Ghost Jobs: Real Concern or Phantom Phenomenon?

Job searching is a full-time job for many who devote hours of hard work, effort, and dedication to the process. Rejection is hard—but applying to jobs that don’t exist is worse.

Due to an intermingling variety of factors and prompts, the phenomenon of “ghost jobs”—job ads for roles that the employer does not intend to hire for—blew up this past year. Spurred on by a provocative survey by Resume Builder in June and the extensive media coverage since, job seekers have been understandably frustrated and angry to believe that a significant amount of job postings may lead nowhere.     

The question is: Are “ghost posts” nothing more than a media creation designed to rationalize a dismayingly sluggish hiring market, or are they actual practice?

There is no clear answer, and the truth is likely somewhere in the murky middle.  

Currently, there are no laws that ban or regulate the use of ghost posts. This practice, if real, is different from phony job scams, which have been on the rise  and seek to target applicants for identity theft and the introduction of malware.  

Allegations

Anecdotally, many of us have heard about talented and qualified people applying to dozens, and even hundreds, of jobs, often not hearing back from employers and then seeing the same posts— or multiple versions of the same posts—up for months afterward.

According to some job boards and labor market data providers, there may be more than speculation behind the ghost post claims. For example, Revelio Labs, a workforce intelligence company, found that the rate of hires per job posting has dropped by half since 2019. Applicant tracking system Greenhouse Software reported that about 20% of job listings have not resulted in any hiring activity in any given quarter since 2022.

On top of that, surveys of recruiters and hiring managers purportedly reveal that fake job advertisements are posted for a variety of reasons, including to “maintain a presence on job boards even when they aren’t hiring,” “give the impression that the company is growing,” or “keep current employees motivated.”

The most credible of these claims is that some employers are keeping job listings open indefinitely because they are collecting resumes for a future talent pool in case of turnover—the digital version of a traditional job fair—or posting for “evergreen” roles, an acknowledged practice where job ads stay open rather than closing after a set period to attract a steady stream of applicants for in-demand roles. Employers could also be reposting the same job ads to appear more prominently in search results. But have these practices really gotten as common as is feared, or is the ghost jobs phenomenon just another example of employers ghosting candidates due to neglect?

Explanations

The main reason the phenomenon of ghost jobs emerged in the media this past year was that “job seekers sought explanations for the incongruity between government pronouncements on how great the economy was versus their own lived experience of what seemed to be a very tough job market, characterized by low response rates from employers,” said Hung Lee, curator of the Recruiting Brainfood newsletter and podcast in London.

Labor market data shows that hiring rates have slowed considerably and time-to-hire has increased. But the data does not necessarily support the claim that more employers are posting jobs with no intention to hire. Lee explained that just because time-to-hire surpasses the recent average, it does not follow that job ads left open for longer than average are necessarily fake.

“Any recruiter will know that some real jobs can take much longer to fill than average,” Lee said.

Plus, he continued, just because the data shows that many jobs end up without a hire doesn’t mean they were fake. Some jobs never get filled for a variety of legitimate reasons. Or something else could be going on, such as the jobs being earmarked for an internal candidate or the recruiter neglecting to remove the ad after the job has been filled.

“I suspect outdated job listings are one of the main contributors to the ghost job phenomenon,” Lee said. “There is no nefarious intent, but the ad does not come down due to it being duration-based, which requires the advertiser to manually delete it, which we generally won’t do. So long as job postings are not programmatic and dynamic, then this issue is going to persist.”

He added that third-party recruiting agencies may be posting duplicate ads representing the same job. “They are not fake, just clones representing a real job,” Lee said.

Tim Sackett, SHRM-SCP, an industry veteran and author of The Talent Fix Volume 2 (SHRM, 2024), doesn’t buy the recent stories about ghost posts. “No recruiting team wants to post jobs that aren’t real,” he said. “There are only negative outcomes when doing that. The jobs posted, at the time they are posted, are real jobs, but then reality creeps in. Some jobs are posted because it’s policy when they know they already have an internal candidate selected. Some jobs are posted, and then the hiring manager puts hiring on hold but doesn’t want the job taken down. Some jobs are posted and eventually canceled.”

Another workplace reality is that recruiters may just be overwhelmed by the number of applications they receive. “I think the proliferation of ghost jobs is directly correlated to fewer recruiters and sourcers working,” said Brian Fink, talent acquisition partner at McAfee. “There are fewer recruiters than there were four years ago and more work to be done. I’m working on twice the reqs I had last year. At some point, I will fail and neglect to connect with a candidate.”

Overworked recruiting teams may be the biggest factor behind ghost jobs, Lee said. And as the market continues to be challenging for job seekers, the job application rate will continue to increase, adding to the workload of already distressed recruiters.

“The end result of low-to-no feedback on job applications should not be surprising,” he said.

Fink said that he thinks there is some merit to the claims about ghost posts, however, because LinkedIn recently announced that it would be taking a stand on policing the issue. The company will take steps such as providing the job seeker with a reporting mechanism to alert when ads are not real and should be pulled.

Talent Pooling and Evergreen Roles

The practice of collecting job seekers’ information to build a pool of potential candidates for future hiring needs is a best practice if done the right way.

“Some employers are just lazily collecting resumes, and some may intend to build a talent community, but you can’t have a community when you don’t engage with the applicants,” Fink said. “That’s the part that’s missing here.”

Another well-known scenario that may be a culprit behind ghost posts is advertising for the roles that require constant recruitment. “Some jobs are posted, and they may be evergreen jobs, so we hire for this job all the time,” Sackett said. “Right now, today, we actually don’t have that job open, but we might tomorrow.”

Lee said that database building for evergreen roles does happen, “but this is far from a ghost job as the job ad does represent a real job opportunity.” 

Fink said that some evergreen job postings are a reflection of lazy sourcing. “If you’re constantly looking for Java developers, then why don’t you have a sourcer who is responsible for filling your pipeline with qualified Java developers?” he asked. “The process will move faster and you’ll get better candidates.”

Brand-Killer

Ghost posts, even if unintentional, can greatly damage an employer’s brand and reputation, turning off future candidates.

“Posting jobs without an intent to hire erodes trust,” Fink said. “This practice creates mirages in the job market, wastes candidates’ time, and creates false hope. Consumer-facing brands like McAfee have to be conscientious about what we do in order not to drive down the company’s reputation. Putting out ghost posts is a very short-term play to try and fill a pipeline without the sweat equity of real outreach and engagement.”

Conclusions

So, are intentional ghost posts real? The jury is still out, but experts say that the return on investment for fake postings is just not there.

“You have to deal with the applicant flow and risk negative brand impact, which is far heightened now, where every candidate has an audience and the capability of viralizing a message to them,” Lee said. He added that employers are holding out for the perfect candidate in the current hiring environment, leading to job ads staying up longer than they should.

“I do think all of this stems from the reality for so many young workers who have never seen a real downturn in hiring,” Sackett said. “Most Millennials and Gen Z [workers] have never been in an extended soft-market environment. You won’t find a recruiter who will claim that they post fake jobs just because. That doesn’t happen.”