Hiring Safely: Spot & Prevent Fake Applicants in Local Govt Recruitment

Hiring Safely: Spotting and Preventing Fake Applicants in Local Government Recruitment

Councils are seeing a rise in fabricated applicants from AI generated CVs and falsified careers to identity swapping at interview. In a public sector setting the risk is not just a bad hire. It creates safeguarding risk, data exposure, reputational damage and service disruption. In a tight labour market with pressured resourcing, hiring teams must detect and deter fraud without slowing recruitment or creating unnecessary barriers for genuine candidates.

This one hour session gives HR and hiring managers practical guidance on what to look for and the simple but high impact controls that can be built into existing workflows including proportionate credentials and reference validation.

Why This Matters to Local Authorities

• Public trust depends on safe and legitimate appointments into public service
• Fraudulent hires can access vulnerable people, systems and funds
• AI has lowered the effort required to fake credibility at scale
• Councils must protect integrity without making recruitment slower or hostile for real applicants
  

What Participants Will Take Away

• A clear picture of the most common fake applicant tactics now affecting public bodies
• Practical signals to spot fraud during application sift, interview and offer stages
• Fast and proportionate checks for identity, work history, qualifications and entitlements to work
• Recognition that single descriptive references are now easily fabricated and require scrutiny or triangulation
• Ways to test credentials authenticity rather than accept them at face value
• Ways to differentiate AI assisted but legitimate applications from deliberately fraudulent ones
• What to log, who to alert and how to respond when fraud is suspected

Content Outline

• Why this is now a real risk for councils
• The new tactics including AI CVs, cloned LinkedIn, fake references including descriptive references written to order, falsified credentials and identity swaps
• Where fraud slips through in typical council recruitment and how to close the gaps
• Practical detection tools and signals at sift, in assessment and in interview
• Proportionate response including verification of identity, work history, credentials and references and what to record and escalate
• Q and A and next steps