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Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

cnbc.com

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Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#121

Post by crooked-v »

defen wrote: post #112
Zigurd wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would bet it's so they can cook the accounting by counting you as a "temporary" expense, unlike the salary of the as yet nonexistent permanent hire.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#122

Post by xp84 »

bill_joy_fanboy wrote: post #113
Group_B wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No they don't. This kind of mustachio-twirling caricature isn't a helpful mental model of how business works.

Businesses are just large bunches of people, each trying to maximize various metrics given the incentives they interact with. None of those people, including the owner, is automatically pro-slavery, which is the other word for "wants free labor."

Everybody wants to maximize their money received and minimize their money and work expended to whatever degree possible. This isn't evil nor is it specific to "businesses," "business owners," or "rich people" either.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#123

Post by thinkingtoilet »

carefulfungi wrote: post #23
em-bee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

advertising for jobs that aren't actually available is fraud or deception?

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?

No. Obviously not. Are you intentionally being difficult? The article clearly addresses this and the main point is that these jobs are being posted with no intention to fill the role.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#124

Post by _DeadFred_ »

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.

If I have 1 month of savings after which I lose my house, my car, maybe my marriage, and I invest time into your fake scheme, what is the cost to me in the end? Much more than a few bucks.

If move cross country because the job market in an area looks really good, only there aren't actually any jobs, what is the cost to me in the end?

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#125

Post by alexd127 »

maxk42 wrote: post #99
apercu wrote: 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.

It's common in the investment industry to look at the content/trends in a company's job posts. More job posts are not directly a good thing, but job posts can give insights into the departments or projects that are growing

For example: https://www.linkup.com

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#126

Post by _DeadFred_ »

pacoWebConsult wrote: post #46
TimorousBestie wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Does the government regulate car dealer advertisements for vehicles not on the lot and that don't exist?

This might suck for companies but sadly their peers made it necessary. Corporations keep telling us they will do the bare minimum of good behavior required by law and instead focus solely on return. Don't be surprised that we are now adjusting to that now that previous norms have been thrown out.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#127

Post by _DeadFred_ »

gosub100 wrote: post #40
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…

Are corporations given the right to free speech?

Can a car dealer advertise a car they don't have for sale?

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#128

Post by mxuribe »

maxk42 wrote: post #91

The problem is most "ghost jobs" aren't: They're real jobs with a real intention to hire, but the hiring team can't come to a decision. I've seen it time and time again: A role gets reposted 2, 3, 4 times until the one curmudgeon on the team finally relents and somebody gets hired. It's a tremendous waste of time but it isn't a "ghost job". I predict this legislation will have approximately zero impact on people post…

Perhaps, for the slice of the world that you have observed, that might be the case. But, i assure you that ghost jobs are real, and they exist on top of the types of scenarios that you described...so you can imagine that folks trying to land that job have challenges on multiple fronts...and if you live on the side of the team that can benefit when that person is hired, well, you suffer also whenever a role is not filled - either for reasons like you described, or for ghost jobs, etc.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#129

Post by tptacek »

catigula wrote: post #119
tptacek wrote: 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.

There are rules like this in other countries around the world, and the impact is that it's much harder to change full-time jobs, because companies work around them by replacing full-time roles with contract positions, something that's much harder to regulate.

But the big thing here is: obviously there's a cheering section for any rules that make things harder for hiring managers, because most people here are on the other side of that transaction. Ok, sure, whatever. But none of this has anything to do with the "ghost job" phenomenon, where job postings are literally fig leaves satisfying a compliance checkbox so that roles can be sourced to H1Bs.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#130

Post by xp84 »

smt88 wrote: post #76
ng12 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it would be simpler to just impose a nominal tax on the total number of job openings a company creates throughout the year. Maybe as a % of the role's salary. You could even rebate it against employer payroll taxes so they get the money back when they actually hire someone.

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

> posting legitimate job openings

You want to incentivize them FILLING job openings. Nobody cares how many jobs are posted. And posting 100 openings and filling 50 is the stated problem trying to be solved here.

The rebating idea resolves this quite neatly though. Make posting a job opening that eventually gets filled free after rebate[1], and posting a "dangling" job opening that never fills incurs tax.

Now, I can think of a dozen loopholes to get out of this[2], but it's not that it's going to disincentivize hiring.

[1] or maybe even better than free (puts a little tax incentive for hiring and keeping people beyond the typical probationary period).

[2] Can job listings be revised? Just recycle the ghost job listing in bulk before the deadline and convert it to a totally different position (Software Engineer -> Cashier) Can they not be revised? That seems like overreaching ridiculous Soviet red tape.

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