Proxy interviewing means someone other than the candidate attends the interview on their behalf-answering questions, doing live exercises, or representing the applicant's identity. Remote hiring made this harder to detect than in-person loops.
Why final rounds are the highest-risk stage
You've already invested weeks of process. Stakes are highest: offer decisions, compensation negotiation, and team fit assumptions. A proxy at this stage bypasses months of earlier filtering.
Common failure modes
- Different voice or communication style across rounds (compare transcripts side by side).
- LinkedIn or GitHub activity that does not match claimed seniority or stack.
- Refusal or inability to join a brief camera-on check-in with the hiring manager.
- Knowledge that disappears in an unannounced follow-up with a different interviewer.
Prevention without breaking candidate experience
You do not need aggressive surveillance. Build an integrity dossier at the finish line: CV, merged interview transcripts, and optional public profile URLs. Cross-source consistency checks surface questions for your committee before signatures go on the offer.