Interviewing
What Happens When Someone Else Sits Your Interview
Having somebody else sit a recorded round misrepresents who did the work, and the round is not where it gets settled. Some platforms check identity as its own step: CodeSignal says a government photo ID can be matched to the person on camera, with the status passed to the hiring team [1]. Later stages have to match the same person, and the one documented rescission, over a hidden tool, cost offers rather than a score. If the format is the barrier, ask for an alternative selection process.
The takeThe identity checks in this article exist because of impostor schemes, and the friction they create lands on everybody. An honest candidate holds a government ID up to a webcam because somebody else used a stolen one. That is worth knowing before deciding the check is aimed at you personally. It also means a hiring process has more steps than the recorded screen, and every one of them is a place where a substitution stops being a shortcut and turns into a record.
Where Olive fits
Open a role and see what the work shows
An Olive assessment is not an interview: you work a real assignment with an AI assistant on your own clock, think aloud or type, and a person writes or edits each of the six findings in words. You are granted the same report the employer reads, free.
Assess your shortlistWhat Actually Checks Who You Are?
Some platforms now check identity as its own step, separate from the interview itself. CodeSignal's proctoring page says candidates can be prompted to present a valid government photo ID, which is matched to the person on camera. The verification status then travels to the hiring team alongside the results 1. Whether any of that runs on your assessment depends on what the employer turned on.
Greenhouse built a version of the same check into its applicant tracking system. Real Talent takes a government ID and a selfie once, through CLEAR, and only a selfie for later checks. Greenhouse says interviewers and hiring managers never see either image, and that a failed match does not automatically disqualify a candidate 2. That is a vendor describing its own product rather than an audit, and every employer decides for itself what a failed check means.
Neither image is kept, the company says on the same page 2.
Greenhouse publishes no count of legitimate candidates who fail the check 2.
Security guidance pushes in the same direction. Mandiant's September 2024 advice on North Korean IT workers tells employers to require cameras during interviews and to check that the interviewee matches the identification provided 3. It also recommends notarized proof of identity before employment 3.
Those are one security firm's recommendations, and it does not say how many employers follow them.
The check sits apart from the interview because the interview is not where identity gets settled. What employers do when the interviewee isn't who did the take-home argues for identity checks at hire, applied to everyone at the same stage, rather than a document demand aimed at one candidate. That page is written for the hiring side, and reading it shows what a well-run version of this looks like from the other chair.
Why a Stand-In Comes Apart Later
Because everything after the recorded round has to match it. A screening assessment is rarely the last step in a process. There is usually a live conversation, an offer, an identity check at hire, an onboarding laptop and a first week of work. The person who turns up has to be the person who answered.
KnowBe4 published an account in July 2024 of hiring a software engineer who turned out to be a North Korean IT worker. Its HR team ran four video interviews on separate occasions and confirmed that the person matched the photo on the application, which had been AI-enhanced from stock photography. A background check and the other standard pre-hire checks came back clean, because the identity in use was real and stolen 4.
The company says the workstation it shipped began loading malware the moment it arrived 4.
That is one company's account of one incident, written by its chief executive, and nothing in it measures how often this happens. The mechanism is what transfers: interviews and background checks both pass when the identity behind them is real and belongs to somebody else.
A clean early stage is not a settled one, only a stage nobody has looked at twice.
Employers are hearing the same thing from their side of the table. Whether proctoring or an AI-open assessment stops more cheating argues that proctoring loses the race against concealment tools, and that one of the two jobs left for it is confirming who is at the keyboard. Identity is the part of this problem that has not been designed away, which is why it keeps turning up as a step of its own.
What Happens If Somebody Notices?
The cost lands on the offer rather than on a score. Most of what candidates worry about ends in a weaker rating at one stage of one process, and the process moves on. A substitution is a statement about who did the work, and it stays wrong for as long as the record exists.
The clearest documented case involves a tool rather than a stand-in. CNBC reported in March 2025 that Roy Lee posted a video of himself using Interview Coder to pass an Amazon interview. Amazon and the other companies that had made him offers then rescinded them 5. None of those companies confirmed the rescissions on the record, and Lee says he had already turned Amazon's offer down. He publicised the use himself, so it is one case rather than a rate.
A proxy makes a larger claim than any tool does.
Using an assistant on your own answer is a question about method.
Sending another person is a claim about who you are, and any later stage can re-check that claim without meaning to.
If an agency is selling the service, it has been paid before any of that happens.
The rule that decides a rescission is duller than the fear around it, and it turns on attestation. Whether an offer can be rescinded over AI use puts the real risk in the false statement rather than the tool: a disclosure box answered wrong, or a signed line saying the work was unaided. A stand-in is that statement in its plainest form, made before anybody asked a question about AI at all.
Ask for a Different Format Instead
A request for a different format keeps you inside the process when the round itself is the barrier. New York City's Local Law 144 requires notice at least ten business days before an automated employment decision tool is used on a candidate who lives in the city. The same sentence of the statute says that notice must allow a request for an alternative selection process or accommodation 6.
The statute requires the employer to allow the request. It does not require anyone to grant it, set a deadline for answering, or describe what the alternative has to look like 6.
The duty also reaches only candidates who live in New York City, not everyone who applies to a company based there 6.
Most people asking this question are nowhere near New York City, and the request still travels. Whether a live conversation, a written exercise or a scheduled work sample can replace the recorded round is an ordinary thing to put to a recruiter. Some will say no.
Asking costs one email and leaves you in the process either way.
The wording lives in How to ask for an accommodation on an AI interview, including the version that names the barrier without naming a diagnosis. Use that one when the obstacle is a disability or a medical condition rather than a preference. The plainer version of this question is the round you sit yourself. Those answers are the ones you can still defend in week three, when the recording is gone and somebody asks how you got there.
Common questions
Do AI interview platforms check who I am?
Some do, as a step of its own. CodeSignal's proctoring page says a candidate can be prompted to present a valid government photo ID, matched to the person on camera, with the verification status passed to the hiring team alongside the results. Greenhouse's Real Talent takes a government ID and a selfie once, through CLEAR. Both are vendor descriptions of features an employer chooses to switch on, so a given assessment may use none of them.
What happens if a substitution is noticed after the assessment?
No rate has been published, and neither published case involves a stand-in, so read them as the nearest evidence rather than a pattern. CNBC reported that Amazon and other companies rescinded their offers to Roy Lee after he posted a video of himself using an interview tool. He publicised the use himself. None of the companies confirmed the rescissions on the record, and Lee says he had already turned Amazon's offer down. KnowBe4's account of a hire made under a stolen identity ends with a contained laptop and an FBI investigation. The unusual part, next to everything else on a candidate's worry list, is that the finding does not expire with the stage it happened in.
Is a background check the same as an identity check?
No, and one employer postmortem shows the gap directly. KnowBe4 says its background check and other standard pre-hire checks came back clean because the identity in use was real and stolen. A verification confirms that a record exists and reports what the record says. Confirming that the person presenting the record is its owner is a separate step, which is why identity verification is now being sold and run apart from interviewing.
Can I ask for a different format instead of a recorded round?
Yes, and in one jurisdiction the request is named in statute. New York City's Local Law 144 requires notice at least ten business days before an automated employment decision tool is used on a candidate who lives in the city, and says that notice must allow a request for an alternative selection process or accommodation. The law requires the employer to allow the request, not to grant it. Outside New York City it is still an ordinary question to put to a recruiter: whether a live conversation or a written exercise can stand in.
An employer has asked me for ID mid-process. Is that normal?
Some platforms now build it in as a step of its own, and it is worth asking what the check covers. Greenhouse says a failed identity match does not automatically disqualify a candidate on its platform, and that interviewers and hiring managers see the reason a check failed rather than the images. The employer-side guidance argues for identity checks applied to everyone at the same stage rather than aimed at one candidate, so asking whether every applicant at this stage gets the same request is a fair question.
References
- 1. Cheating Detection & Fraud Prevention codesignal.com Supports the claim that identity verification is a separate step on this platform: a government photo ID matched to the person on camera, with the verification status passed to the hiring team alongside results.
- 2. Making hiring safer and more human: An update on Real Talent greenhouse.com Supports what the ATS identity check asks for (ID plus selfie through CLEAR), that interviewers do not see the images, that a failed match is not automatically disqualifying, and that Greenhouse publishes no count of legitimate candidates who fail the check.
- 3. Staying a Step Ahead: Mitigating the DPRK IT Worker Threat cloud.google.com Supports the security-guidance identity steps named in the article: cameras during interviews, checking the interviewee against the identification provided, and notarized proof of identity before employment.
- 4. How a North Korean Fake IT Worker Tried to Infiltrate Us blog.knowbe4.com Supports the four video interviews matched against an AI-enhanced application photo, the clean background check under a real but stolen identity, and the shipped workstation loading malware on receipt.
- 5. How Google is responding to AI cheating in coder interviews cnbc.com Supports the one documented rescission case: offers withdrawn after the candidate posted a video of himself using Interview Coder in an Amazon interview.
- 6. Int. No. 1894-A (enacted as Local Law 144 of 2021), a Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to automated employment decision tools dfs.ny.gov Supports the ten-business-day notice for NYC residents and the statutory sentence allowing a candidate to request an alternative selection process or accommodation.
6 sources, numbered by first appearance. How Olive sources claims
General guidance for hiring teams. What works at one company and one volume may not transfer to yours.
Olive assesses how a person works with AI. It does not detect AI-written documents, and it never produces a score, a ranking, or a match percentage for a person. Candidates read the same report the employer reads.