Job boards are still rife with ‘ghost jobs’. What’s the point?

Employers are posting seemingly open roles that were never meant to be filled at all. The labour market is tightening – and it’s getting harder to find a job.

In the wake of the Great Resignation, which drove more job vacancies than employers could fill, workers often had their pick of open roles. Now, they have largely lost their leverage among layoffs and budget cuts, and those open positions are increasingly rare.

Still, roles do exist – or at least appear to. Job boards like LinkedIn and Indeed continue to advertise open positions, and workers are actively submitting applications. Yet despite an influx of highly qualified candidates, plenty of desirable job adverts have languished on digital platforms with an increasingly common label: “Posted 30+ days ago”.

While the listings may be old, job seekers generally still assume companies are actively hiring for the roles. The truth is more complicated. Some of these are simply not-yet-removed adverts for jobs that have been filled – but some were never meant to be filled at all. These are ‘ghost jobs’, and they’re becoming an increasingly common – and problematic – obstacle for job seekers.

Versions of ghost jobs have long been part of the employment market. Job fairs, for example, have a reputation for attracting businesses that set up booths simply to serve as promotional tools or to collect resumes en masse without a clear role to fill. The issue gotten worse in the digital era, despite technology that should theoretically improve the job-hunt process for all parties, especially as the sheer number of applicants for each role has spiked across the globe the past several years while the economy has tightened.

Yet despite the influx of candidates, a staggering number of listings don’t result in hires. Revelio Labs, a US-based workforce intelligence firm, showed that the ratio of hires per job posting fell below 0.5 in 2023, meaning that more than half of listings did not result in an employer turning an applicant into an employee.

Clarify Capital, a New York-based business loan provider, surveyed 1,000 hiring managers, and found nearly seven in 10 jobs stay open for more than 30 days, with 10% unfilled for more than half a year. Half the respondents reported they keep job listings open indefinitely because they “always open to new people”. More than one in three respondents said they kept the listings active to build a pool of applicants in case of turnover – not because a role needs to be filled in a timely manner.

The posted roles are more than just a talent vacuum sucking up resumes from applicants. They are also a tool for shaping perception inside and outside of the company. More than 40% of hiring managers said they list jobs they aren’t actively trying to fill to give the impression that the company is growing. A similar share said the job listings are made to motivate employees, while 34% said the jobs are posted to placate overworked staff who may be hoping for additional help to be brought on.

“Ghost jobs are everywhere,” says Geoffrey Scott, senior content manager and hiring manager at Resume Genius, a US company that helps workers design their resumes. “We discovered a massive 1.7 million potential ghost job openings on LinkedIn just in the US,” says Scott. In the UK, StandOut CV, a London-based career resources company, found more than a third of job listings in 2023 were ghost jobs, defined as listings posted for more than 30 days.

Experts caution not every posting that seems like a ghost job is one. “I don’t think it is a widespread practice for companies to post jobs they do not intend to fill,” says Annette Garsteck, a US-based career consultant. Instead, lack of hiring resources and a staggering volume of applicants per role may mean hiring can’t move quickly – and by consequence, recruiters can’t respond to every application.

Still, whether these postings are ghost jobs – or simply look and feel like them – the result is similar. Jobseekers end up discouraged and burnt out.

“Ghost openings are a major time sink for job seekers,” says Scott. “Filling out a single job application can take several hours, as a serious applicant will take time to research the company, personalise their resume and cover letter and then jump through hoops like listing every job they’ve ever held and answering screening questions.”

Still, because of the market – and despite the toll it can take – some candidates continue to send out as many applications as possible, hoping for a response. Other jobseekers say the abundance of ghost jobs has made them change their strategies.

Samantha, a US-based senior graphic designer, has been searching for a job for three months. She says she started off casting a wide net, but the lack of responses from most companies has led to her being more selective about where she applies. Instead, she’s targeting more niche roles that fit her profile and are likely to have fewer applicants overall.

At the same time, however, she’s still unsure what the right approach is. “I don’t know if it’s best to spray bullets and hope that I hit a target,” she says, “or if I should be sitting there and aiming and taking like one shot per week, two shots per week.”

Ghost jobs may provide employers the opportunity to bolster their image and build a pool of resumes in the short term, but the benefit may not last. If a potential employee feels burned by a company they never heard back from, they may be scared away from applying to future opportunities at that firm. Companies that post ghost jobs could, instead, end up haunted by them.