A recruiter asked a job candidate to put his hand in front of his face on a video call. He says the man held it beside his face every time

A recruiter says he caught a job candidate using a real-time face filter to change his appearance during a virtual interview. The moment was captured on video and has drawn attention online, raising concerns about the misuse of artificial intelligence in the hiring process.

Jason, a Michigan-based recruiter, was interviewing applicants for a remote position when he encountered what he described as his first deepfake candidate. The applicant seemed slightly off from the start, but it was Jason’s coworker who first spotted something unusual about the man’s face.

Jason shared the story in an X post, writing, “I interviewed my first deepfake candidate.” He explained that his coworker noticed the man’s glasses looked off, with a second ghost frame smeared across his cheeks, and said the candidate had been running a live face filter throughout the interview.

The candidate kept his hand beside his face, never in front of it

In the video, Jason pauses the interview to test whether the candidate was using a digital filter. He asks the applicant to put his hand in front of his face, a simple move that can reveal whether a filter is failing to track properly.

Jason demonstrated the move himself, using wrestler John Cena’s “You Can’t See Me” gesture. However, the candidate appeared to avoid putting his hand directly in front of his face.

“He put it up right next to his face lol, never in front,” Jason later wrote. He added that he asked again, but the candidate still would not do it.

Jason also said the candidate’s appearance did not quite match the photos on his LinkedIn and GitHub profiles, which he chose not to share. He wrote that hiring has become difficult in the age of AI and that recruiters may be forced to move to in-person interviews. Telling real people apart from AI creations has become harder online, as an AI-generated Delta passenger video showed.

Many users on social media credited Jason for noticing the behavior. Some urged him to publicly identify the candidate, while others suggested the incident reflects what some people may try when looking for work.

One user argued that Jason should share the candidate’s profile, saying the person’s identity details could be fake as well. Another took a more sympathetic view, writing, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Attack of the Fanboy was unable to independently verify the candidate’s side of the story, as this account comes solely from Jason’s X post. The candidate has not been publicly identified.