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.
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.
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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:2)
Re: Corrective measures (Score:3)
Some are of the opinion that slashdot readers are socially maladjusted.
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Those two things are not mutually exclusive...
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and yet we have a job and are wasting company time....
Re: Corrective measures (Score:2)
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.
unions are needed (Score:2)
Tech needs them bad
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Ghost jobs make such sites seem more connected and valuable to people who haven't caught on.
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go away, you communist. we love our free markets. why should it be different for meat?
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.
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:3)
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
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At least this time it's on Halloween.
Not quite fraud? (Score:3)
Advertising something you don't actually have usually counts as fraud. That needs to be applied here.
Impact on labor statistics? Interest rates? (Score:3)
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:1)
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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I think I've read that story...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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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.
They are just now noticing? (Score:1)
There's a word for this (Score:2)
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.
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
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.
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:2)
The answer to this, and to any number of abhorrent practices that are routine at tech companies, is to unionize. Mo
Nothing new here... (Score:2)
H1-b bait (Score:1)
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