> right now in particular, the terrible market combined with the intricacy of AI-generated applications for candidates that don't exist (this is the most bizarr

> right now in particular, the terrible market combined with the intricacy of AI-generated applications for candidates that don't exist (this is the most bizarre trend I've experienced thus far This is a major problem and isn't widely talked about because it's only seen by HR and hiring managers. For nearly any engineering job post, companies are getting flooded with resumes from fake candidates in other countries. At first they were easy to spot (their linkedin account would be < 6 months old, they would apply using a VPN, they would have a VOIP telephone number) but they're getting more sophisticated and harder to weed out real candidates from fake. The worst part is that the fake candidates are always the ones with the best resumes (since they're fake, their resumes are often also faked and tailored exactly the the job description) The use of AI during interviews is also a major issue - hiring teams are slowly realizing that the types of questions and interview challenges that worked before no longer work today due to the rise in AI-assisted interview tools that candidates use. It's common to ask a question, then see the candidate wait a few seconds before they start to answer (w It's really hard when you have 500 applicants in the first day of posting a full stack role, and 80-90% of them aren't real people.