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A single hiring account describes more than 400 applications arriving in 12 hours, with some that appeared to contain fabricated work histories or mismatched identities. It is a troubling example, not proof that fake AI applications are flooding the job market: the available reporting does not establish how common they are or how many genuine applicants they displace.
What happened in The Markup’s hiring process
Andrew Losowsky, Product Director & Editor at The Markup and CalMatters, wrote that the publication received more than 400 applications within 12 hours of posting an engineer role. He initially thought most applicants seemed genuine, then noticed patterns that raised concerns. His account, published January 24, 2026, is a firsthand account of one organization’s hiring process—not a measure of the broader labor market.
Losowsky described repeated email addresses or phone numbers across applicants, mismatches between names and contact details, and cases in which two different resumes shared the same name and contact information. He also noted commercial-only mailing addresses, repeated resume designs, and LinkedIn profiles that were broken, nearly empty, or inconsistent with the resumes. Application answers often followed a similar four-sentence pattern echoing the publication’s About page and job description; some included the words “ChatGPT says.”
Some resumes described work that seemed unusually tailored to the opening. One applicant claimed to have built The Markup’s website and its Blacklight privacy tool, which Losowsky said the applicant had not built. These details illustrate why the employer questioned the applications; they do not establish that every applicant used AI, or that any single signal proves deception.
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Applicants may use AI to help with time-consuming writing, particularly when they believe employers use automated tools to screen resumes. The Markup’s account says it did not prohibit applicants from using AI to help word their applications. Its concern was the combination of inconsistencies and claims that appeared fabricated or misrepresented—not polished writing by itself.
Losowsky wrote: “Fake and exaggerated resumes have always existed, but now, thanks to the rise of AI tools, it’s incredibly hard to know who is even real.” That is his assessment of the hiring experience, not a finding that AI-assisted applications are generally fraudulent. There is no representative statistic in the available reporting that establishes the share of applications that are fake, the share that are legitimate but AI-assisted, or a measurable effect on genuine jobseekers.
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Why this case raised an identity concern
Losowsky said a resume showed relevant experience, and a professional contact confirmed the person’s past employment and recommended the candidate. But during a video interview, the candidate’s answers seemed generic and evasive. Afterward, Losowsky showed a screenshot to the contact, who reportedly responded: “That is definitely not the same [person] we’d hired.” This is speech reported by Losowsky, not a separately verified interview with the contact.
Losowsky also recounted that the candidate described the weather in Morrisville, North Carolina, as cold and freezing, while he said it was 82 degrees that day. That detail is an anecdote from his account, not an independently checked fact. The broader point is that concerns arose from a cluster of apparent identity and experience inconsistencies, rather than a single unusual answer or writing style.
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A separate scam used the real job posting
The account describes a scam targeting jobseekers through a copied or shared version of the job ad. A scammer used a lookalike email address, sent technical tests bearing The Markup’s logo, and linked to the genuine job advertisement. Losowsky said that after candidates completed the tests, they received a fake contract signed by someone claiming to be the publication’s CEO. The scammer then requested financial information, supposedly to issue payments. The account does not say how many people received or responded to the scam.
- Find the employer’s contact details independently on its official website, then verify that a recruiter’s email and identity match.
- Check email addresses closely for lookalike spellings or domains instead of relying on a logo, a familiar job ad, or a link to the real posting.
- If someone requests financial information during an application, stop and verify the request through an independently obtained employer contact before sharing anything.
What the employer did—and what the account cannot show
After less than a day, The Markup removed its advertisement from ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, and Indeed and relied on internal outreach. Losowsky said the flood of probable inauthenticity then slowed to a trickle. The publication ultimately hired someone whose experience matched the application.
That sequence describes one employer’s response; it does not show that removing job-board listings will produce the same result elsewhere or help jobseekers avoid scams. Futurism also reported the central application-volume account on January 31, 2026, but its coverage relies on The Markup’s account for this example: Futurism’s report.
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