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Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

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Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#41

Post by terminalshort »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #4
snapetom wrote: post #2

This is going to be very hard to enforce on a Federal level, let alone pass. Companies are going to play shell games with the titles, responsibilities, and org structure just enough. There might also be 1st Amendment issues, too. The required reporting numbers will be hollow. The end result will be that it will be on the books, but the government won't have any enforceable actions for years. And when you do see actio…

All regulation is hard to enforce. Have to start somewhere, and then you keep pulling the ratchet via policy.

Which is why it should not be used to prevent minor annoyances like wasting a few minutes applying for a job that isn't there.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#42

Post by nullc »

guywithahat wrote: post #5

If the number is only 17%, I'm not sure we need to ban them. From my experience the big issue is hiring managers who either 1) are very casual about hiring (i.e. they're willing to wait 6 months and waste everyone's time), or 2) people who like the idea of hiring but keep changing what they want to hire for (like this month we're having issues with testing, so we want a test engineer, but next month we're having issu…

It may be 17% overall, but distributed in such a way that its 95% of the jobs you are applying for -- because some industries or positions do it much more often.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#43

Post by smccabe0 »

So now that another admin is in power, it's useful to have accurate numbers. But during the last several administrations, job posting numbers were used to backstop failing economic activity, especially post covid.

I'm not mad it's happening, I'm mad it's taken this long to do.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#44

Post by tietjens »

gosub100 wrote: post #39
Scubabear68 wrote: post #18

Somewhat related, I learned to be very cautious about LinkedIn and their job postings. I hit a couple that looked like regular companies and started to apply, but they were really fake job postings just go harvest your information. Even when you abort the process, it's too late. They take your info and put you on a zillion job sites automatically with endless email spam.

I still won't forgive them for the incident circa 2012 where they were sending out emails from your email account to everyone in your address book or recent contacts list in your own voice (!!) saying "hi $name, I joined linked in come network with me!".

Vivid memories of this happening to me and many I knew. Totally insane and horrible. Wonder who had the brilliant idea.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#45

Post by didibus »

terminalshort wrote: post #38
treyd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this actually restricting speech? It's not restricting advertisements for labor, it's restricting intentional lies made to misdirect. That's called fraud.

No it isn't. Fraud requires damages. Lying is legal. Maybe you could claim damages in the amount of time it takes to apply for the fake job, but it's not really worth it because it wouldn't be worth more than a few bucks.

The harm adds up, time to prepare and apply, possible time and effort and travel expense wasted if an interview was also conducted. You could say financially it's not a lot to one person, but if 100 people got deceived by the same listing? If 20% of all job listing are like that, maybe 2 million people got deceived in aggregate, now the financial harm total adds up to a lot more. And individually, to an unemployed person, even if the total loss is small, the percentage loss is higher as they likely have no revenue.

You could also argue there is loss to other companies listing real postings, as those fake ones add noise and people might miss their posting and not apply, causing them delays in filling their position.

Plus, if the ghost jobs are to appear to be growing to investors, or to satisfy regulators to justify internal positions or foreign hiring, now there is harm to investors or false compliance to regulations.

And I'd also say, the misrepresentation of demand, might lead people to pursue education in some careers and upskill thinking there is a lot of jobs for those skills, that would be a pretty hefty financial loss if they were mislead.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#46

Post by pacoWebConsult »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #34
carefulfungi wrote: post #15

This is explictly restricting speech (restricting the right to advertise for labor) and would have to meet a high first amendment bar in the US. Pay transparency law supporters have argued successfully that there is a compelling interest in closing gender and racial wage gaps and that salary range information can be mandated in job listings for that purpose. What's the compelling interest in this case that allows the…

> This is explictly restricting speech (restricting the right to advertise for labor) and would have to meet a high first amendment bar in the US. Fraud or specifically false advertisement is not protected by the First Amendment. 15 USC 52 and ff. > What's the compelling interest in this case that allows the government to control speech? Ghost job postings negatively impact interstate commerce.

> Ghost job postings negatively impact interstate commerce.

Sure, people wasting time applying to ghost jobs has a societal and economic cost, but what is the impact of government regulation of freely advertising job postings?

How does that stack up against the compliance cost of ensuring all of these regulations are being met so the company aren't fined, and the loss of legitimate postings to all of the places they would normally be posted to due to those regulatory cost?

The government has no business to be restricting speech in this manner.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#47

Post by carefulfungi »

didibus wrote: post #29
carefulfungi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you advertise a job and fail to find a qualified candidate, and then don't fill that role, is that fraud? If you advertise for talent constantly, interview regularly, and hire rarely (but hire), is that fraud? If you have a single role to fill and advertise it multiple times in multiple states as multiple listings because that's how job posting forums work, is that fraud?

I think it can be argued that some of those are. Same as how false price advertising, or I don't know, say you kept calling customer support but never had any problems could start to look like abuse. Or squatting a business parking lot, you can always say, I eventually might need something from the store and intend to buy from it. I think they'd still have you towed and your argument would fail.

I've conducted probably 700+ interviews as a hiring manager. A lot of candidates I've spoken to assume job listing advertisements are an org chart. In reality, job listings (at scaling companies especially) are a lead generation tool to attract desired talent into a hiring pipeline.

The org chart is dynamic and is affected constantly by changing priority, changing budgets, promotions and departures, and the talent you're attracting. You can't effectively staff at scale under a rule that 1 job listing = 1 box in an org chart. Or at least I've not seen it done - I'd appreciate counter examples :-)

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#48

Post by toomuchtodo »

terminalshort wrote: post #41
toomuchtodo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All regulation is hard to enforce. Have to start somewhere, and then you keep pulling the ratchet via policy.

Which is why it should not be used to prevent minor annoyances like wasting a few minutes applying for a job that isn't there.

This is not a minor annoyance, this consumes time and resources both for candidates at scale and diminishes the integrity of data from a labor economics perspective ("open jobs"). It is arguably fraud and should be prosecuted as such (and I'm fairly confident this case can be made to an electorate who isn't going to shrug off even more corporate malfeasance in a softening labor market).

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#49

Post by quectophoton »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #18

Somewhat related, I learned to be very cautious about LinkedIn and their job postings. I hit a couple that looked like regular companies and started to apply, but they were really fake job postings just go harvest your information. Even when you abort the process, it's too late. They take your info and put you on a zillion job sites automatically with endless email spam.

I don't get spam emails, but I get spam phone calls. Sometimes it happened suspiciously a few minutes before a call that's actually related to the position I applied for.

But a phone number is expected here where I live (Spain). Few companies seem to respond via email (some do, but it's rare). Everyone just wants you to give them your phone number so, if they decide to call you, they will do a surprise call a few weeks after you applied, at the most inconvenient moment, with no advance notice of any kind.

And since first impressions are important, not being available during that inconveniently-timed surprise screening call is probably a negative point at least on a subconscious level.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#50

Post by didibus »

smccabe0 wrote: post #43

So now that another admin is in power, it's useful to have accurate numbers. But during the last several administrations, job posting numbers were used to backstop failing economic activity, especially post covid. I'm not mad it's happening, I'm mad it's taken this long to do.

I don't think it's related. This proposal if I understood hasn't reached any political sphere, it's just a grassroots effort.
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