I feel like the jury is more likely to believe the unwilling subpoenaed witness from HR from the company that turned you down who says: “we turned the candidate down, because when we checked their references, Bob at XYZ corp said that the candidate never worked at XYZ corp” over Bob (who has every motive and reason to lie).

Especially when you get the follow up questions, and find out HR left contemporaneous notes in their HRIS tool, which corroborate the story.

Remember that the standard for a civil suit is not “beyond a reasonable doubt”, but “more likely than not”. I really don’t think you’d need a recording to win that case.