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Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

cnbc.com

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Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#181

Post by Terr_ »

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…

> 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.

True, even the best cases have a nonzero baseline level of dissatisfaction. It reminds me of this quote, where one character publicly accused a judge of being corrupt based on rumor, and another character is asking whether she had anything except town rumor to go on.

> “Tell me, Royesse, what steps did you take beforehand, to assure yourself of the man’s guilt?”

> [...] Her frown deepened. "The townsmen applauded..."

> "Indeed. On average, one-half of all supplicants to come before a judge's bench must depart angry and disappointed. But not, by that, necessarily wronged."

-- The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#182

Post by busterarm »

gruez wrote: post #176
busterarm wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is funny because startups don't get any consequences for misleading investors/customers with fake job postings and the behavior in that industry is rampant.

startups aren't public companies.

But are still capable of defrauding investors.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#183

Post by nicksbg »

The problem of the ghost jobs existing in first place is because of weak HR. HR that does not have education, can not be influential strategic personnel necessary to steward management toward right decisions. Ghost jobs are also an alternative to marketing since companies see it as a way to market themselves as successful company. Because there is no one to stop such foolish decisions, we see effect on market.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#184

Post by WalterBright »

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.

Every business owner wants to minimize costs. Every employee wants to maximize their compensation.

In other words, the Law of Supply & Demand.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#185

Post by Workaccount2 »

Group_B wrote: post #92
spaceguillotine wrote: post #77

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

Ironically small businesses tend to be the most egregious violators of labor laws and humanity in general.

Mega-corp isn't typically evil, it just wins a lot by being incredibly advantaged in whatever it pursues. Teams of lawyers, armies of engineers, rows of consultants.

Small businesses on the other hand tend to be the ones dumping oil in the river, firing employees that they don't want to back pay, bankrolling family vacations with time clock funny business, etc.

When I worked for my first mega-corp after years of small business jobs, I was blown away by how by-the-book it all was.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#186

Post by WalterBright »

novok wrote: post #177
araes wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people sending ringers to do their coding exercises for them including different ringers or two ringers at once (oops) Found this part mildly fascinating. That it's more lucrative for a significant portion of the population to be so highly skilled at programming that they can regularly serve as "ringers" to falsify entrance exams, than it is to simply complete such an exam and get a job in America. Must make great…

It's not being skilled at programming, it's being skilled at interview programming, which is very different. Also ringers are black market, so you can be hired everywhere and not blocked by not being in the USA in the first place. You can pass the interview, but you can't find a job that hires you in the USA because of non-interview reasons or market conditions. Anybody could become a ringer because it's a purely ski…

> It's not being skilled at programming, it's being skilled at interview programming, which is very different.

I'm not so sure about that. I'm suspicious of the existence of skilled programmers who cannot handle writing small programs, and vice versa.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#187

Post by WalterBright »

sokoloff wrote: post #94
smt88 wrote: 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.

> We tax things we want people to do all the time.

True. But why not think about ditching those taxes, and replace them with taxing things we don't want people to do? There's a double benefit - tax revenue is raised, and people do less of those things undesirable to society.

For example, "sin" taxes.

For other examples, taxing pollution. Taxing the conversion of forest land to a parking lot. And so on.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#188

Post by alexchantavy »

sokoloff wrote: post #105
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easy way to enforce this would be to leave it individuals. Applied to a job and heard nothing back? Sue. You'd have to pretty tightly define the law, such that it could be simply applied, but I could imagine all sorts of concrete rules which would significantly improve the status quo. Something like "Public job postings may be up for no more than 60 days for a given position, interview process must last no more t…

No, the easiest solution is to avoid doing anything that would qualify as a “public job posting” until you’re absolutely out of other options, which is probably worse than the status quo.

This. The unintended side effect is worse and I feel like the only winners would be the lawyers in the middle.

There are many ways for a company to justify leaving a posting up if sued:

- candidate’s resume did not meet bar so company did not interview

- candidate could not be scheduled

- candidate was interviewed but did not pass

- offer was given to competing candidate but competitor rejected so company couldn’t fill position and still had to leave posting up

Companies would then need to keep super detailed records on job postings which is overhead, and then many would just choose to not publicly post to avoid the hassle

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#190

Post by casey2 »

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…

How is that at all unreasonable? Why is misinformation somehow ok when it directly harms workers? Don't like it that you have to change your behavior because of some abusers? Sorry but that's how society works for the rest of us.
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