"...wonders how they're actually going to monitor and regulate this. I don't think the government has the resources..."
This. Imagine the bureaucracy. The cure would be worse than the disease.
'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them
61–70 of 253 posts
Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
When we post a job ad on LinkedIn, I already get 30 spam answers in the first few minutes, people that have obviously spent not a single second reading the requirements. And you want to further automate this? I’ll just ask my people person to automate the response. We really try to spend the time to answer every application, but since AI generated applications have become a thing, we have decided to not answer those.…
I've always thought the easiest way to stop spam applications would be to require paper application.
That’s a great idea if you’re hiring locally but we do hire international remote and I suspect no one will snail-mail me an application from the Americas or South Africa to Germany.
Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them
#63A lot of head hunters will dangle job offers that don’t exist just so they can get info on the company you’re working at - basically they’re trying to keep tab on who’s in charge of hiring, so they can contact them. There are also those who are paid by your boss just to see if any of their team members is looking to take off. I don’t think there is anything new here though. These practice have existed for a while, an…
> A lot of head hunters will dangle job offers that don’t exist just so they can get info on the company you’re working at - basically they’re trying to keep tab on who’s in charge of hiring, so they can contact them.
This is quite common especially now when the market is bad.
The pattern is a LinkedIn message with vague description (interesting role at a sector), no mention of rate, names or anything else.
Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them
#64My guess is that most of these jobs actually exist, in the sense that if a stellar candidate were to present theirselves, the organization would find a way to hire them.
I worked at a company where managers would endlessly push this argument to open a job posting. Of course there was no budget to hire, but they would delude themselves that the perfect candidate was out there and they'd 'be able to make a case' for the budget with the stellar application in hand. Of course they had no idea what that actually entailed otherwise they would do it in advance. To HR's credit at that company their policy was never to advertise a post unless the budget was signed off. They would patiently explain this each time some deluded optimist showed up at their door. I can easily believe in companies where the rules are less explicit that the delusion would manifest as an endless procession of advertised postings that could never be actually hired because there is no money to fund them.
Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe it actually is illegal, via a set of more general rules on data collection, on what constitutes a fraud, etc. May not be spelled out exactly like this specific use case, but still very likely covered by law. Just difficult to prove.
It certainly would be illegal in Europe under the GDPR - data collected for one purpose (handling of applications) cannot be used for another without explicit, informed consent.
Im sure it isnt that hard to get candidates to tick another check box that says the data can be used for other stuff.
Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them
#66I am not sure if more regulation is a solution, but the lack of respect for job seekers is a real problem. And not just with ghost jobs. My recent experience as a job seeker was harrowing - even with large, proud companies. I would pass multiple rounds of interviews with senior/director-level interviewers only to never hear back from the company - even after a direct request for an update or feedback. Just total igno…
I wonder why people still apply to FAANG companies, there is nothing to be won by working for them. Your work has zero impact, you're actively paid to enshittify stuff over making it better, you have horrible bureaucracy within the company, they lay off thousands of people per year so your job never really is secure, all of FAANG is ethically corrupt beyond means. I'd never hire a FAANG employee to be honest, while working there your skill actively declines because all you really do there is play corporate charade and hope not being laid off.
Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them
#67Ghost jobs are essentially the 'vaporware' of the HR world. In any other department, misrepresenting your intent to engage in a transaction would be seen as a breach of professional ethics. The fact that it has become a standard KPI for HR departments to 'keep the pipeline warm' at the expense of thousands of hours of unpaid candidate labor is a massive market failure.
> In any other department, misrepresenting your intent to engage in a transaction would be seen as a breach of professional ethics.
In most other situations related to money or contracts, it would be a criminal offense punishable by prison time.
Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them
#68I am not sure if more regulation is a solution, but the lack of respect for job seekers is a real problem. And not just with ghost jobs. My recent experience as a job seeker was harrowing - even with large, proud companies. I would pass multiple rounds of interviews with senior/director-level interviewers only to never hear back from the company - even after a direct request for an update or feedback. Just total igno…
>I am not sure if more regulation is a solution
Nothing else is going to fix this.
Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them
#69I 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 wha…
Can you explain why this is? Or give some examples?
Not the OP, but here are a few reasons I've seen:
- the boss has agreed to the role but has reservations, seeing a few candidates solidifies them and permission to hire us withdrawn
- the team is inexperienced at hiring and don't know what they want until they've seen a few candidates
- the company is hiring a new whole team. To make hiring easier, roles that are listed are "representative roles" - the total desired skill set across all roles is accurate but the company doesn't care what the split is, they just want a team that covers it. So a candidate who is a better fit for a listed role can be passed over in favour of one that happens to be the right jigsaw piece.
- circumstances changed since permission to hire was given, and no-one remembered to update the hiring portal; because unless you're actively hiring no-one looks at it.
This last one is quite common, because there are so many applications usually that no-one wants them in their email.
Re: 'Ghost jobs' are on the rise – and so are calls to ban them
#70Ghost jobs are essentially the 'vaporware' of the HR world. In any other department, misrepresenting your intent to engage in a transaction would be seen as a breach of professional ethics. The fact that it has become a standard KPI for HR departments to 'keep the pipeline warm' at the expense of thousands of hours of unpaid candidate labor is a massive market failure.
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