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Ghost Jobs Are Wreaking Havoc On Tech Workers (sfgate.com) 43

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.

Ghost Jobs Are Wreaking Havoc On Tech Workers

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  • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Thursday October 31, 2024 @06:06PM (#64910191)

    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.

  • let us talk about fake resumes instead
    • > They usually have hundreds, or even thousands, of hopeful applicants vying for the same position where 99% are either dumbos who even do not read a job title and have zero relevant experience AND/OR try to send a totally fake resume ... dumb candidates even don't realize that multiple versions of their fake resumes are being accumulated in applicant tracking systems and they are weeded out ( and no - changing your email address or even a phone number does not help you - detection takes into account mu
    • 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.

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Thursday October 31, 2024 @06:15PM (#64910215)

    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.

    • 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

    • by timelorde ( 7880 )

      At least this time it's on Halloween.

  • by Mspangler ( 770054 ) on Thursday October 31, 2024 @06:22PM (#64910235)

    Advertising something you don't actually have usually counts as fraud. That needs to be applied here.

  • by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Thursday October 31, 2024 @06:29PM (#64910245) Journal

    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?

    • 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

    • by bosef1 ( 208943 )

      I think I've read that story...
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • My guess (and this applies to Canada but I believe the US has a similar program with “H1B”) is that you need to show some documentation before importing a foreign slav..I mean “TFW” (temporary foreign worker as they’re called in Canada). Probably IT jobs where you need them to be physically present only 2-3 times a year, but the cost of airfare from India/Phillipines, etc makes it more advantageous to bring them over here and own their permit.
  • Just in the tech industry this has always been an extremely annoying thing. So it's typical that it is an issue only now since so many "players" are suddenly less than job secure....?
  • The word for this is fraud. And anyone who commits fraud needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

    • I agree that the practice is dishonest, but can you point to a law that could be enforced? I can't think of how you could sue, let alone prosecute someone for this.
      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        I'm sure some consumer protection laws related to false advertising could apply. They are unfortunately not criminal, but civil.

    • 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

  • by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Thursday October 31, 2024 @06:50PM (#64910285)

    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.

  • "Another damning 2024 report from Resume Builder said that 62% companies posted them specifically to make their employees feel replaceable."

    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
  • I realized quite some time ago that tech staffing companies were all scumbags, but until this issue came up I didn't realize how deeply they were scumbags. I don't trust any of them even as far as I could throw them and don't recommend anyone else trust them either.
    • by xski ( 113281 )
      Oh, it's not just the staffing companies, the employers are right there with them.
  • There's zero point in waiting for Congress to pass legislation to stop this. If they even try, and that's unlikely, an army of tech company lobbyists will descend on DC and water down and/or kill the bill. There's zero point in trying to litigate this in civil courts because an army of tech company attorneys will oppose it, and none of us have the funds required to deploy a matching force.

    The answer to this, and to any number of abhorrent practices that are routine at tech companies, is to unionize. Mo
  • Tech companies were placing newspaper ads for non-existent jobs as early as the 1970's. The responses were used to estimate the recruit pool size and salary range expected, just like now.
  • A lot of these are H1B bait. Basically jobs that they required to post they've already decided they're going to hire somebody on a work Visa.

    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

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