I am going to throw some rocks at this, like an old, cantankerous man who is also yelling at you to get off his lawn.

Not because I somehow vehemently disagree, but because I think this just lazy writing, and confusing general trends with a boogie man, just because the boogie man follows the general trends.

BLUF: Yes, North Korean (and other nation state, organized crime group) spies apply to jobs to gain access. None of your indicators of value even cumulatively. Do better.

> No online presence outside of professional networking websites

I do not, and there is whole group of young people do not have an (reasonably traceable) online presence. I have better things to do in my off time than prattle about my bowel movement online for some validation of my existence.

> Completely fabricated job history including office locations that don’t actually exist.

I will give the author this. This is a red flag pointing to someone who is unethical, not that they are NorKs.

> Unable to find these applicants online outside of the standard ...

This is the same as the first one.

> Inability to answer basic questions about the cities in which they allegedly worked

Eh.. I do not remember what I ate for breakfast. That that make me a NorK? I used to commute in a big city for a year. No idea what stop I would have gotten off, or even what line it was that I used. Such things become almost autonomous and forgotten as extraneous information.

> Background noise during their interview that indicated other people speaking in an interview-like setting

Possibly. Or, they work in a coding shop that has the "genius" of open cubicles for some collaboration. This is a red flag pointing to someone who is unethical, not that they are NorKs.

> Highly scripted answers with explicit preference for remote work, and little ability to deviate from the script.

Oh? Are you saying that the interview questions are not scripted questions?

> A mismatch between the name displayed on the resume or networking site, and the candidate’s command of English (e.g. Chris Smith...

I think if the name is "mismatch" this might be a thread to pull. How is the jump to NorK here? Why not Iranian or Russian?

Additionally, have you worked in some STEM research lab lately? Recently I was talking to some and I could not understand a single sentence. Not one. I had to ask them to write it down and I used my bad hearing as an excuse. Some of the lab workers' names would pass for North American. This was in an English speaking country.

Those cover letters are exactly what the recruiting industry is asking the plebeians to generate.

> Taken together, to me these details suggested fake identities.

Indeed it would make me discount the individual to some extent. Jumping to North Korean spy is a wee bit of a leap, at least for me.

> “100% Remote job only without travel”

Or, in general majority of job seekers no longer want to come to the office.

https://www.engage2excel.com/resource/1-2024-job-seeker-surv... (68% would leave job if forced to come in)

https://www.roberthalf.com/us/en/insights/research/remote-wo...

> I started informing candidates...

Why was the travel requirement not included in the initial job postings?