Mumbai: Candidate integrity risks in recruitment are becoming increasingly complex during the evaluation stage, with a growing number of applicants using artificial intelligence (AI) to manipulate assessments and interviews, according to a report.
Cheating in assessments rose to 45 per cent in 2025-26 from 32 per cent in 2021-22, meaning nearly one in two assessments in the latest year showed an integrity concern, recruitment platform HirePro's report -- Candidate Integrity in Job Assessments and Interviews 2026, has revealed.
Interview-related cases also rose to 2.5 per cent in FY26 from 1.4 per cent in FY22, the report added.
HirePro's report, "Candidate Integrity in Job Assessments and Interviews 2026," is based on an analysis of an annual sample of around 1 million assessments and 1,00,000 interviews between FY21 and FY26, supplemented by industry expert input.
The report further revealed a significant shift in how candidates engage in malpractice during assessments and interviews.
In assessments, external assistance remains the largest category at 43 per cent of cases in 2025-26, down from 55 per cent in 2022-23.
At the same time, the report found that mobile and secondary-device usage accounted for 13 per cent, identity and visibility issues for 12 per cent, AI-assisted cheating for 12 per cent, and video or screen manipulation for 9 per cent.
However, AI-assisted cheating was the fastest-growing category, recording 50 per cent relative growth in one year, while video manipulation nearly doubled from 2022-23.
The shift is similarly visible in interviews -- identity fraud, which accounted for 65 per cent of interview malpractice in FY23, fell to 28 per cent in 2025-26, while AI-assisted cheating reached 18 per cent, device-based cheating 20 per cent, reference-based assistance 15 per cent, and camera or visibility manipulation 13 per cent.
"The rise of AI-assisted cheating in assessments, alongside its emergence in interviews, signals that the risk is moving beyond conventional forms of malpractice. Employers may believe their evaluation systems are cheat-proof, but controls that worked yesterday may not be equipped for the methods candidates can access today," HirePro Chief Operating Officer S Pasupathi said.
Organisations, therefore, cannot treat integrity as a one-time verification exercise, their systems need to remain up to date, and increasingly, stay ahead of emerging forms of malpractice, he noted.
This report was published from a syndicated wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.
