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Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

cnbc.com

111–120 of 264 posts

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#111
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should never tax things you want people to do, like posting legitimate job openings

We tax things we want people to do all the time . We want people to buy things, yet we have sales taxes. We want people to work productive jobs and earn money, yet we have income taxes.

To refute the parent, you have to argue that it's a good idea, not just that it's done. It's not hard to find plenty of things that people do which are terrible ideas.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#112
post #96

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…

This "a senior engineer with direct experience for <140k" is a fake job.

I've done consulting work for a company with an open job req (it's been open for over 6 months) for a senior embedded engineer in a high cost of living area, offering 140k and no equity. In the meantime they've been paying me $240/hour to do the same work that person would do. It truly makes no sense to me, why they wouldn't just raise their offer to 200k or whatever. But it does happen.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#113
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm so glad that companies don't have feelings tho. Would you mind sharing with everyone else what you are talking about, its very vague with the descriptor of "something similar" doubly questionable with you use of calling humans leeches, when the only leeches i've seen in the business world were the companies that require labor to make money and then pay back a less than equitable amount to the people doing work.

not every company is some large mega corp

They all want to be, though. All business want to be big-time like Amazon, but not all of them are so lucky.

I don't understand the making of excuses for small businesses as though they are somehow morally better than large businesses.

Every business owner, regardless of the size of the business, wants free labor.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 external…

80% of what? There are 85,000 H1B visas per year, and vastly more job postings (and hirings of citizens) each year.

[flagged]

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#115
post #70

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…

My Dad told me he worked for a manager who always kept a job open "just in case" someone good walked through the door. It also made it easier to hire if he got a phone call within his network, because he didn't need to jump through hoops to open the req. (Although it's not the approach I would take if I was a manager,) I do think there's merit in the approach. It was a real opening that could be filled, just not one…

I actually hope such open roles are spammed.

I recently saw a project that spammed online job postings with AI slop resumes. This is great since... if your posting is slop and you don't intend to hire, you should have your inbox filled with slop. It only makes sense.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#116

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 external…

Job Listing Site Highlighting H-1B Positions So Americans Can Apply - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 - August 2025 (106 comments)

https://jobs.now

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#117

I’m not saying this isn’t an issue, but in the face of what’s happened to the labor markets and economy, this feels a little like pissing in the wind.

I somewhat agree, but I still think the "job posting" market needs regulation.

If you aren't going to shutdown offshoring and the importing of labor through the abuse of things like the H1B program, you aren't going to accomplish much in terms of fixing how the average American worker is treated.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#118
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please! Every time scammers are told to behave, they run around claiming their "free speech" is being impacted. Free speech is about expressing opinion and fact. It doesn't grant you the right to lie and deceive.

Who decides?

Isn't that what court is for?

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#119
post #53

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 con…

I don't think it's unreasonable or onerous to shift the burden of hiring onto companies well-suited and minimally impacted by this process compared to individuals.

The fines should definitely be proportional though, with larger companies facing very severe infractions.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#120
post #99
post #33

If I wanted to game my stock price and mislead my competition, a bunch of highly specific (and fraudulent) job postings on my website (in combination with other investor-adjacent reporting) would be a great low cost start.

How, exactly, would that convince an investor such as myself that your company is suddenly worth more? Generally when I'm looking at a company's financials more employees means less profitable.

If i post a bunch of ghost/fake jobs, then investros *could potentially* see that as a signal that i am growing, and they should invest NOW before its too late...as one example. Another example, could be that my competition sees "enough/so many open jobs", that they might assume their market position is less than it might be - think of it as a sort of distant intimidation...but also, could be an approach for that competition to get distracted and spin their wheels trying to hire unnecessarily (to try to block up the pool of relevant candidates), thus burning budget in process, etc.
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