Candidates use AI for interviews in two ways. Most use it to prepare: practicing answers with a chatbot, looking up common questions, or tidying up how they tell a story. Some use an app that feeds them answers while the interview is happening, without telling the interviewer. The first is normal. The second means you end up scoring answers an app put together.
There is no survey of job seekers in Indonesia or Malaysia yet, but US data gives a sense of scale. In a Blind survey in April 2025, 20% of the 2,510 professionals who answered said they had secretly used AI during an interview. Greenhouse's November 2025 report says 65% of US hiring managers have caught applicants using AI deceptively, most often by reading from an AI-generated script (32%).
Below are the line you can draw, text for your interview invitations, how to write questions a cheat sheet cannot answer, and fair steps to take when you are suspicious.
Four ways candidates use AI for interviews
| Use | Example | Acceptable? |
|---|---|---|
| Practice | Asking a chatbot to play the recruiter and rehearsing answers | Yes |
| Preparing answers | Building stories from their own experience, polishing the wording, guessing likely questions | Yes, as long as the stories are true |
| Copilot during the interview | An app listens to the questions and shows answers on screen or on a phone | No, unless you allow it |
| Another person or identity | Someone else answering, a fake voice or face (deepfake) | No |
Copilots get the most attention. Some apps show answers on a screen layer that does not appear when the candidate shares their screen, and some suggest putting a phone just below the webcam. To the interviewer, the candidate looks like someone thinking while looking at the screen.
Draw a clear line: preparation is fine, help during the interview is not
A first-round interview measures what the candidate can do on their own at work. A call center agent will take calls with nobody whispering answers. If they pass the interview because of an app, you find out during training, after the hiring cost is already spent.
The exception is a job that uses AI every day, such as an admin who drafts reports with AI help. For a role like that, you can allow AI openly and assess how the candidate uses it. Whatever you decide, the rule has to be the same for every candidate and stated before the interview.
A policy template for interview invitations
Candidates break a rule less often when they have read it. Paste this into your email or WhatsApp invitation and adjust it:
You are welcome to use AI to prepare, for example to practice answering questions. During the interview, please answer on your own, without help from AI, other apps, or other people, because we want to hear about your own experience. If you need assistive tools because of a disability, such as a screen reader or live captions, let us know before the interview and we will adjust. This interview is recorded for review by the hiring team.
Use the last sentence only if the interview really is recorded. The sentence about disability matters: without it, a candidate using an assistive tool can come under suspicion for no reason.
Write an interview a cheat sheet cannot answer
AI can write a good general answer to "Tell me about helping a customer who was confused." It does not know what actually happened at the candidate's workplace. Build the interview so that what you score is something only the candidate knows.
- Ask about real experience, then dig. Follow-ups such as "When did that happen?", "What did you do yourself?", and "What exactly did you say?" push the candidate into detail. The full set is in interview questions to ask candidates.
- Ask for specifics: the name of the system they used, how many calls a day, the order of events, what their manager said afterwards. People who lived through it usually answer straight away, even if the order jumps around. People reading an answer often drift back to general statements.
- Change the situation mid-answer: "And if the customer still says no, then what?" A prepared answer does not cover the new situation, so the candidate has to respond on the spot.
- For roles where the job is talking, such as call center and sales, use a role-play with interruptions. A back-and-forth conversation makes pauses to read a screen easier to notice.
- Skip overused questions like "What is your greatest weakness?". Answers to those are everywhere, with or without AI.
Use the same questions and the same follow-ups for every candidate. If only the candidates you suspect get tougher questioning, their scores can no longer be compared with anyone else's.
Signs to watch for, and their limits
Detection vendors often list the signs below. Each of them can also come from an honest candidate.
| Sign | Could also be |
|---|---|
| Nearly identical pauses before every answer, however hard the question | Nerves, thinking in a second language, a slow connection |
| Eyes keep going to one spot off camera | A camera and screen in different places, reading notes that are allowed |
| A first answer as polished as written text | Thorough preparation, having memorized their own story |
| Repeating the question before answering | A common interview technique that candidates are taught |
| Voice and lip movement out of sync | A poor internet connection |
The most useful signal is the gap between the first answer and the answers to follow-ups. A candidate whose first answer is perfect but who cannot explain the details of their own story has given weak evidence, whatever the reason. Score it as a weak answer. You do not need to prove they used AI.
When you are suspicious: a fair process
- Score the answer on the evidence the candidate could explain, with the same anchors as everyone else. Use the interview scorecard template so the score is not driven by an impression.
- Write down what you saw, with the minute in the recording. "Minutes 4 to 7, about a five-second pause before every answer, details changed when asked again" can be reviewed by someone else. "Probably using AI" cannot.
- Ask another recruiter to review the recording without telling them your suspicion first.
- If you are still unsure, offer a 10-minute live re-interview with the camera on and new questions.
- Do not reject anyone based only on a detection tool's score or a single sign. Article 10 of Indonesia's PDP Law gives applicants the right to object to decisions based only on automated processing, so make sure a person makes the decision.
Monitoring and personal data
Anti-cheating tools usually record the screen, detect tab switching, or track where the candidate is looking. All of that is personal data. Tell candidates before the interview what is recorded and why, collect only what you need, and set how long you keep it. Malaysia's PDPA has similar notice and retention principles. The Indonesian rules are covered in the guide to the PDP Law and AI screening.
Voice interviews for high-volume roles
For call center, retail, and field roles, the first round is often a voice interview. There is no screen to share, but a candidate can still run an app on another device. What helps most is the same: questions about real experience, follow-ups that build on the answer, and a short role-play. With hundreds of applicants for one role, every candidate needs to go through this the same way, which is hard when a recruiter does it alone over the phone all day. How to set it up is in the guide to building a first-round process with an AI interviewer, and the basics are in what is an AI interview.
Where Inhire fits
Inhire (getinhire.com) is an AI screening and AI interview platform for high-volume hiring. The Inhire AI interviewer runs first-round voice interviews in English, Bahasa Melayu, and Bahasa Indonesia, and asks follow-up questions based on what the candidate says, so the candidate has to explain the details of their own story. Every candidate gets the same questions, and every answer has a recording, a transcript, and a score with the quotes behind it. If an answer looks doubtful, a recruiter can listen to the recording again before deciding. Your team decides who moves on.
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