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'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

fastcompany.com

31–40 of 143 posts

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#31

I'd support it at the federal level. It's cruel towards people looking for work, and it costs them real time at a point in their lives when time is such a critical factor.

Calculate the aggregate amount of time candidates spent on applying the ghost job and use the job's purported rate of pay to calculate the amount of money the company stole from the public. Was it enough to be felony theft? The person posting, or whoever instructed it to be posted, gets charged the same as if they stole that amount from a till. Instant end of ghost job postings as most wouldn't even try to find the l…

Fraud seems like a more direct issue.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#32
post #18

In the same way that credit card companies are required to tell you the exact reasons your score has changed, companies should be required to give at least any sort of notice of rejection. Something as simple as: we have proceeded with another candidate (if and only if the role was actually filled). I know this opens up a lot of questions about enforcement and employer discrimination, but something has to be done.

Every employer would send "We have decided not to continue with your application" once your entry in the database reaches the legally-mandated timeout period. The part you wouldn't like is the unintended consequences: Every company would be forced to use an ATS to manage applicants, and all hiring would have to be pushed through the ATS. The ATS would have some default timeout where candidates who aren't hired get th…

> I know it's frustrating, but stacking laws like this doesn't get useful information out of companies but it does force the application process to revolve around demonstrating compliance with the regulations.

Eh, that's like saying taxing them is pointless because they'll just spend more on accountants to find loopholes. It's only true if you have the political will to pass the laws but not enough to fund the teeth needed to enforce them. Gather reports of boilerplate rejections, launch investigations, drag companies to discovery to find their deliberate efforts to end-run the spirit of the law, extract fines sufficient to fund investigations into the next 10 companies.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#37
post #29

I'm just about to launch a job posting data api with postings I aggregate and very lightly normalize ( https://kaleh.net/trace ) Anyone have an idea how this might impact me? They're not my postings, I just package em up and ship em. Strive to comply with all laws and TOS and not trying to make trouble.

1) You would be in a good position to find and report violations to the NY department of labor.

2) You might be considered a third party platform.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#38

How do you enforce that? I don't even know what I applied to that's a ghost and what isn't. Maybe I'm completely clueless, but there's no difference: recruiters ghost, sometimes companies ghost and sometimes they reply, sometimes you get an F U letter, you're not good enough, sometimes not. How did people even find out ghost jobs existed? I feel like the swindle must not be new.

>How did people even find out ghost jobs existed?

For starters you can find it out from the inside...

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#39
post #18

In the same way that credit card companies are required to tell you the exact reasons your score has changed, companies should be required to give at least any sort of notice of rejection. Something as simple as: we have proceeded with another candidate (if and only if the role was actually filled). I know this opens up a lot of questions about enforcement and employer discrimination, but something has to be done.

Every employer would send "We have decided not to continue with your application" once your entry in the database reaches the legally-mandated timeout period. The part you wouldn't like is the unintended consequences: Every company would be forced to use an ATS to manage applicants, and all hiring would have to be pushed through the ATS. The ATS would have some default timeout where candidates who aren't hired get th…

This seems pretty accurate to me. But like other commenters, the psychological closure of any message at all is better than nothing.

Also, what company nowadays doesn’t use an ATS? I’ve seen a few startups that take applications via email or discord but those are few and far between. Most are using Workday/Indeed/Linkedin or what have you.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every employer would send "We have decided not to continue with your application" once your entry in the database reaches the legally-mandated timeout period. The part you wouldn't like is the unintended consequences: Every company would be forced to use an ATS to manage applicants, and all hiring would have to be pushed through the ATS. The ATS would have some default timeout where candidates who aren't hired get th…

> I know it's frustrating, but stacking laws like this doesn't get useful information out of companies but it does force the application process to revolve around demonstrating compliance with the regulations. Eh, that's like saying taxing them is pointless because they'll just spend more on accountants to find loopholes. It's only true if you have the political will to pass the laws but not enough to fund the teeth…

Exactly. I hate this mentality: "We can't possibly regulate companies, because they are so clever and they'll find loopholes and work around any law we make!" So write better laws! Add provisions for loopholes you anticipate. Add wording to remove ambiguity that the company will try to use to weasel their way out. Analyze the ways companies already get around laws and shore them up with a patch. Do something!

We've tried one thing, and it didn't work so we're all out of ideas! - The USA when it comes to regulating companies.

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