Comment by bigfatkitten 11 hours ago
The answer to this is for companies to do even a modicum of personnel vetting.
At the very least, make your remote candidate show up in person for their onboarding. A plane ticket and a few days of accomodation and meals is cheap in the grand scheme of things, and giving the opportunity to meet their team is good relationship building.
Sight their ID before you issue them with an account, give them a laptop etc.
They generally make no enquiries at all into the applicant’s bona fides.
The candidate sends in fake or stolen documents where the picture on the drivers license doesn’t even vaguely resemble the person who appeared on Zoom.
When you have an applicant who says they were born in Tennessee and that they’ve apparently lived in the U.S. for their whole life, you would normally expect them to speak English with native proficiency and at least have an American-sounding accent.
If they say they live in, say, Seattle, you’d expect they could carry on at least a basic conversation about their local area.
Even this basic level of attention to detail nonetheless escapes many HR departments and hiring managers.
I have known many people born in the US who learn English as a second language with a think accent. Employers have to use legally qualified means to discriminate applicants to avoid violations of various laws.
> If they say they live in, say, Seattle, you’d expect they could carry on at least a basic conversation about their local area.
When I was working at $LargeCompany, we were encouraged to NOT engage in small talk with applicants beyond the regular politeness. It's too easy to ask questions that would open the company to discrimination lawsuits.
> The answer to this is for companies to do even a modicum of personnel vetting.
They do. That is clearly not enough.