51–60 of 143 posts
I also feel like there's a very clear private solution here which is creating a company for both employers and employees to use which requires more transparency from both.
This would essentially become a signal to both sides of the transaction that this is someone you want to do business with, and it's self-regulating.
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Have to start somewhere. Update the law as bad actors operate. Observe, iterate, etc. Failure is not trying, or when you stop attempting to improve. Trying is table stakes. "Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." We are aligning incentives, with policy, to encourage desired outcomes.
Exactly. We shouldn't treat corporate regulation as something you try all at once to get the wording, incentives, and disincentives exactly right and then you're stuck with it for 20 years. It should be a living document. Put something into force today. See what companies do to try to avoid/skirt the regulation-- then immediately close those doors and re-run the experiment. See what they try next and close those door…
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This does apply to third party background checks, and backdoor references in particular are just one giant loophole in the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Eightfold AI is getting sued right now for acting as a credit reporting agency -- not just by scoring people, but by gathering data on them in the first place for the sake of reporting to employers. If you ask a third party business to do run a background check, there a…
Wait... are you saying that talking about an ex-colleague with anyone (without filing a bunch of paperwork or something) is a "giant loophole in the Fair Credit Reporting Act"?
Because the Fair Credit Reporting Act governs background checks. It isn't limited to money, or to scoring -- it covers any third party that reports data about you, for the sake of determining if you're eligible for anything from a loan to an apartment to a job. The language of it is broad enough that it doesn't just cover your spending and payment habits, but extends to your general habits, criminal history, personal character, and "mode of living."
I'm saying the behavior normalized by recruiters is a giant loophole in the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Because when they proactively reach out to random individuals you worked with, to ask you for your views on them as a reference, without your consent, that is an exploit. It is a workaround. It is skirting the actual intentions of the thing, because its scope is limited to "agencies" -- which, no matter how broad that term might be, still ultimately means third party data collectors.
If something your boss said about you came up on a background check, you would have a right to know about it. But if someone on a hiring team goes behind your back to that same boss, for those same comments, that is widely accepted as fine and normal.
That's the part that's a real problem.
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.
I save all the jobs I apply to, so it's fairly easy to check/compare and I found plenty of cases where job ads get reposted after some time.
In one instance, I applied for a role in December '25, got a (boilerplate) rejection email a couple of days later (although my profile directly matched the job requirements and I had previous experience working in that specific field), job ad goes offline and re-appeared 3 months later - exact same time and job description.
Good start nevertheless
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.
I'll give you an example I've experienced myself: I save all the jobs I apply to, so it's fairly easy to check/compare and I found plenty of cases where job ads get reposted after some time. In one instance, I applied for a role in December '25, got a (boilerplate) rejection email a couple of days later (although my profile directly matched the job requirements and I had previous experience working in that specific f…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll give you an example I've experienced myself: I save all the jobs I apply to, so it's fairly easy to check/compare and I found plenty of cases where job ads get reposted after some time. In one instance, I applied for a role in December '25, got a (boilerplate) rejection email a couple of days later (although my profile directly matched the job requirements and I had previous experience working in that specific f…
That's not a ghost job. That sounds like they picked some resumes and rejected the rest and hired someone, and then three months later they either needed another person to also do the same job, or it didn't work out with the original hire so they opened the hiring back up.
This is not an isolated case, I have multiple job ads that get reposted every couple of months
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Doubtful you would still feel that way if it became the legally mandated norm. The reason ghosting is offensive is it feels so disrespectful and impersonal. How is some bland automated message triggered by a cron job any better? The automated message doesn't respect or care about you, no person would have put any thought into it. It would be entirely automated. If that makes you feel better it is suggestive of a deep…
Getting a rejection message, even an automated one, removes ambiguity. You're no longer wondering if you missed a call or an email went to spam, you have it right there in writing. In college, I interviewed with two different local companies that had internships that would continue as part-time positions during the year. Both interviews went well and I felt that the interaction was positive overall. I was confident t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This does apply to third party background checks, and backdoor references in particular are just one giant loophole in the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Eightfold AI is getting sued right now for acting as a credit reporting agency -- not just by scoring people, but by gathering data on them in the first place for the sake of reporting to employers. If you ask a third party business to do run a background check, there a…
Wait... are you saying that talking about an ex-colleague with anyone (without filing a bunch of paperwork or something) is a "giant loophole in the Fair Credit Reporting Act"?
It's perfectly just that the applicant get to know if the reason they didn't get a job is because their bitter former boss defamed them.