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Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#51

Post by nickfromseattle »

duxup wrote: post #9

>The trend could be due to the low marginal cost of posting additional job ads and to maintain a pipeline of talents. After adjusting for yearly trends, I find that ghost jobs can explain the recent disconnect in the Beveridge Curve in the past fifteen years. The results show that policy-makers should be aware of such a practice as it causes significant job fatigue and distorts market signals. Very interesting. I cer…

> because IMO, it made THEM look busy / effective.

A KPI in hiring is offers made / accepted. I don't think the HR team gets credit for reviewing applicants and running interviews that don't result in one/both of these.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#52

Post by kazinator »

charliebwrites wrote: post #23
duxup wrote: post #9

>The trend could be due to the low marginal cost of posting additional job ads and to maintain a pipeline of talents. After adjusting for yearly trends, I find that ghost jobs can explain the recent disconnect in the Beveridge Curve in the past fifteen years. The results show that policy-makers should be aware of such a practice as it causes significant job fatigue and distorts market signals. Very interesting. I cer…

> to maintain a pipeline of talents See, this is the part I don’t understand. If they don’t have real jobs available, what’s the point of building this “pipeline”? Are they genuinely going to plan to use this pipeline for future roles? Because simply posting a real job in the future will still get 1000s of applications which builds _real_ pipeline I don’t see recruiters going back through a bunch of old resumes to fi…

One reason could be to have faster replacement if someone leaves.

The other is to make it look like they are busy and growing even when not.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#53

Post by Mountain_Skies »

This is willful labor theft and at this scale, a single fake job posting could cause thousands or tens of thousands of hours of wasted labor on the part of job seekers. Multiply the prevailing hourly wage equivalent for that job by the number of applicants and how much time it would have taken them to apply (Workday users, you're doomed!). That's how much money was stolen from the public by the company. Prosecute it like any other theft of that amount. It'll only take a couple of cases like this for every legal department across the country to tell HR and recruiting to stop the practice immediately.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#54

Post by niemandhier »

shmatt wrote: post #14

I have to put out a ghost job req and interview every person applying within reason for every green card a direct report is applying for. I have to show there are or aren’t any residents or citizens that can fill the job The main problem is: even if the interviewee knocks it out of the park, is an amazing engineer, I still am not interested in firing my OPT/h1b team member who can still legally work for 2-3 years. So…

This will than probably change with the new American government and its anti-immigration stance. Less h1b, less ghost jobs.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#55

Post by stefan_ »

shmatt wrote: post #14

I have to put out a ghost job req and interview every person applying within reason for every green card a direct report is applying for. I have to show there are or aren’t any residents or citizens that can fill the job The main problem is: even if the interviewee knocks it out of the park, is an amazing engineer, I still am not interested in firing my OPT/h1b team member who can still legally work for 2-3 years. So…

So you are simultaneously screwing over the ones applying to the job, the government, the guy already working for you and yourself? Geez, it must be amazing in your department, a lose-lose-lose-lose

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#56

Post by kazinator »

tossandthrow wrote: post #33
charliebwrites wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to maintain a pipeline of talents See, this is the part I don’t understand. If they don’t have real jobs available, what’s the point of building this “pipeline”? Are they genuinely going to plan to use this pipeline for future roles? Because simply posting a real job in the future will still get 1000s of applications which builds _real_ pipeline I don’t see recruiters going back through a bunch of old resumes to fi…

Also, you can't really use the pipeline a year after the fact. It is super embarrassing when a company heavily delayed gets back on an application.

That's where the ghosting comes in. If you're always ghosting, then you always have recent people to get back to, not months old.

The pipeline isn't a lossless FIFO queue, in other words. People go in one end and are dropped out the other. In between are the recents you can call if a spot actually opens up.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#57

Post by flatline »

shmatt wrote: post #37
falseprofit wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if someone is “amazing” you should get them a green card.

In this example the amazing engineer is a citizen or permanent resident already If my superiors would give me extra unexpected budget I’d be happy to. But if I find a citizen that is just as good as my opt employee, my only path forward is to either fire the opt or let them continue on the team but not submit their GC application (because I have to swear I couldn’t find a citizen that is just as good)

…because if you grant them the green card they will up and get a new job? The incentives here are so screwed up for everyone, it effectively codifies a caste system of immigrant workers.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#58

Post by lumost »

charliebwrites wrote: post #23
duxup wrote: post #9

>The trend could be due to the low marginal cost of posting additional job ads and to maintain a pipeline of talents. After adjusting for yearly trends, I find that ghost jobs can explain the recent disconnect in the Beveridge Curve in the past fifteen years. The results show that policy-makers should be aware of such a practice as it causes significant job fatigue and distorts market signals. Very interesting. I cer…

> to maintain a pipeline of talents See, this is the part I don’t understand. If they don’t have real jobs available, what’s the point of building this “pipeline”? Are they genuinely going to plan to use this pipeline for future roles? Because simply posting a real job in the future will still get 1000s of applications which builds _real_ pipeline I don’t see recruiters going back through a bunch of old resumes to fi…

It makes everyone look busy. It helps calibrate interviewers so that the company remembers how to hire people. It maintains the illusion of growth.

The last point is important, historically startups/teams faced the risk of exodus once hiring stopped. As an employee, hiring is one of the few signals you have on the health of an opaque business.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#59

Post by bradley13 »

I once applied for a job that precisely matched my qualifications. It was crazy - the job description could have been written by someone looking at my CV.

I didn't even get an interview. Likely no one did.

It wasn't a ghost job, though. It was a position created for a someone they wanted to hire. Being a public institution, they were required to advertise positions. That didn't mean that they actually wanted any of the candidates who applied.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#60

Post by dexwiz »

I wonder how many of them are caused by internal political struggles. When you have a lot middle management they spend a fair amount of time on resource allocation, both current and future employees. So it’s a constant fight to obtain and maintain headcount.

Hiring pipelines can be longer than the planning cycle. So you may have 3 open headcount one week, and then lose it the next because some other Big Initiative should get it instead. Or the head count flip flops between local and overseas hires. Or the level they are hiring for changes. Each time this changes, new positions are posted.

Basically companies don’t know what roles they hiring for long enough to get candidates through the process.

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