Google and others to revive face-to-face interviews by using AI tools to counter engineer fraud in remote interviews
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have been conducting recruitment tests through remote interviews. However, the development of AI-based cheating tools has led major companies such as Amazon, Meta, and Google to rethink how they conduct recruitment tests.
How Google is responding to AI cheating in coder interviews
AI Is Changing Tech Hiring: Remote Interviews At Risk | Ubergizmo
In traditional face-to-face interviews, engineering candidates are required to point out and solve algorithmic problems on a whiteboard during the interview, but in remote interviews, candidates answer questions posed by recruiters on their own computers.
However, the recent boom in generative AI, including ChatGPT, has created a problem that is troubling recruiters. Specifically, AI tools have been developed that analyze questions presented in remote interviews in real time and instantly generate code.
'This kind of cheating used to be easy to detect, but now it's getting harder,' said software developer Henry Kirk. In fact, it was previously possible to detect the use of such cheating tools from clues such as the candidate's eye movements and the reflection of other apps on the glasses. However, in recent years, these AI-based cheating tools have gradually improved and are now almost impossible to detect.
In June 2024, Kirk co-founded Studio.init recruited new engineers and received approximately 700 applications. When Kirk investigated the interview process for candidates, he found that more than 50% of the candidates were engaging in fraudulent activities, such as using the results of large-scale language models.
'Today, everyone is programming with the help of AI,' argues Columbia University student Roy Lee. Lee is launching Interview Coder , a service that helps candidates cheat during remote interviews. According to Lee, Interview Coder is not affected by the screen detection features that companies can use on services such as Zoom and Google Meet.
How to Use Interview Coder - YouTube
To combat these cheating tools, Google is considering returning to face-to-face interviews. In a February 2025 internal meeting, CEO Sundar Pichai discussed with recruiting vice president Brian Ong, 'We're all working in a hybrid way, so I think some of the interviews should be face-to-face. This will help candidates understand Google's culture better, which will have a positive impact on Google and the candidates.'
'Having face-to-face interviews is an issue that all other companies are looking at,' Ong said. In fact, accounting firm Deloitte is conducting face-to-face interviews for graduate students, and Anthropic, which develops AI chatbots such as 'Claude,' has revised its recruitment guidance to ask that AI assistants not be used during the hiring process, saying, 'We want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without the intermediation of an AI system. We also want to evaluate your communication skills without AI support.'
Similarly, Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan reported that 'we ask that candidates not use unauthorized tools during the interview or assessment process.'
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