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Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

cnbc.com

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Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#51

Post by DebtDeflation »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #8

Only 17%?? Last time I was job hunting I found that 80%+ of postings were either dupes or bogus. Very vague description of the job? I'm going to keep seeing it for a long time, clearly they are not actually filling the role. Very specific, odd set of requirements, they're going through the motions but they've already picked the person and the ad is designed to match only that person. I think they're going about this…

It is absolutely 80%+. The majority of the time, it is a company looking to sponsor an H1B for a role or they have an H1B in the role who they want to sponsor for PERM status (Green Card) and the law requires them to post the job to prove there are no Americans available. The next most common reason is they have identified an internal candidate for the role but corporate policy requires all jobs to be posted externally to show they are looking for the best person. The next most common reason is HR conducting market research on compensation. In all cases, there is no intent to actually fill the role with an external hire.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#52

Post by didibus »

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…

The proposal I think is simply to force listings to have more details like hire and start date, if it's for a backfill, if it gives priority to internal hires, etc.

So the enforcement I think would be if you post listings without those details, you get fined.

How you'd prove if people added false details I don't know, but I think the idea is at least by giving more info on the listing it might deter some ghost listings or enable the applicant to determine if the listing seems legit.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#53

Post by tptacek »

The controls summarized in the CNBC piece seem reasonable, or, if not that, then at least not all that onerous.

The controls in the actual proposal are less reasonable: they create finable infractions for any claim in a job ad deemed "misleading" or "inaccurate" (findings of fact that requires a an expensive trial to solve) and prohibit "perpetual postings" or postings made 90 days in advance of hiring dates.

The controls might make it harder to post "ghost jobs" (though: firms posting "ghost jobs" simply to check boxes for outsourcing, offshoring, or visa issuance will have no trouble adhering to the letter of this proposal while evading its spirit), but they will also impact firms that don't do anything resembling "ghost job" hiring.

Firms working at their dead level best to be up front with candidates still produce steady feeds of candidates who feel misled or unfairly rejected. There are structural features of hiring that almost guarantee problems: for instance, the interval between making a selection decision about a candidate and actually onboarding them onto the team, during which any number of things can happen to scotch the deal. There's also a basic distributed systems problem of establishing a consensus state between hiring managers, HR teams, and large pools of candidates.

If you're going to go after "ghost job" posters, you should do something much more targeted to what those abusive firms are actually doing, and raise the stakes past $2500/infraction.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#54

Post by gwbas1c »

> (essentially banning HR ghosting in the interview process)

(Joke)

Let me guess: Companies will start immediately rejecting candidates after they submit an application, and after every interview. Then, when they want to move forward they will re-invite a candidate.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#55

Post by ironman1478 »

carefulfungi wrote: post #47
didibus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

Apple does. That's exactly how they hire. I've also seen robotics startups so the same. It's not impossible at places that are growing.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#56

Post by tamimio »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #10
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…

I do agree it's not about making the company look better, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem. And you're missing the recruiters who are simply gathering resumes. And the scammers looking to sell you training.

And the ones who are after collecting people's personal information in specific industries.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#57

Post by jakeydus »

carefulfungi wrote: post #47
didibus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

Honestly you could have just saved us all this time by stating you're a hiring manager up front.

I appreciate your optimism regarding the nature of these postings, but I've seen at multiple companies them doing exactly what they describe in the article - fake job postings to improve their appearance to investors, fake job postings to justify H1B positions, etc. Every time I was at a company that got bought by private equity, the former appeared in huge numbers. As soon as we got acquired, in preparation for downsizing, the latter appeared in huge numbers. So you'll forgive me if "managing job hard :(" doesn't land for those of us who are applying for those jobs that don't exist.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#58

Post by phendrenad2 »

Sure, this is a good step. But there's something the government can do that would be much more effective: Make their own job board. California already has this by the way, but it's a bit clunky and is intended for unemployed folks. We need a serious LinkedIn competitor from the government. Just like USPS competes with UPS and Fedex, and keeps them honest, a job board run by the government would raise the quality of all job boards, effectively setting a floor on how anti-user they can be (and we all know, LinkedIn is only a job board ostensibly, it's really a dark pattern factory that nags you to pay a monthly fee for random services almost no one needs).

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#59

Post by alistairSH »

a_cardboard_box wrote: post #27
nickff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The requirement which is driving the posting is a requirement that they search for candidates other than the one specific person they have in mind. If they post it with 'already filled' in the posting, they would not be complying with the requirement. The requirement is usually driven by a law or some policy created outside the hiring process for that position, so the hiring manager(s) are not permitted to do what yo…

You seem to misunderstand the proposal. The proposal is that after they have done everything that is already legally required (advertise an open position for some amount of time etc), then they must amend the posting to include that the position is filled by an internal/external/H-1B hire. There is still a period of time when the position is advertised as open.

Which is still "broken" since the position was never really open in the first place - it's still a ghost listing, as the position was always going to an internal hire or H1b or whatever.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#60

Post by alistairSH »

tietjens wrote: post #44
gosub100 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd be more interested in knowing what the ROI was for it. And how big a bonus did that person get for the idea.
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