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

bbc.com

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

#91

Post by JumpCrisscross »

p-e-w wrote: post #67
ZuoCen_Liu wrote: post #42

Ghost 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.

> In most other situations related to money or contracts, it would be a criminal offense punishable by prison time

What are you thinking of? In most cases, that falls firmly under the category of bullshitting. Annoying. Unprofessional. Dishonest. But rarely criminal.

What makes this possibly illegal (though I'm still unsure if it's crimial) is that it's specifically around employer-employee relations.

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

#92

Post by hmmmhmmhm »

pydry wrote: post #68
dandare wrote: post #58

I 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.

Maybe official 'name and blame' service where anybody could post their experience under their real name?

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

#93

Post by tmoravec »

> "Others, we found, were inflating numbers and trying to show their company is growing, even if it's not."

Sounds like a fraud against investors? That could be a way to attack this problem because in the U.S., many issues get turned into laws and regulations protecting shareholders.

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

#94

Post by throw3e98 »

hmmmhmmhm wrote: post #90
Jur wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands by law you have the right to retrieve any written internal correspondence regarding your interviews as to ascertain it was a fair decision and decision making process. Side effect of this is also to keep any bias out of the equation and, being on the other side, easier to call out colleagues making inappropriate or downright discriminating comments (which in my experience unfortunately happens ever…

If you make such request, how can you enforce to get all of the comms? I'm curious, would some government institution step in and audit their mail servers, slack channels, google hangouts and all other channels to obtain all of the information?

I take it you are unfamiliar with the legal process of "discovery" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_(law)

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

#96

Post by tmoravec »

bradley13 wrote: post #61

"...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.

They sort of address this in the next sentence: "But if people run into problems, they can make a complaint and it will be looked into."

Random checks and whistleblowing are used in other, more "serious" processes, e.g., tax checks. At least here in Europe.

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

#97

Post by wombatpm »

ZuoCen_Liu wrote: post #42

Ghost 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.

Seems like participation in unemployment should require every job posting to be recorded as to date open, date filled, number of candidates applied, number interviewed. Such information should be public and weekly updated. Companies that do not comply should pay a higher rate.

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

#98

Post by khelavastr »

josefrichter wrote: post #26
rdtsc wrote: post #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"?

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.

Don't ignore free speech of job search applicants .!

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

#99

Post by naian »

whatsupdog wrote: post #70
ZuoCen_Liu wrote: post #42

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

#100

Post by hmmmhmmhm »

avidiax wrote: post #20

We could at least require that all applications have a standardized format for resumé and a list of legally allowable questions. No more requiring the candidate to do 30 minutes of data entry to encode their resumé into your HR system. Then a ghost job wouldn't really waste much time, since uploading a JSON should take 30 seconds.

My experience is that most of my time goes to writing cover letter (I should probably copy-paste, but instead I always reflect 'why I'm doing this' and write proper letter), never had to spend 30 minutes entering my details...

I feel the biggest blunder would be when applicant gets a take-home, spends some time on it and then there is no answer. Though I never experienced that myself. I never ghosted a candidate when I was on the other side of hiring table, but I was always finding it draining my energy to write the 'no' responses

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