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'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them

bbc.com

1–10 of 253 posts

Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them

#2
Part of me thinks its to see what the competition is doing, see how others are using ai, to train ai, steal ideas/clients (common in the ad/marketing/design) world, train staff to hire, get free consulting.

Some say it’s to raise stock value by fake growth indicators or motivate employees that they are replaceable, but I think those 2 are just partially the case.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them

#3
>it’s to raise stock value by fake growth indicators

how does that work as a growth indicator, are there any known organizations that track your growth based on how many job postings you do, and then use that data to indicate your growth?

I don't doubt that it could happen, but if it did we would have to know about it, I also don't doubt that I don't know about it, but I would like to know.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them

#4
> Dr Escalera adds that she has also heard examples of companies posting jobs to obtain and sell data.

How is that not illegal? Pretending to offer jobs just to suck in resumes to some database just seems like it should be illegal. Or just like running scams is illegal but they are in another country "so tough luck, you'll never get us"?

Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them

#5
I was an employment counselor in the late 1990s. Even then, ½ to ¾ of realistic, worthwhile jobs were phantoms.

FF to now and hiring portals silently drop viable applicants for a long list of never disclosed reasons. I know temp agencies that hire, send the employee out on 1 job then never again.

I've never know a time when hiring wasn't crap for entire classes of viable applicants.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them

#6
I worked in recruiting for a long time and I can tell you I never saw much in the way of any deliberate strategy to create fake job posts.

The thing is that whether or not a job exists at a point in time is far less black and white than you might naively think.

There are many reasons for it to be somewhat grey and banning the practice doesn’t really mean anything because you would have to quantify precisely under what circumstances a job is allowed to be advertised and as I say, it’s not as clear as you might imagine.

There is absolutely not a one to one relationship between a job and a job ad.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them

#7

>it’s to raise stock value by fake growth indicators how does that work as a growth indicator, are there any known organizations that track your growth based on how many job postings you do, and then use that data to indicate your growth? I don't doubt that it could happen, but if it did we would have to know about it, I also don't doubt that I don't know about it, but I would like to know.

Companies don’t have a legal obligation to publicly disclose revenue in many countries, so if you’re selling business insights you’re always on the lookout for indicators that can be used as a proxy to revenue.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them

#8
post #7

>it’s to raise stock value by fake growth indicators how does that work as a growth indicator, are there any known organizations that track your growth based on how many job postings you do, and then use that data to indicate your growth? I don't doubt that it could happen, but if it did we would have to know about it, I also don't doubt that I don't know about it, but I would like to know.

Companies don’t have a legal obligation to publicly disclose revenue in many countries, so if you’re selling business insights you’re always on the lookout for indicators that can be used as a proxy to revenue.

So, they’re just lying to make more money. Got it.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them

#10
I know companies that are posting vacancies that currently don't exist in order to keep good candidates on the hook. They tell the candidate that we should keep in touch for when the company is ready to hire them.

I am not sure if it's bad or not. It's true that it kinda wastes the candidate's time. In some cases though, the candidate is so good that the company will create a position just for them.

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