What if some job applicants aren’t actually trying to get jobs — but are instead trying to infiltrate companies? Dani Tepedjiyska, who works with the recruitment firm Michael Page, describes a strange and growing world of fake resumes, organized applicant networks, AI-assisted interviews, and suspicious staffing firms that may be helping fraudulent actors gain access to banks and other financial institutions. We talk about the real-world signs she’s seen while interviewing deceptive candidates — from people secretly receiving answers during interviews to applicants who suddenly crack under simple follow-up questions. We also explore how AI tools are making this kind of fraud much easier, why remote work creates new vulnerabilities, and how some infiltrators may be playing a very long game. Along the way, Dani shares practical insights for job seekers about how recruiters analyze applicant resumes and behavior, and tips on optimal LinkedIn strategies.
Episode links:
- YouTube (includes video)
- Apple Podcasts
- Spotify
Resources mentioned in or related to this talk:
- Reddit thread about fake job applicants
- Australian Financial Review article: How North Korean deepfakes are duping hiring managers
- Forbes article: Fake job seekers are exploiting AI to scam job hunters and businesses
- Justice department post on North Koreans fraudulently gaining jobs posing as Americans
TRANSCRIPT
(transcripts are automatically generated and will contain errors)
Dani Tepedjiyska: A lot of these individuals… they’re looking to sell that information to fraudulent groups that are essentially sponsoring them. So where I’ve seen an example of that being very organized is… there’s multiple people that are applying or that have gotten employment from you that are all residing at the exact same address.
Zach Elwood: What are some indicators that, uh, you know, alert you to the fact that somebody’s maybe being deceptive or underhanded in their approach?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Surprisingly enough, some of the, some of those individuals are some of the most polished, you know, uh, candidates I’ve, I’ve seen in the market. They always dress very professional… They start off very confident. They have a lot to say. Where they really start to crack is when you ask them some more pointed questions.
Zach Elwood: That was a clip from my talk with Dani Tepedjiyska. Dani is a recruiter at the recruitment firm Michael Page; she specializes in recruiting and placing applicants in positions related to financial crime prevention. I met Dani when I recently attended a conference in New York City highlighting women working in anti-financial crime areas, which was put on by the organization Coalition Against Financial Crime. At that event, Dani won the Anti-Financial Crime Recruiter of the Year award.
Dani spoke about experiences she and others have had with deceptive job applicants; people with a variety of suspicious behaviors and possible malicious motives. Some of these applicants are suspected of trying to gain access to sensitive data and processes in order to do malicious and illegal things. This was an interesting discussion and why I wanted to talk to Dani.
The rise of AI has resulted in a proliferation of scams. I’ve been looking for work recently and I’ve seen this proliferation first-hand, in addition to seeing many people on linkedin talking about such scams happening to them. I’ve had quite a few fake recruiters reach out to me, with a variety of approaches; one sophisticated one pretended to be a real recruiter and sent me several long AI-generated emails tailored to my own experiences and resume. Kind of interesting in that case: the main immediate tell of their deception was how much they fawned over me and also just how much they wrote; both those things immediately stood out to me as suspicious. But still, these approaches are all getting much more sophisticated.
To give you a sense of the problem from the hiring side, the following is from a 2025 Forbes article titled Fake Job Seekers Are Exploiting AI To Scam Job Hunters And Businesses:
It’s hard for people to find a job in this current market. To make matters worse, the U.S. job market is contending with a growing threat of fraudulent job applicants. They are armed with artificial intelligence (AI) tools that deceive hiring managers to secure remote positions. Using deep fake videos, voice manipulation, and fabricated resumes, these impostors exploit generative AI to create convincing false identities. This scam isn’t just a hiring headache. It’s a cybersecurity crisis. Bad actors are infiltrating companies to steal data, plant malware, or steal funds. As remote work surges, businesses, recruiters, hiring managers, and job hunters must be careful and cautious.
End quote
The following comes from an Australian Financial Review article from 2025 titled “How North Korean deepfakes are duping hiring managers”:
A quiet plague of organised criminals and nefarious state hackers have been using artificial intelligence to pose as remote job applicants in an effort to infiltrate companies from the inside, steal data and hold them to ransom.
Farther on in the article it reads:
Companies that have fallen victim to the practice have generally refused to speak publicly or to be identified. But over the past 18 months there have been several reported cases of North Korean state hackers using AI to create intricate counterfeit personas to apply for jobs, particularly at major US-based companies.
Fake applicants are using AI deepfake software to trick interviewers on video and phone calls.
The practice became so widespread at the tail end of last year that Sam Rubin, senior vice president at cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks, told a San Francisco conference: “If you’re hiring contract workers, you either are interviewing or have already hired a North Korean.”
End quote
From my brief research into this area, it seems there can be a multitude of motives for deceptive practices by job applicants. Dani talks about her suspicions that some applicants she’s talked to have been deceptive and have had malicious motives. But it seems that it can be hard to pinpoint the scale of the problem, largely because if an applicant does seem fishy, they almost certainly won’t be hired, so those suspicions likely will never be confirmed. And if an applicant with malicious motives succeeds in getting the job, their malicious actions may never be found out. So it’s a vague area for understandable reasons. The vagueness seems to be aided by the fact that, as mentioned in that article I just read, companies don’t like to talk about their internal security failures; there can be incentives to not draw attention to such failures and to handle such things privately.
I talk to Dani about the experiences she’s had recruiting and interviewing job applicants, including what has stood out to her as suspicious behaviors. Toward the end we talk about some tips she has for job seekers.
For completely self-serving purposes I wanted to mention again that I’m currently looking for work. These days I’m in New York City. My primary career has been as a technical writer for software companies, explaining highly technical features to developer audiences. I’ve worked at the observability company New Relic and Amazon, and I’ve held Senior and Lead roles. But related to the topic of this episode, I’ve also had a side career since 2017 of independent investigative journalism, so I’ve also been applying to a few investigative roles that have interested me. I’m currently open to any independent research and open source investigative type projects, including one-off projects. If you want to know more, reach out to me using the contact form at my site behavior-podcast.com.
If you’re interested in crime- and investigative-related topics, you should subscribe to this podcast on the platform you prefer. I’ll continue having guests who work in these spaces, including an upcoming interview with the renowned investigator Craig Silverman.
Okay here’s the talk with Dani Tepedjiyska, who works with the recruitment firm Michael Page:
Dani Tepedjiyska: Hi,
Zach Elwood: Dani. Thanks for joining me.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Of
course. I’m so excited. Thank you for having me.
Zach Elwood: Yeah. So, uh, when I saw you speak recently at the, the Fraud Prevention Conference, I, I was very interested in what you were saying about people, applicants at, uh, job applicants who had ulterior sh- uh, shady motives who were trying to get employed and infiltrate companies, and I was…
wanted to talk to you about that obviously. So I was curious, maybe you could talk a little bit about w- what the motives are for people who are doing that sort of thing.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a topic that not many people talk about. I think it can– A lot of behind the scenes, I think a lot of staffing firms are seeing it firsthand, but I do think there’s a bit of a stigma there as far as talking about it because a lot of the times if you’re talking about it as a recruiter, to some extent, you know, potentially you’re admitting to some faults in, in your own organization, in your own process.
So I think a lot of the times people like to, to kind of leave that, um, under wraps. Um, but a lot of, a lot of these individuals, their, their reasoning is not financial gain. It’s not employment. Actually, that’s probably the least of, of their concerns. Um, really the, their reasons are, you know, far more nefarious than that.
They’re looking to, a lot of the times, sell that information to fraudulent groups that are essentially sponsoring them, right? And in, in some ways they’re sponsoring them by giving them housing. They’ll have a house in the middle of nowhere, a lot of the times in Texas, that would house a couple of, of those individuals in that place.
So that could be a reason on its own. Um, but in a lot of ways they are essentially selling that information back to these fraudulent organizations, feeding them intel and relaying back to them sensitive information, gaining access to email addresses with certain organizations, uh, that they can then use to kind of their advantage.
Um, so there’s a lot of those reasons, again, are far deeper than people think at first, at first glance.
Zach Elwood: You know, when you talk about getting access to information, is it like stealing emails to sell on the black market kind of stuff? Is it, you know, getting access to those databases or what, you know, what are the, what are the kinds of range of things when we talk about infiltrating and, and getting data out?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. I mean, it’s obviously that email address then could be, you can, you can use it to sign up for, you know, sign up for certain, um, services or to, to your point, sell that on the black market. Um, a lot of the times it’s just being able to approve or get rid of certain emails because you have that, like, email with a certain bank or a certain crypto platform.
Zach Elwood: I don’t know if you’ve dealt with this personally, but I was reading about like, um, for example, uh, North Korea-sponsored efforts to infiltrate companies. Have you seen any y- more state-sponsored kind of things personally, or is that just something you’ve, you’ve read about?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Haven’t really seen a lot of the effects just yet.
Um, I think a lot of them are, are not public information from, from what I’ve been able to tell so far. Um, I think that there’s different countries, high-risk countries that are doing this, that are sponsoring, um, these sort of groups and, and, and getting a lot of, you know, immigrants or people who are, you know, newer to the US introduced into that, into that ecosystem.
Um, and again, providing them with housing, um, introducing them into the network to say, “Hey, they’re gonna refer you for a job.” Um, so I think that a lot of those efforts are still, like we’re still yet to see some of the consequences off of, off of these- Mm … kind of, um, schemes.
Zach Elwood: S- I know it’s probably hard to say because some of them might just be like inklings you get or, you know, suspicions you have, but, uh, do you have a sense of how much of it is like organized efforts?
You know, when you talked about like somebody putting an effort together to get applicants into companies, how much of this is like a big organized scheme versus like, you know, a small, uh, individual or a couple individuals kind of thing?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Mm-hmm. A one-off. Yeah. I think that I’ve seen it most prevalent with recruiting for a certain project, and a lot of the times the way that these individuals will go about things is they would apply to the remote project, typically a large scale project within financial crime, right?
So compliance, they would apply to that project. What they’re banking on is that if, if a bank, um, is looking to hire a lot of people, they would go through a management consulting firm. The management consulting firm essentially handles that entire process. They would go to a third-party vendor, so a staffing firm, to say, “Hey, we need the people.
So we need 50 people, let’s say, for this project.” So these individuals will then refer each other and apply through different channels. So typically, multiple staffing firms sometimes can partner up with the consulting firm on that project. And in the same, in that same breath, also multiple management consulting firms could be working on that project as well.
So these individuals will gain, try to gain information and then refer each other so that as many of them can get onto the same project. Um, so where I’ve seen an example of that being very organized is working directly with the end client to say, “Hey, there’s multiple people that are applying or that have gotten employment from you that are all residing at the exact same address.”
So there’s Five to seven people that came from a different staffing firm a lot of the times working through, you know what, a different management consulting firm that all claim they live at that exact address. When you give them a call and you say, “Hey, do you, do you have roommates? Do you live with other people there?”
A lot of the times they’ll be confused. They, you know, might not know the name of the person they, they supposedly live with. Um, and then you start hearing them, uh, sort of concoct stories as far as, “Oh, you know, that’s their, you know, that’s their American name. So when you at first asked me if I knew this person, I, I didn’t recognize, uh, you know, the name that you provided me with.”
Zach Elwood: Oh, yeah. That, I mean, that seems like a, some, some major red flags there. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, so… And I would imagine if they’re trying to infiltrate companies, they’re looking for jobs that are pretty entry-level, that are fairly easy to get into, and where the, a company is hiring multiple of those kinds of jobs.
Am I, am I right on that? And, and, and if so, what kind of j- what kinds of jobs are they pursuing that have the most likelihood of them getting into it?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. So they’re definitely going after the, the bulk hiring sort of projects. So whenever they hear around that, “Hey, you know, this bank right now is looking to hire, you know, number of, of consultants, contractors,” that’s, that to them is what they’re targeting.
So, um, not necessarily even entry-level jobs. Mm. I would say some of them are a little bit more senior level as well. Oh. So I think anything, the sweet spot would be anything in that five-year mark, three to five years, um, and remote. They w- especially during COVID, I think that’s how a lot of them were able to, to, to do this back, back, I would say 2021, 2022, when we were seeing a lot of those larger scale projects being available for people, you know, remotely all over the US.
Uh-
Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm …
Dani Tepedjiyska: that was their target.
Zach Elwood: And, um, and sorry if I’m not, um, understanding it, but when they’re, when they’re going after these bank, uh, jobs, compliance fraud type of jobs, um, may- maybe you could talk a little bit more about what exactly they’re trying to do at tho- at those specific bank jobs. I know we talked a little bit about getting data out, but-
Dani Tepedjiyska: Mm-hmm
what do
Zach Elwood: you think they’re trying to do in general, specifically? Oh,
Dani Tepedjiyska: a lot of the people are, again, they’re applying to the either anti-money laundering positions or, uh, KYC, so know your customer. So a lot of the times what they’re looking to do is understand how people, you know, how actual analysts are being able to detect red flags, alerts, suspicious activity out there, um, and then essentially go to these organizations and warn them to say, “This is how they’re catching you.
These are some of the things they’re looking out for in the transactions. These are some of the things that, uh, trigger alerts for them.” Um, so they’re just the, you know, someone on the inside to- Wow … feed them information. So,
Zach Elwood: I mean, that seems… The, I guess that was the surprising thing to me is that these places would be that, uh, organized and that they would have people Set up to give, get information like that.
Do you have a sense, like, like how many, uh, how big a problem do you think this is these days? Have you encountered many people personally that you think are, are trying to do these things?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah, I think that it, there’s a, it’s a long game for a lot of these individuals, for a lot of these fraudulent groups.
There are still candidates into the market that I’m, I’m seeing who are applying to a job. They have a great resume, but when you look back at their original job, their first job into compliance, their second job into compliance, that’s when you start to notice those unknown staffing firm names. So a lot of the times people will put on their resume that they worked for a certain large bank.
When you actually ask them, “Hey, who was your employer?” Right? Like, “Who payrollled you?” They will say, “Well, actually, it was a staffing firm, so I just put on my resume the name of the bank because that was the project I was on. However, really my employer was the staffing firm.” And a lot of the times organizations really weren’t doing their due diligence and taking a look into the staffing firm.
Um, they would just call- Mm … the staffing firm, talk to the manager, the manager will clear them, will say, “Yep, this person worked with us on this project.” But no one was actually taking a look to see, well, is the staffing firm a legitimate business? Are they really working with this large bank? Um- Mm. Or are they just clearing people?
So there were a lot of these organizations that I would, I would see pretty regularly, certain staffing firms that always claimed that they had a lot of consultants out on projects working with really, um, you know, reputable consulting firms or banks, um, and, and they would, they would clear people. But again, that, the question mark there was how legitimate is the staffing firm?
Because when you take a look at their website, you would always find that they never really had certain people listed on there. There was always just one HR number, um, that you could call, but it, it, that’s really all you got. When you take a look into LinkedIn and you search up the company, not many followers, not many employees on there.
It tend, it tended to be a lot of the actual consultants that would, um, be listed under, uh, people instead of actual employees or recruiters at the company.
Zach Elwood: Have there been, um, major stories in the, in the news about people being, uh, people or groups being caught for this kind of thing that you know of that come to mind?
Dani Tepedjiyska: I think the North Korea example you mentioned, um, a lot of those individuals were more so on the technology side of things, uh, system engineers, system implementations. Um, I haven’t seen a lot of that come out of compliance, but I do expect it to at some point come out, um, because again, some of those individuals, as I mentioned, now have successfully infiltrated, right?
So if they got cleared And actually secured a legitimate, a legitimate gig, a legitimate role. Now they have continued on to move from one project to the next to a point that it wouldn’t even pop up in their background check anymore, right? Because certain companies don’t go back far enough. So as, as time passes, they would be fully integrated into the, the ecosystem, and no one’s going to go back and check, well, who was your employer back in 2021 or 2020, right?
So I think that that is the longer term play there for a lot of these individuals is to get to a point where they’re pretty high up in their career, uh, where they’re no longer just analysts, right? Like they’ve been in the space long enough, um, and they’ll have a little bit more, more access and more, more power.
So I think that that is the, that’s the scary part.
Zach Elwood: Hmm. When you, uh, when you talked about staffing agencies that might be corrupt or, or underhanded in some way, ha- have any of those been exposed? Or is that, um, more just a, a suspicion of what might, might be happening?
Dani Tepedjiyska: A lot of the organizations I’ve worked with, the consulting firms, the banks that have caught onto this, that have, you know, sat me down to say, “Hey, this is a problem.
This is, this is something that we’re seeing a lot of.” They do have lists of certain staffing firms that they keep as sort of like a red flag to say, “Hey, these are some of the ones we’ve noticed in the market. You know, very small, not many people there. They tend to– They claim that they work with these re- reputable organizations.
Um, we have a suspicion that this is not a real staffing firm.” So- Hmm … they kinda keep track of a lot of these. And listen, the same way I do as well. I have a list of certain staffing firms I’ve come across where I’m not feeling too comfortable really submitting individuals for roles. So that list is pretty long.
You’d be surprised. Hmm. But, uh-
Zach Elwood: Yeah. Is, is it the case that the staffing agencies are actively doing something malicious, or is it the case that they’re more just lazy and, like, doing what, uh, the applicants say and not really– they’re not vetting people? I’m not really clear on that.
Dani Tepedjiyska: No, they are very much involved.
They are essentially backing them up. So that is the entire engine behind these individuals being actually able to clear background check because if it wasn’t for the staffing firm clearing them, none of this really would, would work, right? Um, but again, when you’re going through all these different layers, when you have a bank working with a consulting firm, then working with a staffing firm, things can get lost.
So, you know, you can clear someone just because you called a number of their manager and they cleared that individual, um, saying that they, they worked on a certain project. So you never really have to get any real, you know, clearance.
Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. Uh, when it comes to, um, indicators, uh, whether it’s malicious actors or maybe just people being, um, deceptive in some way when it comes to personal interactions you’ve had on calls or And I imagine it mostly happens on calls, but what are some indicators that, uh, you know, alert you to the fact that somebody’s maybe being deceptive or underhanded in their approach?
Dani Tepedjiyska: I think that they have only gotten smarter and better at, at what they do. I think, you know, surprisingly enough, some of the, some of those individuals are some of the most polished, you know, uh, candidates I’ve, I’ve seen in the market. They always dress very professional. They carry themselves, um, again, in a, you know, really professional manner, always on time for the interviews.
I, I always Zoom or Teams call my candidates. But they start off very confident. They have a lot to say. Where they really start to crack is when you ask them some more pointed questions and you, and you, um, question something that they’re saying. I think that their expectation is that a lot of recruiters in this space, you know, who maybe are not as educated, don’t know compliance as well, they’re going to hear someone who sounds really confident, um, really polished, and they’re going to say, “Great, this person is exactly what I’m looking for.
They’re hitting all the things I need them to say. Let me just move on to clear them on the job, and that can be done.” Right? “I can submit this candidate to the job.” But when you give them a little bit of pushback, which I would do all the time, that is when you see them get nervous. All of a sudden they’re not as confident.
They’re not acting as professional or as polished. So just seeing that, that change, it’s something in their eyes, right? You can kind of notice that, oh, something went wrong when you ask them a very simple clarifying question. So I’ve seen a lot of people give it away- Mm … when, when you do ask them a question back, and a lot of the times they just, they would, they would say, “Oh, my Wi-Fi does- isn’t working,” or, “I couldn’t hear you.
Can you repeat that?” Um- Oh, yeah. But– and for the people who actually are not as prepared as they should be, um, I have seen examples of people who wear glasses or maybe will sit behind, um, something that has a reflection, whether it’s, um, uh, like a mirror or, um, something where I could see their screen, right?
I’ve seen individuals who have, uh, will very clearly open up a chat of some sort, and as I’m asking questions, someone’s typing back answers. I just see that, that movement or they’re asking ChatGPT. It’s just very clear that they are communicating with someone, um- Hmm … another, another way. You know, you know, in other examples I’ve, I’ve heard people whisper answers.
If, if I could kind of hear, I’ll wear my headphones typically so I can hear a little bit more clearly what’s going on in their background. I have heard people whisper certain things to them, you know, them looking around the room, looking at someone, uh, reading off. I can see their eyes moving. They’re reading off something.
So there’s a lot of ways to tell if you care to push back and ask and really listen, which again, a lot of the times when you’re working As a recruiter, there’s a sense of a, “Okay, I just need to submit as many people as possible,” especially if I’m working on a big project, “Let me just submit this person, clear them on the job, move past it.”
So it’s easy for things to fall through the crack, but there’s definitely a lot of signs out there.
Zach Elwood: Do you think, uh… I mean, are these people that are living in the United States, or are some of these people pretending they live in the United States? Or h-h-how does that break down, you think?
Dani Tepedjiyska: A lot of the ones I’ve dealt with, they are in the United States.
I’ve seen hubs of people who would do a lot of this in, um, Dallas, in, in Maryland. Um, but I hear- I’ve heard of m-multiple different stories, especially from North Korea, people who would, you know, fake an IP address, right? Like, they would be pretending to be working out of, you know, a certain state in the US, but they actually are in North Korea.
But the individuals I’ve dealt with personally, they are. They’re, they’re in the US. They are, um… This is just a, another job to them.
Zach Elwood: Hmm. Uh, I g- yeah, I guess the thing that really surprised me about it was, I mean, I know, I know scams are so prevalent these days, but I, I kind of e-expected people to be more careful with, like, actually putting their face on something.
So I guess I, I guess I was surprised by, you know, the idea that people would be so– take such risks to theoretically, like, put themselves out there. But I guess it make- it can kinda make sense in terms of, like, well, it’s a long, it’s a long con kind of thing. Like, they’re actually gonna be doing the job and, you know, for a while, they’re actually gonna be working, and then they’re just gonna be, like, you know, doing, um, whatever things maybe on the side that they’re, that are doing underhanded things.
So it kinda makes sense in the terms of, like, if you view it as more of, like, they’re just more of, like, bad, uh, industrial espionage type of employees, which, you know, that kind of thing happens, and it’s not really that surprising. I guess, I guess at first I was just like, I’m surprised people would take such risks, but- Mm-hmm
yeah, people do do that kind of stuff all the time. It’s every day, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Um, I’ve, uh… I had an individual I, I interviewed, and I’m assuming maybe he was really early on in his, you know, this sort of work. But he had a Indeed account that I, I found his resume on, and obviously it was a compliance, uh, resume.
We had, we had a call, and at one point, you know, I just kept asking more and more questions and, and he would just, he just looked at me and he just shook his head and he’s like, “I, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying,” and, and just hung up and never spoke, never spoke to me again, right? That didn’t pick up.
I refreshed his Indeed account maybe two days after- And everything was changed back to, I guess, his actual job, right? So all the five, six years of experience he had that he claimed were at a bank working as an AML analyst, actually he was a, a, a truck driver, uh, a delivery person. So it w- all, it all went back to, I guess, whatever he was actually doing.
So I guess stopped one right there in his tracks.
Zach Elwood: Now, do you think, uh, I’m curious, I mean, because obviously there’s a lot of incentives for people to just exaggerate and lie about their experiences to get a job in general. Do you feel like it can be kinda hard to t- I mean, I imagine you must deal with a lot of people who do that even just for non-nefarious, just trying to get a job reasons, which w- might make it like you might be prone to being like, is was this a malicious actor or just somebody who was just lying to try to get a, a job?
Do you have a sense of like, a- and d- do you feel like maybe it’s made you a little paranoid being like, “Eh, is this guy some sort of a, you know, a, you know, mastermind trying to get access to things, or is he just lying to get a better job?” Do you have any thoughts on that?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. People ask me that all the time.
I’m very skeptical that if someone wants to get a job and they’re gonna fake a resume and go through that process, they would fake a financial crime resume- Hmm … and try to get into financial crimes, right? Like- Yeah, that’s a good point. You know, they can do that with other industries that are maybe gonna be a little bit less intense and, um…
And I think another part of it would pay more, because I think a- another consequence of, of this entire scheme is how this actually affects, you know, the real people, like the actual actors in, in this space, actual professionals in, within compliance. Because these, these folks were willing to take whatever.
They didn’t really care that much about the, the hourly rates. So you’re talking about an anti-money laundering analyst who’s applying to a remote job saying, “Yeah, I’ll do this for 25, 27 an hour.” Um, which the actual, looking back 2019, 2018, people within compliance with that kind of experience were making 70, 80 an hour.
Hmm. Right? Like the, the rates were significantly higher. And then I think that the introduction of these kind of, you know, uh, fraudulent actors into the space has only negatively affected, um, sort of like the market and the salaries out there for individuals. Um, because there’s all these people who are just willing to, to work for whatever salary, that I think it gave a lot of hiring managers, a lot of companies, a false sense of what salary expectations are out there.
Hmm. And I think that that then pushed a lot of people away from compliance because they said, “Hey, I can’t work for, for this kind of money. This is a very intricate job. A lot is expected out of me, especially if I’m getting into more complex, uh, industries like crypto or fintech.” I, I don’t understand why the rates are, are becoming lower than they were before.
Zach Elwood: Speaking of other indicators you’ve seen, h- I know, um, I mean, I, I personally have gotten all these messages from fake recruiters using AI to reach out to me and try to present some, you know, realistic front, like long… Actually, the AI-generated content was like the first thing that gave it away, where it was like this long thing, you know, basically like flattering me.
I’m like, “This is really weird” off the bat. But I’m curious, have you seen AI-generated content, uh, play a role in, um, or, or maybe even deepfake, uh, kind of technology that might be more rare? But, um, have you s- have you personally encountered much of that in, in applicant, uh, b-bad applicant, deceptive applications?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. I think at this point, everyone’s resume looks alike, extremely identical, right? So I’m seeing a lot of great resumes out there and a lot of people applying to jobs, so it makes it difficult for recruiters, makes it difficult for hiring managers to really distinguish who’s actually good, who, who is, you know, really who they say they are.
So I think it’s only making it easier for people to, to do things like that, to have a, a, a better resume. They can prepare, right? Like these individuals will prepare for an interview much easier now, where they can just go into, you know, an AI platform and say, “Hey, how can I go about answering these kind of questions?
What if they give me pushback?” And with how quickly AI can get back to you, they can do it live during the interview. They can pull up their phone, uh, or another monitor behind them, and as I’m speaking, it’s directly feeding into the, in the AI platform, generates an answer back, and then they sound, you know- Yeah.
It’s so easy … really, really professional. They sound good. Yeah. Yeah.
Zach Elwood: That’s crazy. I mean, yeah. That’s– It’s wild how much these tools can help enable scams and deception so much on so many fronts. I mean, it’s, it’s just wild. Um, do you have any other, uh, any other anecdotes that come to mind about interesting spots where you found somebody was, uh, saw indicators of somebody doing something, uh, underhanded?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. I think one of the, one of the scariest things about, you know, about these, these networks is that they all know each other. So a lot of the times, the people who are doing this are not just individually working with a certain organization, right? They– A lot of the times there is a really big network.
They know of each other. They refer each other. Um, so I have had experiences where, again, someone who potentially even got through to me and did really well in an interview with me was then said, “Hey, I have a couple of people I can refer over to you.” Um, I think that that, um, again, just the, the depth of, of how extensive this entire operation could be, um, but, but also it helps to then go back and see who potentially is You know, of, of imposter, um, through these references as well.
So I think it, it could also be helpful for us to catch people in that way to say, “Hey, like this person referred this individual to me.” The likelihood of them also, you know, not being who they say they are is even higher now, so.
Zach Elwood: With the rise of the AI stuff making it, you know, making it even easier, easier than ever to create good-looking resumes, realistic-looking resumes and such, does it become even more important to have, uh, services that, um, check someone’s background?
Like I, I, I would imagine that gets more important than ever, and if so, are there, are there known… I guess I’m curious if there are apps, services that are known for like, “Hey, we wanna easily check if, uh, if this person actually worked at these places.” Although I imagine it must, in many cases, require a good amount of manual review to like actually verify someone’s worked a bunch of jobs, especially if they were working through staffing agencies or something.
But curious- Mm-hmm … if you have any thoughts on that.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. I think every– That’s the difficult part. Every staffing firm has their own, you know, internal background check processes. Every bank or consulting firm that is working with them has their own requirements as far as like what needs to be seen in a background check for the person to actually clear and start.
So it makes it difficult because it’s not standard, right? Mm-hmm. Um, and I think that, to your point, it does have to be manual, unfortunately, because sometimes it, it… If someone applies to a job and on their resume they say the name of the bank and then in parentheses the staffing firm, and let’s say it’s a fraudulent staffing firm, technically speaking, when the person gets an offer and you’re going through the onboarding process, if there is a W-2 form from that staffing firm that says, “Yep, the person worked here,” that does count as a cleared background check because it matches.
Whatever’s on their resume is on their W-2. But that extra step of verifying the legitimacy of the staffing firm, no one seems to be thinking about. It, it just, it never is part of the process. So I think it, it comes down to the organization having knowledge about this and then doing their own due diligence, right, to actually check that.
But it gets a little bit dicey because there are some legitimate staffing firms out there that are smaller that do have- Right … connections to, you know, maybe the, the owner has, uh, used to work at that company and they do really have a, you know, a point of contact there, and they do really work with that firm.
But it’s difficult a lot of the times to really tell apart who’s, who’s real and who’s not.
Zach Elwood: Yeah, I guess it’s j- yeah, it’s the usual problem of like In general, I mean, I’ve been involved in hiring processes in software, uh, tech companies and, I mean, even just hiring alone is difficult because people, you know, people can exaggerate and, uh, mislead you, and it’s really hard often to really know if someone is who they say they are.
And then you add in the fact that there’s people being, you know, extra malicious on top of that, you know, and e-extra deceptive. I imagine that becomes much, uh, very hard space to navigate. Mm-hmm.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. And I think that that has made it really tough on, on staffing firms out there, right? I, I speak all the time to organizations who are very hesitant to work with a staffing firm partly because of this, right?
I think it created a lot of distrust to say, “Hey, we don’t wanna add another layer to, to this, to this process. We want to keep it as close to, to our chest as possible to really ensure that none of these things happen.” Uh, which I think then created a lot of, um, yeah, distrust. And, and I know a lot of the times I reach out to a lot of crypto platforms, fintech platforms to say, “Hey, let’s partner up with Michael Page.
We should work together, have great people in my network.” And a lot of the times their response is, “Hey, we’re really hesitant to work with third parties and really hesitant to work with staffing firms.” So that, that, you know, obviously caused a… That, that’s a consequence, um, that obviously doesn’t make me happy, but I think overall it did.
It just, um, everyone’s very worried about adding an additional layer to their process.
Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. Right. Um, I was gonna pivot to a more general topic of, um, you know, as someone who’s been applying for jobs myself recently, I was, I was curious if you have any, uh, tips about, uh, as, as a recruiter, things that, uh, are pet peeves or frustrations with, um, resumes and, and cover letters in general that if you could share like a, any tips off the top of your head that either you’ve encountered that people often do wrong or that you’ve heard, you know, the, the companies themselves, uh, complain about applicants doing wrong.
Mm-hmm.
Dani Tepedjiyska: I think whether it’s distinguishing yourself from fraudulent candidates or distinguishing yourself from your competition, because it, it has been a tough market. One of the key, the key things anyone can do, I think, is to provide references,
uh,
along with their resume because to your point about AI, there is a lot of really great resumes out there that just look identical.
So now a lot of people will say, “Hey, I applied to a job and I see that there were 200 applicants that applied within the hour. How am I going to stand out?” So I always say the people who have good relationships in this space who are able to say, “Hey, I have two to three good people who can speak on my behalf that have a good title at a, at a good company that I’ve created a relationship with over however long I’ve been in this space A lot of the times that could be a, a really big deciding factor, and it could give the hiring manager or the recruiter a sense of trust to say, “Okay, this is, this is probably someone I wanna speak with.
This is someone who, um- Right … you know, I can actually distinguish from the rest of the bunch.” So that would be one of those things. The other thing would be, you know, for me as a recruiter, I go to a lot of compliance-related events because I’m, I’m a compliance recruiter. I always urge people just, you know, stay involved, try to network with people, go to events.
Um, there’s a lot of opportunities out there to meet people in real life, and in a market like this, that can really make a difference between someone applying online versus meeting someone at an event and saying, “Hey, this is someone I actually spoke with. I’m willing to kind of go that extra step and push them through this process quicker than I would’ve if they just were another applicant online.”
Um, and then lastly, I think LinkedIn presence is very important because it does, it, it, it’s another layer of trust and credibility that someone can have, um, to their prospective, uh, industry. So I always recommend to people, update your LinkedIn and, and keep active there.
Zach Elwood: Yeah. To that last point, I recently learned, this was news to me, I talked to a recruiter who told me, you know, some of the behind-the-scenes of how LinkedIn works for recruiters, and she had taught me that the more active you are on LinkedIn, the higher up in the search results you come for like, you know, say recruiters are searching for specific, uh, keywords and such, the higher up in those- Mm-hmm
uh, results you come. And that was pretty eye-opening to me. I, I, I guess it’s, it might’ve been kind of obvious in hindsight that LinkedIn would do that to kind of like give you an incentive to use LinkedIn more if you’re, you know, looking to network or looking for jobs. But that, that seemed like a very important tip, you know?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. Yeah, and, and also replying to recruiters, right? That is, uh, one of the boxes you can click when you’re reaching out to people is people who are most likely to respond to, to a, um, it’s an InMail that essentially we send out to people. But just responding to recruiters, even if it’s to say you’re not interested, even if it’s just to kind of have a conversation, I think things like that will make you, in the algorithm, stand out a little bit more.
Right. So just highly recommend being active in that way. Um, and again, update, update your experience. Just because your resume is updated, if that’s not reflected on your actual LinkedIn background, it can be tough sometimes for recruiters to find you and like really seek you out.
Zach Elwood: Yeah. The other tip, uh, curious what you think, think of this, the other tip someone gave me was, that I thought was important, uh, was putting, uh, important keywords in your title Uh, because that really played a role in when, when recruiters were searching in LinkedIn, the title played a big role in what was returned, which I didn’t really know before.
I would’ve assumed it was, like, the job titles itself. So that made me change my title to, like, basically keyword stuff, my, uh, my, my main title with, uh, various things. But I’m curious if you think that’s important, too.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Absolutely, and I think that even if it’s not in your title, um, or in your header, it could be a bullet point under, you know, the different titles and different roles you’ve had.
Mm. And again, a lot of the times you have to remember for, for job seekers out there, there are recruiters that are looking at your resume that might not fully understand what you do. So if you think that, “Oh, this is pretty clear, right? Based off of my title, based off of this abbreviation, they can tell what I’ve done.”
But a lot of the times you are dealing with just a potentially a junior level recruiter just looking to find, uh, the best match and then pass it over to the hiring manager. So make it as easy and simple for them to actually tell, “Okay, this is a good candidate,” you know, “I should get them through the process.”
Zach Elwood: Yeah, no, I had a personal experience that because at Amazon recently, you know, I got laid off in the Amazon layoffs, but I was there for about four months, and my title was programmer writer, which I, I just put that on LinkedIn, but then people were like, “What the hell is that?” And I was like, “Oh, it’s,” you know, I put in parentheses like API tech writer, you know, so people would understand more.
I was like, yeah, their title was kinda weird. Like, nobody uses that title. Nobody’s gonna even know- Mm-hmm … what that is, you know? So that’s a good, that’s a good point, yeah.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. Um- So just always spell it out as, as much as you can- Yeah, make it obvious … make it as clear.
Zach Elwood: Use the regular language that other people use.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, and to your first point, too, like I– the thing about standing out, I mean, I’ve thought about that, too. And then to your point about making your, uh, relationships with other people more clear as like a way to establish, uh, authenticity or credibility. It’s like I, I, I, I hadn’t seen anybody else do this, but I put a quote about my work, basically a testimonial at the top of my resume from somebody I know who works at a well-known company who was my former boss, and I hadn’t seen anybody do that.
But that was kind of my way to like try to do that and be like, “Hey, uh, I have, you know, I, I have some legitimate, uh, people I’ve worked with who can vouch for me.” And yeah, that was kind of my way to like combat this sense I have of like, A, there’s a lot of applicants, and then B, there’s just a lot of people who’s, who are creating pretty decent looking resumes and cover letters now because of AI, which makes it even harder to stand out.
Yeah.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. No, I think that’s great, and I think more people should do that. Utilize your network as much as possible because, you know- People being able to speak on your behalf is, is such a, such a power in a market that is as slow as I think it has been recently. So highly recommend to people to, again, you don’t have to include the names of the individuals.
You don’t have to include the actual, you know, quote of the things that they’ve said about you, but just being able to say, “Hey, there is someone with an X title at an X kind of organization that is willing to speak on my behalf if references were to, uh, be requested.” Right.
Zach Elwood: Yeah, I’ve always been, I’ve always been kind of surprised when I was involved in hiring at past companies.
Uh, I was always kind of surprised how little the, uh, they focused on, um, references from other people, which I thought maybe it was some- something where those had kind of fallen by the wayside as, uh, seeming, uh, not cool in some way anymore. But I don’t know. They al- it always seemed to me that that was like a, seemed like a very important thing to check that.
But I, I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that. Is that like, i-i-is that still a thing that people check references and stuff these days? I mean, m- and maybe it’s different in different industries, but…
Dani Tepedjiyska: Mm-hmm. Not as much, but I do that for a lot of my clients, and what I started doing recently is actually submit references before they even have an interview, right?
I think in the past it was a thing of, hey, once we’re at the, the, the offer stage or we’re towards like the final, you know, the, the final process there, um, that’s when you would ask for references or submit them. I started doing that as I submit candidates to really showcase to my clients, “Hey, these people, you should really meet with them.
You should really speak with them.” Because of the, just the, the amount of people in the market, you have to do something right away to stand out. But I think that in a, in a candidate-driven market, you know, um, that changes, right? So it really depends on, on what’s going on at any given time. Right. I think right now it’s just a lot of really great people and not many job opportunities out there, so-
Zach Elwood: Yeah.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah … things have reverted back to-
Zach Elwood: Gotta do what you can to- … checking references … stand out. Yeah. I, that’s why I, in my portfolio, I put like the testimonial section at the very top basically, and have a few quotes there to try to do that. Um, well, because this is a, um, behavior-focused podcast, I, I wondered if, you know, uh, uh, uh, if you have any last-minute, um, observations about interesting reads that you’ve gotten of candidates that involve like things that they do or things that they say.
Any, any anecdotes that come to mind? It’s, it’s cool if not, but I figured I’d end with that question.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah. It, it i- it is so interesting the, how Easily you can tell, even if it’s on a video call, if it’s on a Zoom, when someone gets really nervous and- Mm … their eyes start to shift, their body language, um, goes from super confident and, you know, sitting straight to, you know, okay, now I’m, uh, slouching.
I’m kind of looking around. Um, I can see I’m opening up a new browser because, uh, the lighting will change, right, on, um, from the screen. So-
Zach Elwood: Mm …
Dani Tepedjiyska: the a lot of the- Yeah, you see that flash
Zach Elwood: of white. I’m, I’m always worried- Yeah … that people will read into that when I’m, like, on a call. Not, not a, not a job application, but you know, that, when that screen- Yeah
changes to white, they’re, they’re always wondering, I, I assume they’re wondering like, “Oh, is he looking at something else? He’s distracted by something,” you
Dani Tepedjiyska: know? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I think that people can go from cool, calm, and collected and very confident to jittery and nervous. So that, that shift is a big, um, giveaway, I would say.
Because sometimes people are just nervous the whole time, and that, that’s one thing. But when you see the change, when you see the shift- Mm … that’s when you really start to kind of question it. Um, same thing with you can see when someone is reading off their screen, right? When you’re on a camera, when you’re on a call, I can see their eyes moving and shifting.
And when I ask them, “Hey, are you reading off of, off of something?” The response to that is very, a big giveaway because people who become really defensive, I have a, you know, a red flag for them. Like, okay, that’s, uh, that’s suspicious. Yeah. The people who, who will say- Better to admit it … “I just have-” Yeah.
Yeah. “I just have a couple of notes I was looking at,” and they can be honest and, and admit to that, then I’ll say, “Okay.” Right. “That makes sense.” Yeah. Right? Like that, that’s normal. So- Right. Right … um, just the shift in their energy and politeness as well. They’ll get a little bit impatient if I ask them, you know, questions about things like that.
Um, like, “Why do you have to know? Why are you asking?” So.
Zach Elwood: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m curious on the, uh, on the behavior front. Uh, you know, obviously there’s many reasons people can get anxious, but I’m curious, like, when you see somebody get more anxious, is that sometimes a clue to you to, like, maybe ask more questions about that?
Is that, like, a practical outcome of noticing somebody’s anxiety?
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah, I think that If that anxiety is there right away, then well, that’s something we can work through and I can say, “Hey, let’s work on, you know, getting you to a point where you feel a lot more confident to prepare you better for your actual interview with the, with the client.”
But if I see that it’s a shift, then that’s when I am a little bit more alert to say, “Why? What, what is there?” Right? So like I’ll go back to asking them some more technical questions. A lot of the times, um, I’ll just kind of go back to the content to say, “Hey, tell me a bit more about this specific thing that you do,” or, “Give me an example of the types of documents you collect.”
Whatever the, you know, the question could be. But- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm … um, it is, it’s a bit of a, it’s a red flag when someone switches up in the middle- Yeah … of the interview.
Zach Elwood: And you would usually, like, as a red flag, you would, you would, you would probably just dig into it a little bit more. Or, or would you, would it ever be like an- enough of a red flag?
Well, I, I guess it would depend on if you dug into it, what you found. But I… Would you, would you tend to, if you notice somebody becoming more anxious, would you, uh, dig into it a little bit more as a standard procedure and be like, “Hey, I wanna see if there’s something causing this anxiety, if I can on the call?”
Yeah.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah, absolutely. Because on my end, I’m on the candidate side, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, I want the people that I’m interviewing- Yeah, you wanna win-win … to succeed and to do well. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. I wanna get them, get them the job, right? Yeah. Like, that benefits me. So- Yeah … um, I wanna get to the bottom of it so that we’re better prepared for their actual interview.
So I do, I’m really honest to say, “Hey, like, you know, I don’t want to, um, I don’t wanna lie to you. I don’t wanna pretend like, you know, this is going great,” or, you know, “You, you answered this really well. Um, I wanna be honest with you because you, I mean, you deserve that feedback as is so you can be better.
Um, or, you know, we can make you better for, you know, the interview that I’m gonna submit you for.” So I tend to be pretty transparent with the people that I’m meeting with.
Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. That’s great. Um, well this has been great. Dani, thanks for taking the time. Is there anything else you wanna add before we go?
Dani Tepedjiyska: No, this is great. I think that the key takeaway from this is to the companies out there that are hiring, really know the recruiters you’re working with. Vette all the staffing firms you’re working with, and invest in people who are really educated and knowledgeable in, in, in the space that you’re actually looking to hire for.
So whether that’s compliance or technology or whatever it may be, I think it’s extremely important to have specialized recruiters out there who can actually catch some of that. I wouldn’t be able to catch someone doing something, something nefarious if they were, let’s say, in technology, right? But I can really catch those people within compliance because that’s, that’s my bread and butter.
That’s the domain. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Um, so I think that that is, that’s kind of the push is, hey- Let’s turn to more of a specialized, like, recruiter out there, um, that really can help you navigate whatever specific industry you’re in, whether you’re a candidate, um, looking to work with a recruiter or staff or a, a company looking to work with a recruiter.
Um, so that’s a big takeaway, but very interesting. I’m sure we’ll see a lot more out of this in the future, and- Yeah … we’ll be here to discuss that when something, when something- We will … something else happens. If you
Zach Elwood: ever get any, if you ever en- encounter any, uh, video deepfakes in the wild and wanna talk about it, I, I, I’ll be here for you ’cause that’ll, that’d be interesting.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Yeah.
Okay. I’ll let you know.
Zach Elwood: Okay. Thanks Dani, appreciate it.
Dani Tepedjiyska: Thank you.