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28% of job postings on company career sites have been open over 90 days

302 points · 364 comments · rubatrejo

  1. legitster · · focus · HN ↗
    There are some browser plugins you can use for job sites like LinkedIn to filter out Ghost Jobs. It's been somewhat helpful, but honestly it feels like 90% of tech jobs right now are Ghost jobs.

    It's happened so many times. Apply for a job, within an hour get an email that says I am not qualified (not true), and then a week later the same job gets posted again.

    I'm normally a pretty free-market guy, but it should be illegal. It's clear-cut fraud - they are advertising something that doesn't exist, specifically to game numbers. And what's more, governments report on these numbers as if they are real job opportunities in the economy.

    1. valgaze · · focus · HN ↗
      Sounds super annoying sorry it sucks but who exactly are they defrauding in your view? And what numbers are they gaming?
      1. dgunay · · focus · HN ↗
        The job market should be just that, a market, between buyers and sellers, not people who pretend to be buying in order to look like they've got money.

        I know this analogy breaks down a little bit since this behavior does actually happen, sort of, in real life p2p markets but the point is, it sucks and if you've ever sold anything on fb marketplace you know how obnoxious it is dealing with people who demand a lot of you but do not intend to actually commit to buying what you're selling.

      2. legitster · · focus · HN ↗
        Investors for one. If these are larger companies, they will often inflate their actual hiring numbers to make it look like they are anticipating more growth than they are actually expecting.

        But I certainly feel ripped off applying for jobs they never intended on filling. If they put up a lot of hoops to jump through to apply (submit a portfolio, set up an account, write a cover letter specific to our company), times that by the 1000 people who have applied, and it's an exorbitant amount of human time getting wasted.

        1. chaosharmonic · · focus · HN ↗
          Also, possibly the government -- depending on where they are and what kinds of tax breaks they could be getting for bringing jobs into the area.
      3. HumblyTossed · · focus · HN ↗
        Investors maybe. Makes your company look better than it is.
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