerfish 4y ago
      Developers are directly part of the team, reporting to the same engineering manager, rather than being under their own agency manager, pm, etc. You should never be going through an intermediary to work with remote devs that you hire (aside from, perhaps, the handling of payroll & benefits.)
      - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
        Oh, yeah, that's terrible. Agreed
jt2190 4y ago
In fact, if we step back a bit, a new hire _always_ brings some risk with them, because interview processes just aren’t perfect. What we’re mainly worried about here is accidentally hiring someone who we shouldn’t be able to hire, mainly for legal reasons like they’re in another country and we’re not remitting their income taxes properly. Secondarily there’s the “can they actually do the job” problem that has always existed. The new issue here is that we will now waste time on too many new hires who can’t make the grade, because we’re assuming that our hiring process was really good at weeding out the poor fits, and these “games” exploit the weaknesses. Rather than get into an arms race with fraudsters, perhaps hire two or three people for every opening on a short term and then only keep the ones who deliver.

by abeppu 4y ago

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.
- lazide 4y ago
  Risk/reward is different, and also physically and psychologically more committing going in person to the companies location and interacting with other employees. It’s plausibly a crime too (actual fraud), if pushed hard enough, though most courts will just laugh at companies and tell them they clearly didn’t do enough due diligence, so most people trying it will be worried about being arrested in person. If doing fully remote, they could be dialing in from another country and immune from arrest. Makes it much easier to do.
  - lumost 4y ago
    > If doing fully remote, they could be dialing in from another country and immune from arrest. Makes it much easier to do. This also substantially increases the reward. Traveling to SF for a 2 month con as a mid-level software engineer isn't a good deal. Working remote from a low cost location for a 2 month con might be a fantastic deal.
    - lazide 4y ago
      For sure. It wouldn't surprise me if a successful con like this - even if it only went on a month or two - could net them the equivalent of a 1-2 years of normal income locally or more. If they got lucky and they ended up in a situation like a prior co-worker of mine did at IBM (he wasn't scamming them, just a Software Engineer caught in the middle of a raft of corporate acquisitions and overwhelmed leadership) where they set him adrift for YEARS without direction or line management, it could be their retirement. Bonus - chances are, little to no taxes compared to the other option too, depending on how they structured the scam. The cut-out/middle man would get left holding the bag, but what else is new. Other Bonus - they wouldn't be using their real name, so chances are, no longer term impacts to the patsy either, unless they happen to end up trying to work legitimately with someone involved at the target company years later. Pretty unlikely to bother folks involved in this type of scam, IMO.
  - FerociousTimes 4y ago
    > though most courts will just laugh at companies and tell them they clearly didn’t do enough due diligence, so most people trying it will be worried about being arrested in person. There's a contradiction here, right?
flowersjeff 4y ago
Totally confused why folks are not understanding/believing what you've stated. I can attest, this is happening and at 'top' tier places. I can't tell you how spot on you are regarding the camera off strategy.
- _siis 4y ago
  Honestly, this has been happening for decades, long before remote work was a 100% thing. If they lie you fire them plain an simple. Company needs to do its due diligence, and the fact that complaints like this keep coming up trying to drive a corruptive narrative instead of performing due dilligence is just stupid, and that's on the company. Trying to characterize having the camera off as being a nefarious tactic because you can't see them working is beyond asinine. There are many good reasons to have the camera off while working. One being you are there to do work, you are being paid to do the work. One thing video has never gotten right inherently is the whole eye contact part of a video chat. When you don't look directly at someone (the angle is wrong) while you are communicating its a non-verbal sign of disrespect or in-congruence, and it causes non-verbal communication issues regardless of intent. The camera has never adjusted your eye angle, so you will always have that issue of people distrusting those communicating over video to a lesser or greater degree. With a flat picture and a phone call, you don't have that. You focus on the work and get things done. If the candidate misrepresented their expertise, fire them. If they aren't doing the work, fire them. If they plain just aren't working out for other reasons, fire them! (after due dilligence). I don't see why you have to bemoan your lack of due dilligence and instead blame it on something ludicrous like anyone with the camera off is doing this (when they aren't). Lets call this plug what it is, you want to surveil your employees like a micro manager instead of actually doing due diligence (i.e. the job of hiring). Seriously how hard is it to just fire someone that's a new-hire? Its a new position, if it doesn't work out, hire someone else, and terminate the temporary contract with the appropriate legal clause and time periods. Most work is an 'at will' position, so as an employer, if they lied, use that and 'fire at will'. Excessively surveilling your employees while they do work only does one thing, and that's drop productivity through the floor. Not only that, it shows serious deficits in Upper Management, and any skilled/experienced candidates will walk away from positions with redflags like that. You either want work to get done, or you just want to pretend that while doing something else. What's your actual priority, making money and doing the job (due dilligence is part of that), or watching your employees work in minutia and spinning a narrative. You can't have both.
rob_austin 4y ago
> that their internet connection isn't good enough a person who wants to work remotely but doesn't figure out how to have a good internet connection, then they are not a good fit for remote work. If a person decides to travel to a location where internet connection is not good on the day of the interview, you can imagine what he/she will do when it's a regular work day. Somebody shows up for a remote job and doesn't have a good internet connection is too big of a hiring risk to even both continuing the interview.
sanderjd 4y ago
What about 1:1s with their manager, though? I guess I just don't get this at all. If an organization has a bunch of people and absolutely no individual supervisory relationships with those people, then that's a much more general problem and I don't think it has all that much to do with remote work.
Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
Remote workers where I work have company provided business broadband, company laptop, webcam, etc. At any company serious about remote work these aren't things they should be stingy on. It's crazy that they are.
smallerfish 4y ago
This is why embedded is better than fully remote teams. Your engineering managers should start building relationships with candidates pre-hire, and then be doing 1:1s post hire. Even with camera off, you'd notice if somebody is not the same person, unless you have too many other responsibilities.
- boltzmann-brain 4y ago
  what do you mean by "embedded"?
  - smallerfish 4y ago
    Developers are directly part of the team, reporting to the same engineering manager, rather than being under their own agency manager, pm, etc. You should never be going through an intermediary to work with remote devs that you hire (aside from, perhaps, the handling of payroll & benefits.)
    - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
      Oh, yeah, that's terrible. Agreed

jt2190 4y ago

In fact, if we step back a bit, a new hire _always_ brings some risk with them, because interview processes just aren’t perfect. What we’re mainly worried about here is accidentally hiring someone who we shouldn’t be able to hire, mainly for legal reasons like they’re in another country and we’re not remitting their income taxes properly. Secondarily there’s the “can they actually do the job” problem that has always existed. The new issue here is that we will now waste time on too many new hires who can’t make the grade, because we’re assuming that our hiring process was really good at weeding out the poor fits, and these “games” exploit the weaknesses. Rather than get into an arms race with fraudsters, perhaps hire two or three people for every opening on a short term and then only keep the ones who deliver.