The Problem

I work for a fintech company as a software engineer manager. We recently decided to grow our team after a year-long hiring freeze.

Our job posting went live in mid-August. Within 24 hours we received 500 resumes. This was unprecedented – we typically got 50 applications in a week. Many resumes were quite impressive and their cover letters showed detailed research into our company. Everything seemed perfect, but something felt off.

As a software engineer, I check candidates' GitHub profiles. To my surprise, most resumes didn't have GitHub or portfolio websites. Only a few included LinkedIn profiles. These profiles were created in 2024 with fewer than ten connections. It is unusual for experienced professionals in the tech industry.

Our internal recruiter made some calls. We found ourselves talking to call centers instead of reaching candidates. Their goal was to sell us some type of offshore services at low rates. It was clear that we weren't dealing with real job seekers.

Over the next week, hundreds more resumes poured in. I checked most of them and realized probably 50 out of 800 were from real people. The rest were AI-generated for sales operations. This wasn't just a nuisance. It was a serious issue affecting our hiring process. Real candidates were being lost in a sea of fake resumes. Both hiring managers and genuine job seekers were losing out.

Our Solution

This experience bothered me for a few days, then inspiration struck. What if I can click something on a resume so I can verify real candidates? I was doing it by clicking their LinkedIn and GitHub links anyway.

The concept was simple: verify identities, stamp resumes, and link each stamp to a unique verification page. This product would be quick, affordable, and effective to help real humans stand out in the crowd.

I dedicated Labor Day weekend to building a prototype. The result is what you're seeing now. It's not just about making hiring easier. It's about restoring trust to the hiring process in an age of AI-generated content.

I invite you to join our free alpha test and share your feedback at admin@realcv.ai. Please note that we may purge all data after the test and invalidate all digital stamps, so do not use stamped resumes for job applications yet.

Chenfeng "Fox" Lai
Founder, RealCV