Recruiter uses the John Cena test to catch a deepfake candidate using face filter

Job interviews have always involved a little performance, but one recruiter says a candidate took it too far. A video making the rounds online shows a recruiter named Jason pausing a remote interview to check whether the person on screen was real, using a gesture borrowed from the wrestling ring.

John Cena’s ‘You can’t see me’ move puts suspected AI candidate to test

In a clip shared on X on October 16, Jason says he has just interviewed his "first deepfake candidate." Partway through the call, he suspects the applicant is using a live digital filter to change his appearance. So he asks the candidate to put a hand in front of his face.

To make the request easier, Jason demonstrates it himself, doing John Cena's famous "You Can't See Me" wave. The candidate, according to reports, avoids putting his hand directly in front of his face. That was enough to raise Jason's suspicions.

Why a hand wave?

Live face-swap and filter tools work by tracking a face and laying a digital overlay on top of it. A hand passing in front of the face can confuse the software, making the image glitch, blur or break apart. It's an old trick among recruiters. Jason isn't the first to try it. Dawid Moczadło, cofounder of Vidoc Security Lab, went viral earlier with footage of an interview where the candidate's face kept glitching. When asked to cover his face, the candidate ignored the request, and the interview was ended. A recruiter at the digital studio Make described a similar episode: when she asked a candidate to wave a hand in front of their face, he left the call immediately.

Social media users were largely on Jason's side, praising him for catching the behaviour. Many treated the clip as a sign of the times, with remote hiring now needing a little theatre of its own. He posted the video on X and wrote, “In the days of AI we're going to have to be more careful.. and forced to move to in person interviews.”

It's worth remembering that this is one recruiter's account of one call. The candidate hasn't been identified, and avoiding an odd request isn't proof of a deepfake. Some security firms also warn that simple checks like the hand wave won't stay reliable for long, since the technology keeps improving.

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