Ghost Jobs Are Wreaking Havoc On Tech Workers (sfgate.com) 90
An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGATE: If you've recently been laid off and have started the arduous process of looking for a new job, you've probably seen them on networking platforms like LinkedIn: postings for roles that are 30 days old, maybe more, with suspiciously wide salary ranges. They usually have hundreds, or even thousands, of hopeful applicants vying for the same position, but if you do a quick cross-check and notice that the role isn't posted on the company's actual website -- or any of their social media pages -- you should probably stop drafting that cover letter, because it's possible they're not hiring at all. "Ghost jobs," or ads for positions that aren't actually open, are a common phenomenon in the tech industry, which has been plagued by layoffs and budget cuts over recent years. As unemployed workers struggle to regain their footing, recruiters and career coaches who spoke with SFGATE warned that these fake jobs posted by real companies serve multiple, sometimes insidious purposes.
According to a 2024 survey from MyPerfectResume, 81% of recruiters admitted to posting ads for positions that were fake or already filled. While some respondents said employers did it to maintain a presence on job boards and build a talent pool, it's also used to commit psychological warfare: 25% said ghost jobs helped companies gauge how replaceable their employees were, while 23% said it helped make the company appear more stable during a hiring freeze. Another damning 2024 report from Resume Builder said that 62% companies posted them specifically to make their employees feel replaceable. They also made ads to "trick overworked employees" into believing that more people would be brought on to alleviate their overwhelming workload.
After interviewing 1,641 hiring managers, Resume Builder researchers found that 40% of employers posted fake job listings in 2024, and that three in 10 currently had ghost jobs listed. The idea to post them mostly trickled down from HR, followed by senior management and executives, their June 2024 article continued. Though the listings were posted on multiple hiring platforms, the majority of them appeared on LinkedIn and the companies' websites. Evidence suggests this trend is taking hold throughout the Bay Area, too. A collaborative document circulating online reveals a growing list of employers accused of posting ghost jobs. Many of them, it turns out, are tech companies with offices based in California.
According to a 2024 survey from MyPerfectResume, 81% of recruiters admitted to posting ads for positions that were fake or already filled. While some respondents said employers did it to maintain a presence on job boards and build a talent pool, it's also used to commit psychological warfare: 25% said ghost jobs helped companies gauge how replaceable their employees were, while 23% said it helped make the company appear more stable during a hiring freeze. Another damning 2024 report from Resume Builder said that 62% companies posted them specifically to make their employees feel replaceable. They also made ads to "trick overworked employees" into believing that more people would be brought on to alleviate their overwhelming workload.
After interviewing 1,641 hiring managers, Resume Builder researchers found that 40% of employers posted fake job listings in 2024, and that three in 10 currently had ghost jobs listed. The idea to post them mostly trickled down from HR, followed by senior management and executives, their June 2024 article continued. Though the listings were posted on multiple hiring platforms, the majority of them appeared on LinkedIn and the companies' websites. Evidence suggests this trend is taking hold throughout the Bay Area, too. A collaborative document circulating online reveals a growing list of employers accused of posting ghost jobs. Many of them, it turns out, are tech companies with offices based in California.
Corrective measures (Score:5, Funny)
I don't support beating children, but the people doing this kind of shit, messing with people's lives to exploit them more effecitvely?
Yes. And not just the MBA who ordered it, beat the fucking HR clerk who actually followed the orders.
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The HR clerk probably doesn't even know the job is fake.
Re:Corrective measures (Score:5, Insightful)
They know, because they also plan for the intake of actual hires. People who work in HR often seem like nice, social people, but they are absolutely amoral when it comes to doing what management wants them to do with employees.
Re: Corrective measures (Score:3)
Re: Corrective measures (Score:3)
Some are of the opinion that slashdot readers are socially maladjusted.
Re: Corrective measures (Score:4, Funny)
Those two things are not mutually exclusive...
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and yet we have a job and are wasting company time....
Simply put in a regulation for this (Score:2)
Job advertisements must have a verifiable government number recorded with the state government giving the most basic information,
- Full company name and address and phone number
- Company federal tax id number
- Job hours per week (5 or less, 10, 20, 30, 35, 40) rounded down unless under 5 hours a week
- A value indicating if this job posting is in relation to a "Can't find qualified employees" H1B or other immigration program. Gives the program type (H1B, etc).
- Date job posted, date job posting will end - M
Historically not a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Job posting spam was not a problem when the cost to post a job meant taking out a newspaper advertisement, trade journal advertisement or hiring a telephone and fax based third-party recruiter.
State level regulations are needed for the new near-zero cost to post a job advertisement internet era.
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Your comment is a prime example of this.
Re: Corrective measures (Score:3)
HR arenâ(TM)t exactly well paid tech workers. Theyâ(TM)re typically statutory hires mandated by terms of a tax abatement agreement. Theyâ(TM)re by definition local, poorly educated and desperate for big corpo cash. Obviously they would sell their soul. Ghis is how our system âoeworksâ.
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There is hardly any HR in IT anymore. Mostly Indian contract firms that have Indian H1-B workers. Until overhaul H1-B and remove these companies that commit tons of fraud, it's useless. I've spent 20+ years in and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone anymore.
IT means low pay for the your experience, long overtime hours, without compensation, doing a temp contract jobs on salary and be expected to go into work. Which means long drives in traffic for most, because who would move for a job now? You can't trust to
unions are needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech needs them bad
Re:unions are needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: unions are needed (Score:2)
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Took a union job a few months ago. Never going back. It's a night and day difference and a MUCH healthier workplace when employers are actually forced to follow procedures and agreements between employees.
Until your union becomes inconvenient to someone who matters. Then your union will get corrupted. Your dues will then be going to tennis courts added to the president's property and a new 80 foot sail boat for the treasurer.
Enjoy your union while it lasts.
Re:Corrective measures (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corrective measures (Score:5, Insightful)
Ghost jobs make such sites seem more connected and valuable to people who haven't caught on.
Re:Corrective measures (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nice joke to FP, but the topic had so much more potential for Funny. Especially so close to Halloween. (Yeah, I could search the entire discussion for unmodded Funny, but Slashdot too rarely reveals buried treasures these years. Or at least that's how it feels to me.)
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I guess it's nice people found humor in it, but I wasn't really joking.
People who make a living screwing with other's lives and livelihood are 2nd class to me, I find it sad that such behaviour is so tolerated. They ought to be pariahs.
call it what it is: fraud (Score:4, Interesting)
Each of the reasons/purposes provided in the summary for this behavior classify as fraud.
May be hard to prove damages, but it is obviously what it is.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
go away, you communist. we love our free markets. why should it be different for meat?
Re: call it what it is: fraud (Score:2)
People thinking this way are actually helping communism regain its past attractiveness. Yes, comrade, please keep up the good work.
Re:call it what it is: fraud (Score:4, Interesting)
"we love our free markets."
Fraud is a market failure. Why do you hate capitalism?
let us talk about fake resumes instead (Score:1)
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The job market is messed up both ways.
Employers want star workers without wanting to train undergrads, which I don't blame them for because university basically teaches nothing useful.
But employees have to compete with a million other applicants, and so it becomes a numbers game of spamming as many resumes as possible and hoping that one sticks.
And with HR now using AI to sort applicants, and applicants using AI to spam more efficiently, things will not be improving anytime soon for either.
Re:let us talk about fake resumes instead (Score:5, Insightful)
"university basically teaches nothing useful"
University teaches what is universally applicable.
Skills specific to a company's competitive advantage must come from company specific training. If a company offers no company specific training, that implies that they have no competitive advantage.
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Similar story six months ago (Score:3)
I thought this song and dance sounded familiar, so a quick search shows a similar story [slashdot.org] from back in March about ghost job postings. I guess things haven't changed.
Re: Similar story six months ago (Score:5, Informative)
Back in 2002 after the tech bust, companies ran bogus postings. I knew plenty of people inside HR at various companies. They called them Evergreen postings and ostensibly they were there to find recruits, but the also had no jobs to actually offer. One advantage was to make the company look like it was still healthy.
This led to people scoping out the parking lots to see how many people are actually working there. This was before there was so the remote working we have today.
Note to companies. If you are enforcing Return To Office, everyone can see just how many people you still employ.
Re:Similar story six months ago (Score:4, Funny)
At least this time it's on Halloween.
Not quite fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Advertising something you don't actually have usually counts as fraud. That needs to be applied here.
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Most of them could just mumble something about "None of the applicants were a good fit." and handwave the matter away.
If you can demonstrate the company opened a position that you can somehow prove, materially, as impossible for them to ever do, then you might have a case.
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The real estate industry already solved this one. In many areas you have to have specific rental criteria and you have to rent to the first applicant that meets those criteria. Applications are process first-in, first-out. The criteria is documented prior to publishing the listing (easy way to prove that is to mail it to yourself and don't open that letter until someone sues you claiming discrimination).
Job postings should be forced to follow the same laws.
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Advertising something you don't actually have usually counts as fraud. That needs to be applied here.
In a Right to Work state, do they have the Right to Not Hire, even if they advertise for a position?
Re:Not quite fraud? (Score:4, Insightful)
Advertising something you don't actually have usually counts as fraud. That needs to be applied here.
Yes, and even more basic, it's outright lying. What happened that ordinary people decide it's fine to just lie about stuff? Not small distortions or misperceptions, or framing more advantageously, but out and out false statements -- there's a job? no there's no job.
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Advertising something you don't actually have usually counts as fraud. That needs to be applied here.
Well, then... do it. Charge them with fraud. Oh wait, you can't do that. You don't matter. The people who do matter are happy with things the way they are; otherwise, things wouldn't be the way they are.
Impact on labor statistics? Interest rates? (Score:4, Interesting)
https://www.newsweek.com/ghost... [newsweek.com]
""There is no way to tell on LinkedIn, company websites, or any of the other job posting sites whether the position is real or fake," Yarrington explained. "As a result, when data is pulled by the Department of Labor or other entities seeking job data, it is distorted. When this is reported it gives false hope and expectations to jobseekers and the overall economy.""
Data for JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Report) is collected by the U.S. Department of Labor on a voluntary basis ( https://www.bls.gov/jlt/jltc1.... [bls.gov] ).
For them, the criteria for a job is:
A specific position
exists
Work could start
within 30 days
You are actively
seeking workers from
outside this location to
fill the position
I guess the question is, if a company posts a bunch of fake job postings, where the position doesn't exist, it does exist but they're under a hiring freeze so work could not start within 30 days, or they are only considering internal candidates but are posting publicly, and someone responds to the JOLTS survey from within the company, not knowing these things, how much of an impact will this have on official labor statistics?
In other words, if companies all look like they're all hiring, making it look more like a red-hot labor market, then the Federal Reserve, looking at data, has less of an incentive to lower interest rates. I would assume the Fed understands that there are people playing games with job listings and have alternative measures of figuring out how the economy is doing? I hope?
Any labor economists on Slashdot care to share their insights?
No impact on labor statistics, Interest rates (Score:3, Informative)
Labor statistics count the number of new unemployment applications. Those demand, the applicants fill out forms — under penalty of perjury — and provide proofs.
LinkedIn is not a source of statistics. Nor can the form you're linking to be — because it is voluntary and there is punishment neither for not filling it out, nor for lying... But, even if it were, there is no reason, why the number of ghost jobs on LinkedIn has to match, what the same company reports to Department of Labor (if, ag
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*clap clap clap* Correct answers and conclusions! Good job! Yay!
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I think I've read that story...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Any labor economists on Slashdot care to share their insights?
Not an economist, but I appreciate you explaining exactly how we will never admit to a recession, and never really have to ever again.
Being able to magically “create jobs” at that scale, can and will distort any reality they want. We’re gonna find out soon that job reports being wrong by 800,000+ is nothing compared to the reality.
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I guess the question is, if a company posts a bunch of fake job postings, where the position doesn't exist, it does exist but they're under a hiring freeze so work could not start within 30 days, or they are only considering internal candidates but are posting publicly, and someone responds to the JOLTS survey from within the company, not knowing these things, how much of an impact will this have on official labor statistics?
In other words, if companies all look like they're all hiring, making it look more like a red-hot labor market, then the Federal Reserve, looking at data, has less of an incentive to lower interest rates. I would assume the Fed understands that there are people playing games with job listings and have alternative measures of figuring out how the economy is doing? I hope?
Any labor economists on Slashdot care to share their insights?
Oh dear ... you mean this might not be the best economy ever, like we are being told?
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Its nice to think about a world where your pay is directly related to how hard you work, and how nice and helpful of a person you are. Except I'm a little lazy and sometimes I'm cranky, so no.
Meanwhile what I really want is to get this app written and deployed, and I'll pay someone good money to do it for me. I was talking to a nice lady working at Home Depot today, I wish she could do it.
Maybe when our AI overlords reach their ascendency all this work and reward stuff will fade away.
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I did 10 years in retail, and am glad I got out when I did, my joints are already half trashed. 10-12 hour days walking 30k steps on concrete floors moving tens of thousands of 50lb cases takes its toll on the body.
In a magical utopia, a job that uses up the body like that would compensate the worker fabulously, to make up for the wear and tear.
But inst
Poe's law (Score:2)
When satire is indistinguishable from genuine extremism
They are just now noticing? (Score:1)
There's a word for this (Score:3)
The word for this is fraud. And anyone who commits fraud needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
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I'm sure some consumer protection laws related to false advertising could apply. They are unfortunately not criminal, but civil.
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"you would presumably need to show some kind of damages"
Criminal fraud is not contingent on damages as a result of the fraud. The fraud is itself the damage. See Donald Trump's fraud conviction.
There is also civil fraud where the defrauded entity can argue the potential damage that occurred because of making inefficient decisions based on the fraud even though there was no direct loss.
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"can you point to a law that could be enforced"
The law is "fraud" which is why people are saying it's fraud. See 18 USC Chapter47: https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu]
A civil fraud comprises:
a) an intentional deception
b) that the victim is expected to rely on
c) and the victim does, do their detriment.
The difficulty, as always, would be proving that the deception was intentional rather than just different departments of the company not knowing what the other was doing.
A criminal fraud additionally requires some
Law? (Score:1)
What would the text of a law look like to curb such? If it's not feasible to curb it, maybe at least require keeping stats, such as logging each job ad, total resumes received, length of time before filling, whether fill-ee is internal, visa worker, etc.
Require publishing periodic summary stats to the public. The abusing co's would then stand out and hopefully be embarrassed into improving.
Blue states would be more willing to do such, as red states don't mind Wild West hiring practices as long as it doesn't
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1. Each job posting must have documented, reasonable criteria for who would fit into that position.
2. The first applicant who meets that criteria gets hired.
There are already laws like this in some states for the real estate rental industry. You don't need to keep stats or metrics. You just have to tell a failed applicant that they didn't meet one of the pre-written criteria. If the applicant wants to take it further to the courts, the company would have to show that the criteria wasn't changed to exclud
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Also helps mask h1b hires (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been said many times before, but one of the easiest ways to justify h1b hirings is to claim to have a bunch of unfilled positions that native workers can't/won't do. You can paper over the lie by creating bogus job postings for positions you intend to fill with foreign workers.
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As for the guy who posted
"In other words, if companies all look like they're all hiring, making it look more like a red-hot labor market, t
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Authoritarian Othering is Bad Behavior (Score:2)
Is this behavior a form of authoritarian Othering?
ChatGPT: Yes, posting “ghost jobs” to make employees feel replaceable can be considered a form of authoritarian Othering. Authoritarianism often involves the use of power and control over others by creating a sense of insecurity, inferiority, or subjugation. In this case, companies posting fake job list
Scumbags. (Score:2)
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It's (past) time to unionize (Score:4, Informative)
The answer to this, and to any number of abhorrent practices that are routine at tech companies, is to unionize. More than that, it's to develop enough solidarity so that when it's necessary go on strike -- and it will be -- nobody will cross the picket line, nobody will scab, and everybody will support the strikers so that they can sustain the strike. That's how it's been done, and it works.
The best time to unionize was ten years ago. The second-best time is today. If we act in unison, we can impose our will on these companies -- and we should.
(But what about AI, you might ask? have your seen the slop churned out by these LLMs? They're not going to replace us en masse anytime soon, and of course if we decide to withhold our labor from LLM development, ever.)
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The answer to this, and to any number of abhorrent practices that are routine at tech companies, is to unionize.
That was tried already. There were "some" "successes", but ultimately, the people who own shit just moved those industries off shore to kill the unions that they couldn't outright corrupt. None of those unions exist today.
Nothing new here... (Score:2)
H1-b bait (Score:1, Interesting)
One of the things that's so frustrating is that there is absolutely no political party that would do anything to reform for eliminate the H-1B visa program. Every now and then the Republicans get caught talking about expanding it and then backpedal a bit while expanding it anyway once they're at office.
The Democrats for their part point to the rising GDP and s
Duplicate jobs. (Score:2)
In my experience, it seems like a company will send their job positions out to a dozen recruitment companies, who then each put up their own job ads for the position. None of them mention the company, so they don't risk candidates going direct and them missing out on the commission.
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Companies will also use this method to hire to reduce the inquiries they get, and let the recruiters handle everything up to the final interviews.
Aren't there laws against false advertising? (Score:2)
If they are openly admitting to advertising jobs that do not exist they have to be breaking some laws. It would be nice if somebody got charged for it
Ghost jobs mostly in newspapers (Score:2)
I haven't seen an obvious one on Linkedin but I see them in the classified ads of the San Jose Mercury News. juniper was the conspicuous one for a while. Week after week, they had listings for RTL design roles. Very odd because I hadn't seen anything like from Juniper for a year on any of the job boards. Sure enough, the jobs don't exist on Juniper's job portal. I concluded they were just obeying the letter (but not the spirit) of the law that requires them to advertise jobs before renewing an H1B. Us
vendor vs. future employee (Score:2)
A friend mentioned that a vendor we worked for had a on-site resident engineer at his company. This vendor employee is super expensive.
So the company has a permanent job opening hoping to find a direct hire who is cheaper and better than the expert who works for the vendor. The expert also has a manager and more resources to excallate to at the vendor for help. This is also a good thing since it's a high stress environment. It's also likely that this arrangement limits the person to 40 hours unless over
make it an enforcable contact (Score:2)
Nice idea but (Score:2)
They'll merely argue that no suitable candidates applied.
Wreaking havoc? (Score:2)
I just contact a couple recruiters and they set me up with interviews. I don't see how "ghost" jobs are going to negatively impact me.
The recruiters, on the other hand ... Sucks to be them.
Real Estate - same sane (Score:2)
This should be illegal! (Score:1)
Can confirm. (Score:2)
Article is pretty much on the spot. After a few months of intense job searching in Germany I can confirm that 80-90% are pretty much bullshit positions with application processes that are somewhere between inane and fraudulent. Including the job requirements and the salary.
Are large part of it is bullshit work, office politics and people covering their job and salary while at the same time being wholfully incompetent for the modern workplace.
In the last few months I've had a plethora of situations during jo
Not only in America (Score:2)
It is very common in the UK for recruitment agencies to advertise fake jobs to build up their databases of CVs.
I've been on both sides of this, as a candidate and looking for candidates. As a candidate been told that job is filled but we will keep your CV on file. Agencies make claims like having "2,000 Java programmers in (my area)". When recruiting for work, I've been sent my own CV from years before.
In both cases, find an agency that can be trusted and build a real relationship with them. If you can trus