San Francisco – October 15, 2026 -- Forty percent of U.S. hiring managers have interviewed a candidate later found to be using a fake identity, up from 31% in 2025, according to a new survey from verification platform Checkr.
The report, The Hiring Hoax 2026: Fraud Doesn't End at the Offer, is based on responses from 3,000 U.S. managers involved in hiring within the previous 12 months. The online survey ran Sept. 11-16, 2026, through a third-party platform.
Fraud training jumps to 71% of HR teams, but confidence stays at 23%
Formal fraud training among HR teams has risen from 17% to 71%. Only 23% of managers are extremely confident their hiring process would catch a fraudulent candidate.
Use of third-party background checks rose to 62% of organizations from 53% in 2025. Sixty-eight percent of managers now believe candidates are better at faking identities with AI than companies are at detecting them, up from 62%. Sixty percent say AI has made virtual interviews harder to trust, versus 51% last year.
Only 6% of organizations prioritize post-hire fraud prevention
Some 63% of organizations focus fraud prevention primarily on the pre-hire stage. Just 6% prioritize post-hire prevention. Thirty-eight percent of managers suspect a fraudulent employee is already working at their company undetected.
Checkr Chief Product Officer Ilan Frank said employers must verify who they onboard and keep earning that trust as employees gain access to systems and data.
Dual employment confirmed by 29% of managers
Fifty-eight percent of managers believe an employee at their company is currently working another full-time job. Twenty-nine percent have confirmed at least one such case.
Hiring pressure leads 28% of managers to advance suspect candidates
Twenty-eight percent of managers have knowingly advanced a candidate despite suspecting dishonesty because they needed to fill the role quickly. Sixty-five percent have uncovered candidates who misrepresented skills or experience, up from 60% in 2025.
Brittany Nguyen, talent recruitment specialist at Oklo, reported a noticeable increase in AI-generated resumes that use nearly identical language, formatting and accomplishments.
Checkr recently launched its Fraud Detection Suite, aimed at AI-generated resumes, deepfakes and identity misuse.