This is straight up fraud. I believe that one of the reasons companies do this is to signal business growth to prospects and investors. For public companies, that’s a form of securities fraud. I observed this firsthand when doing a job search a few years ago. I would apply to new job listings as soon as they were published. After not hearing a response I would check in to see if the listing was still active. I would frequently see the exact same listing reappear every six weeks or so. I watched this cycle repeat for more than a year with some companies. Each time the job is re-listed, the clock resets on networks like LinkedIn. It creates the illusion of fresh business activity and growth. One specific company that did this was Snowflake. To clarify, I am directly accusing Snowflake of securities fraud.
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I mentioned this in my comment below, that its used as a means to secure debt from banks since they have high employment activity. Fraud seems like an appropriate word, but its only illegal if theres actual enforcement.
We absolutely need laws to crush BS like this.
I was looking on LinkedIn recently, had to get an extension just to hide all those, really cleaned up my search results after a while.
What addon is that? Its very frustrating using LinkedIn and having to click through so many pages of useless results, especially all the listings from other job boards.
I'm not at home to check at the moment, but I think it's Jobs Filterer for LinkedIn by Jonathan Kamens. Lets you prefilter with regex for like company or job title, and give you a button to manually hide specific listings as well.
the company who just appointed the guy who ruined Google search as their CEO might be shady, say it isn't so!
This is near the top of the list of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard.
If a talented person applies to your fake job and you ghost them or string them along, they are not going to apply again when you might have needed them.
After all you already told them that you think they suck.
Honestly, this should be actually illegal. It's a fraudulent job posting designed to waste my limited time, but it's okay for these companies to do shit like this because of uh, reasons?
This should be illegal. Part of getting unemployment or other benefits is showing that you've applied for jobs within a certain timeframe. So this practice of posting fake jobs is actually defrauding the government unemployment funds.
It's weird that there are basically no protections for job seekers. There are so many scams, abuses, and dangers that are so well documented. There is a very messed up power dynamic and a lot of vulnerability.
Some places are starting to require job postings to include pay ranges, bit that's hardly enough.
That's not how this works, though.
These "jobs" are just a way to acquire talent. A larger company can almost always need a few more "good workers". So if a really good candidate comes along, they'll snatch that person, if the candidate is just okayish, they tell them someone else got the job.
That makes sense, but that is not what the article is about.
Of course it is. It's a job that doesn't really exists, but gets advertised.
This seems more like you disagree with the author’s research of his article.
I disagree with the implication and outrage about it.
It seems like ragebait, just like "gen Z doesn't want to work" crap.
So we agree that it is one of the stupidest ideas ever
I've definitely felt this. I have applied to quite a few roles that I am highly qualified for and get the "we selected someone else" email and then see the role posted again a few weeks later. I wouldn't necessarily expect to get every job I apply for, but I would expect to get a screening interview for most of them.
That's not necessarily a fake posting. It may be that they offered the job to someone who took time to decide not to accept. Or accepted and then changed their mind when they got a better offer. Or used the offer as leverage to get a raise/promotion at their current job. Games get played on both sides. Hell, I once hired someone who just didn't show up on their first day. Or the next three days. We tried to call and email. We didn't hear anything until a week later when they claimed they were sick and couldn't come in. No explanation for why they couldn't call to let us know. That was the most immediate termination I've ever dealt with.
OK but why aren't they contacting this person? If an offered is not accepted or whatever, HR should have some record of who the other top contenders would be.
But unless of course hiring isn't a priority and then who knows. Which is the actual accusation.
If an offered is not accepted or whatever, HR should have some record of who the other top contenders would be.
It doesn't work that way. We search until we find one person we want to hire and we offer that person the job. If they decline, it doesn't mean we go down the list until someone accepts. Everyone else was rejected for one reason or another, so we continue our search. I'm not saying OP definitely did not run across some fake postings. It's a possibility. But there's also the possibility that they're not as qualified as they think they are, or their resume doesn't make it clear that they are. Or whoever is screening applicants is screwing up. Job searching is tricky, and so is candidate searching.
Resume Builder, which offers résumé templates, surveyed nearly 650 hiring managers in May and found nearly seven in 10 said it was "morally acceptable" to post fake jobs.
So 70% of HR people have done or are doing this.
Hiring managers credited the move with increasing revenue, morale, and how much workers get done.
How does this increase revenue? Isnt this a giant waste of time? Unless there was some ulterior motive ofc, and the APPEARANCE of hiring needs to be in tact.
About seven in 10 of the fake jobs were on a company website or LinkedIn, according to the survey. And, yet, despite all the shenanigans, many fake listings often lead to real interviews — and even employment.
MANY!!!!! Like, 3.
Four in 10 hiring managers said they always contacted workers who applied for made-up jobs. Forty-five percent said they sometimes contacted those job seekers. Among companies that contacted applicants, 85% report interviewing the person.
"A lot of them are getting contacted and interviewed at some point, so it's not necessarily a black box," Haller said.
Again, this maintains the APPEARAMCE of hiring without actually hiring. From what I had read before, there are some business loans that have certain hiring requirements that make this necessary.
Also, the other commenter mentioned its for pushing American jobs to foreign H1B visa jobs.
Whatever the case, its fucked up.
It's all about metrics. That's the core reason for all of it. Someone wants jobs wanted numbers. Someone wants application review numbers. Interview numbers. Numbers metrics ~~wasting time~~ proof you're doing something.
Another reason is to appear fair (which is just another metric). New manager position open, but you already know who you're giving it to? Doesn't matter, you have to post the listing and follow up with everything that entails.
The HR sector are a blight on humanity. They're the HOA of corporate departments.
May the fleas of 1000 camels infest their armpits
There's another angle on this too related to H1B Visa hires.
H1B requires that companies show that no qualified Americans could be found, so those listings are written so nobody could or would want to apply. Stuff like 10 years experience in software released 5 years ago, entry level job/pay requiring a masters degree, etc.
What this sounds like is legit listings, but done to give the outward appearance that company is strong/growing and to scare current workers into thinking that they will get replaced if they are not killing themselves slaving away.
Could also be job postings to convince current workers that their overwork will soon end because the company is about to hire new folks. I've seen that theory floated to explain the "help wanted" signs at fast food places that never come down.
I can tell you this, many people apply and interview where I work, but no one gets hired.
Here's the weird part though-
Four in 10 hiring managers said they always contacted workers who applied for made-up jobs. Forty-five percent said they sometimes contacted those job seekers. Among companies that contacted applicants, 85% report interviewing the person.
Does that part make sense to anyone?
This strikes me less as fraud and more as a way to stay open to talent that you may not need immediately but still want to be able to add to your organization, in an era when basically nobody sends unsolicited resumes anymore. Like, maybe you don't have a project in need of a Whatever Specialist right now, but it's a field your company works in, and if a really exceptional Whatever Specialist is on the market, you don't want to miss the opportunity to bring them on.
Those are talent captures. A lot of times managers have enough budget to barely hire someone but don't really have the need to justify a guaranteed expenditure. They put out a job opening to see who applies. If a rockstar applies, they'll hire them just to get them into the company. Good people will always find a spot. If a bunch of normal people, who might be just fine workers but aren't standouts, apply then the fake job doesn't get filled.
I've canceled very real job openings because the quality of people who applied didn't really excite me and I didn't really NEED someone. My team was chugging along and I had a little extra budget to help out, but my team continued just fine without hiring someone else. My budget got cut the next year by about what I would have spent on the new person, which would have made me get rid of a normal person while a rockstar would have been able to move somewhere else in the company.
My mother works in HR, she told me a story I didn't retain too much of, long story short someone she's interviewing thought the job was for a higher salary because they saw a freebooted job post.
I think some recruiting firm (that probably shares an office with IRS scammers) posted my mother's job post with a higher salary so they could offer that candidate to my mother.
HR could be gathering intel on current market conditions, like what salaries people are expecting, etc.
A similar thing happens at the company I just joined. It has a "move fast" culture. I push for new roles that are genuinely needed now. My boss "approves", but finance puts the brakes on for review. HR doesn't want me yelling at them, so they post the job to "get a jump on collecting resumes".
If I lose the battle with finance, the job evaporates. If I win, we scoop up the resumes, and hire someone within a week.
Could be that the paperwork for putting together a job ad is a pain, so they just reuse an old one. So maybe the title or position details change.