Digital hiring and screening expert Keith Rosser has told parliament members and employers at a recent All-Party Parliamentary Committee (APPG) meeting that the growing sophistication of deception of these reference houses are “really quite unprecedented”.

In addition to helping people cover up part of their past, reference houses also support modern slavery and can germinate opportunities for blackmail, for either personal or industrial purposes. It is one vehicle among many growing in use in the UK hiring market that rely on technology to commit fraud, through non-existent jobs, substitution of images of one individual for another, identity theft, workers holding multiple jobs in and outside of the UK, and helping jobseekers appear qualified for jobs they actually are not. Hiring scams also are linked to organised crime, experts say.

Of reference houses, Rosser said: “We’ve had dozens operating in the UK that have been developed purely to offer a paid-for service to work seekers who are looking to hide something in part of their history to get them in work.” 

He went on to say, of hiring fraud in general: “We’ve seen real growth in this area since 2023: the use of digitisation, the use of artificial intelligence, the emergence of deep fakes… the sophistication of hiring fraud is really quite unprecedented.”

Rosser and the Better Hiring Institute are joining forces to create a toolkit that will help employers recognise instances of hiring fraud. They also will be hosting future events about hiring fraud and safely increasing the speed of UK hiring.

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