1. I can SEE them reading. Their eyes go back and forth, and it's clear they are reading.
2. They NEVER stop talking. Normally getting answers out of engineers requires a legitimate question with a sound purpose. I'm getting _immediate_ answers with well thought out, multi-point rationale.
So...I'm rejecting all of those candidates the instant I detect it. How are everyone else doing this?
The best interviews test critical thinking and problem-solving, not recall. AI makes generating solutions easier, but it also makes validating those solutions harder. That validation skill is what _actually_ matters now. Focus on that. "How do you validate that your solution is correct?" is a great next question.
I also don't think it's wrong to say, "I know you're using an AI tool, that's fine, but I'd like you to answer _this_ question without it. I'm trying to determine whether you can validate whether an AI is giving you good information."
But today? The toothpaste is out of the tube, my friend. AI assistants are ubiquitous in 2026. Pretending otherwise isn't a strategy that's going to lead you to success. Instead, it's just filtering out candidates who've adapted to modern tooling. And isn't the ability to adapt to change one of the best qualities of an engineer?
My advice: learn to interview people who use AI well. You'll hire someone who knows how to leverage it effectively, rather than actively selecting against people who do.
(And if you're asking "absurd questions" to catch AI users, you're just wasting everyone's time. Ask real problems and evaluate how they approach solutions, with or without assistance.)
Why play games? Just say "Are you using AI to answer these questions? It's OK if you are, but that will change the types of questions I ask." And honestly, maybe that just reveals that we've been asking the wrong questions all along.
If I'd ever be doing a hiring spree, I'd give them a real problem. Put them in a position to think out loud. Not "what's the answer" but "walk me through how you'd approach this." Probe the reasoning. When they hit a fork, ask why they'd go left instead of right. Ask about tradeoffs they see. The best/real candidates will naturally say "I'd need to know more about X before deciding" because they're actually thinking through it.
IMO acknowledging the lack of information (without coming from a place of uninformed/non-experienced) almost impossible to fake with an overlay. LLMs always have an answer. Good engineers know when they don't.
If you can detect good basis, their skills, knowing how to use AI, will help them be more productive and give better quality
Candidates are also not themselves in these scenarios - IRL interviews show that immediately.
If that’s too expensive then maybe you should just have more AI agent adoption so you don’t need to hire third rate developers.
Since I'm the hiring manager, I'm looking for someone who is being genuine in the interview, and the AI cheaterware is a bridge too far, especially since it wasn't intended to be deeply technical - why cheat on a behavioral screen? You AI'd your way into the reject pile and made fool of yourself in the process.
I've done that before A.I., gone through lists of interview questions on a Google Search (or what I remembered being asked in previous interviews) and thought about how to answer them with the benefit of time to think about it, and even wrote it out so I wouldn't forget. I might only take a brief moment to scroll to the corresponding question (or close enough to that question) and answer (some people might prepare so much they can just respond instantly and not refer to something they prewrote, too).
If I don't do this, I will forget, and will stumble and awkwardly pause in the interview (I still do this sometimes, I don't always prepare that much for interviews, it can be a pain and I might not be given enough time to do it).
The preparation is not unlike a politician or a talk show guest (or especially a comedian) when they go to an interview. Have stories and talking points preplanned, and make sure they go into them and how to say it.
Using A.I. might be the more likely scenario nowadays, but are we really going to assume that people who can give a good and confident answer must be terrible candidates now? That used to be considered a positive thing in interviews (granted, I don't always come across as well polished myself, so I may benefit if less polished becomes what's desired now).
