Episode
CSI: Hiring Funnel —
AI Fraud, Fake Candidates & Trust Signals
with Maryam Mahdaviani, CEO, Attesto
AI-generated resumes. Deepfake interviews. Candidates who aren't who they say they are. The hiring funnel has a fraud problem — and most companies have no idea how bad it's gotten.
Maryam Mahdaviani, founder and CEO of Attesto, joins Des and Ashley to break down what's actually happening inside the funnel — the spectrum of fraud from inflated resumes to fabricated identities to North Korea-linked cybersecurity threats — and what building real trust signals into your hiring process actually looks like.
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Episode Transcript
Full conversation — searchable and screen-reader friendly
Desiree: We're talking about AI and fraud and candidates and all the wonky resume stuff we see out there — and we have a great guest. Maryam Mahdaviani is the founder of Attesto. Maryam, tell us what Attesto does.
Maryam Mahdaviani: At Attesto, we are building the trust layer for hiring. We work closely with talent acquisition teams to use various data, signals, and models to identify candidates that are fit — and also authentic — doing so in a transparent way, in a responsible way, and in a way that isn't compromising the candidate experience. Finding the right candidates and filling the position, yes, but doing it with trust at the center.
Maryam Mahdaviani: The past few years, the problem started with easy apply tools — candidates could apply on their behalf across hundreds of jobs, which increased volume. Companies started recruiting globally and remotely, so the talent pool got bigger. Then AI came in to help TA teams become more productive — solving somewhat older volume problems. But then last year we started seeing the new problems that AI actually created. AI became available to fraudsters. AI became available to bots. And even non-fraudsters — actual authentic candidates — started feeling like: I have to compete, why not use AI to inflate my resume or make up things here and there? So now we have a flood of noise: unqualified candidates, AND seemingly qualified candidates that are not authentic.
Ashley: The biggest thing I'm hearing is that it almost seems like the social footprint of the person supersedes their actual tactical skillset and performance. You can now use AI to create a social media footprint — LinkedIn profile, GitHub, website — to support a fake resume. And recruiters are valuing that social proof more than actual competency assessment. We don't have assessment processes that surface real performance and skills. We're heavily relying on labels and logos. And in one fell swoop, Maryam just pointed out everything that's absolutely wrong with talent acquisition.