Although there appear to be hundreds of job listings out there, not all of the companies behind them are actually hiring.
These postings known as “ghost jobs” can be frustrating for job seekers, who put time and effort into applying for them only to hear nothing back. The fact that these listings often remain online for months only serves to rub salt in the wound.
“It’s a waste of time,” Will Kelly told The Wall Street Journal.
Kelly lives near Washington, D.C., and has been applying for marketing and writing roles on and off since late 2021. He noticed early on that a good portion of the job listings that captured his attention had been up for several months or were posted and reposted without anyone appearing to have been hired.
At first glance, it might appear that there is a strong demand for workers, with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting 10.8 million job openings in January. At the same time, many companies are feeling economic uncertainty and have pulled back on hiring in a bid to get leaner. The popular job site Indeed saw an 11% decrease in new listings since January, according to the WSJ.
Tech companies have made headlines recently for a wave of layoffs as a cost-cutting measure. As The Dallas Express reported, Meta announced a restructuring last week that will see around 10,000 people laid off and 5,000 job openings canceled.
So, why the charade of keeping listings for ghost jobs up or even re-posting them? A survey of 1,045 hiring managers conducted by Clarify Capital last summer sheds some light on the matter.
The top three reasons given for why managers might post an ad for a ghost job are because they are always open to new people (50%), they want to keep current employees motivated (43%), and they want to make it look like their company is growing (43%).
Further down the list, the reasons cited became a bit bleaker, including placating overworked employees (34%), having a pool of ready applicants in case an employee quits (37%), or for no reason whatsoever (33%).
The survey also found that many employers post job openings that they don’t expect to immediately fill. As many as 40% of hiring managers said that they expected to fill job listings two to three months after they went up, 13% said four to five months after, and 8% said six months or more after.
This ghost job practice may backfire on a company.
Vincent Babcock, a recruiter based in Nashville, told the WSJ that applicants might find their job postings misleading and may be discouraged from applying to the company again in the future.
Yet some say that it makes sense for employers to constantly keep a line in the water.
Kelsey Libert, the co-founder of Fractl, a digital marketing agency, told the WSJ that she often keeps ads up for positions with higher turnover rates in a bid to save some time.
“It’s better for you to hedge by leaving some of those job openings up,” she explained.
But she also noted that since seniors about to graduate from university often start looking for jobs from April to June, this is an ideal time to put job postings up and lure in some new talent.
For job seekers, there are many ways to avoid wasting time on ghost jobs.
Joe Mercurio, project manager at Clarify Capital, recommended paying close attention to when job listings were posted.
“A job that was posted 48 hours ago is more likely to be actively hiring than a job that was posted 3 months ago,” he explained.
Scott Dobroski, vice president of communications at Indeed, had similar advice. As he told the WSJ, it is important to check the timestamp as well as to look for detailed job descriptions, as these typically indicate an employer is serious about hiring.