8 ms·
Job boards are still rife with 'ghost jobs'. What's the point?
- BobbyTables2 3y agoI’ve seen this at a Fortune-50 company, on their own website! Project managers got requisitions from HR and so they posted a job opening. (So far so good) However, the company instituted hiring freezes for 2-3 quarters of each year. No hiring, even for the open positions… Later, there would be layoffs, so PMs would trade unfilled requisitions with HR instead of firing existing people. It mattered little in the end because they axed the entire department (up to the director) and rebuilt it overseas. None of this was ever visible publicly.
- dan-robertson 3y agoI guess at least this is better than hanging on to people you don’t want in a team so they can be laid off when the demand comes in to avoid being forced to give up the people you do want.
- datavirtue 3y agoSounds like a dystopian shit hole.
- black_13 3y ago[dead]
- jimbob45 3y agoWhy not just fire them? Severance isn’t guaranteed yet in the US and just cause isn’t that hard to document (I’m genuinely asking - HR fascinates me).
- ghaff 3y agoHe's saying that whether or not they fire this person the day may come when they have to get rid of someone. More broadly, managers like to hold onto headcount if they can unless someone is a real problem for their team. If they're just someone who isn't an ideal fit any longer they'll probably hold onto them.
- bombcar 3y agoExactly. They’re cards in a game that may require you to discard suddenly - you don’t want to discard early.
- al_borland 3y agoAs someone who has worked in an environment like this for a long time, those people still exist. Everyone on the team generally knows who’s at the bottom and would get let go. Ideally there are enough open positions to cover the layoffs, but that’s not always the case.
- tracker1 3y agoI have a friend who works for a major aircraft mfg (that may have suicided a whistleblower) who's seen this kind of activity for the better part of a decade over and over. Currently going through a relatively credit migrate everything to the cloud effort.
- stavros 3y agoThis is odd, because, if anything, the Boeing 737 Max has been migrating off the cloud.
- jongjong 3y agoThey already finished the migration... Fastest cloud to bare metal migration in history. I also hear they have a unique, high-impact approach to blackbox testing.
- awesomeMilou 3y agoMove fast, break things!
- monksy 3y agoyou son of a ...
- Freedom2 3y agoI don't quite understand this - is the plane moving to on premise? What features of the cloud does it use regularly?
- al_borland 3y agoIt was a joke, the constant parts falling from them… falling from the clouds. Literal clouds, not datacenter clouds.
- jongjong 3y agoThey're going on-premise all right! Straight back to the hangar... Then off to the scrap heap. That's certainly one way to go bare metal. In terms of cloud features they used; the one where it breaks up mid air and rains down to earth...
- al_borland 3y agoThis has been standard practice where I’m at for at least a decade. I don’t know if the jobs were even posted, but we always felt short staffed. It turned out the Sr Dir would always hold back at least 3 position and leave them unfilled, so when layoffs came (which happens at least twice a year), he could simply give up those reqs and it would appear to the team that we were unaffected and operations could keep running as normal. It wasn’t until I made it into the VPs inner circle that I found out how the game was played.
- avidiax 3y agoI have also heard that managers like to keep job postings for every role up if employment conditions create a flight risk. If someone gives their 2 weeks notice, there is a nice long pipeline of would-have-been ghost candidates for their role, which speeds up recruiting the replacement by a month at least.
- johnnyanmac 3y agoThis seems really stupid if I'm understanding correctly. So layoffs come as a way to reduce costs, and instead you can give up an empty seat that probably at best had a few thousand dollars of labor trying (not) to hire for? This sounds like a hiring freeze with extra steps instead of a layoff. And ofc the concept of skilled labor needed year round needing to layoff people twice a year is a failure in and of itself. Why not just contract the job at that point? government nitty griity details, I'm guessing?
- red-iron-pine 3y ago> It mattered little in the end because they axed the entire department (up to the director) and rebuilt it overseas. burying the lede it's a shell game / chaos situation while they ultimately implement cost cutting.
- fungi 3y agoi assumed it was an immigration scam to say company couldn't fill the role locally as a prerequisite for getting someone in on immigration work visa?
- _tik_ 3y agoYes, this is what happens in Singapore. There is a requirement to post job vacancies on a government job portal for a certain time before a company can apply for a work visa. Many companies maintain ghost job vacancies just in case.
- downrightmike 3y agoThe government should treat these are trash and send out fines.
- NovemberWhiskey 3y agoThe government in the U.S. literally requires these "non-jobs" to be advertised.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jazzyjackson 3y agoi expect the spirit of the law is to actually try and hire a local, but the letter falls short and merely requires the advertising
- lesuorac 3y agoI would say the law will catch up but it's probably just part of cost of reveune. But the USG will eventually sue you if you're making job ads that you don't want to actually be filled for the purpose of h1b / green cards. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-25-million-landmark-agreement-apple-resolve-employment https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-25... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-labor-departments-reach-settlements-facebook-resolving-claims-discrimination-against https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-labor-departments-rea... https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62s-h1b-willful-violators https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62s-h1b-willful...
- hakdbha 3y ago[dead]
- johnnyanmac 3y ago>The labour market is tightening – and it's getting harder to find a job. as a small rant, I am getting tired of the whiplash between "it's harder than ever to find a job" and "the economy has recovered and unemployement is record lows". This is normally easily explainable but these seem to both be bipartisan points from my browsing on the topic. So I am simply perplexed. ------- On topic: Ghost jobs are such a weird concept in this day and age. As we see here, it is extremely easy to get hundreds, thousands of resumes within days of a job posting, so why pretend to keep resumes on record to call people on later? The latest I've been contacted about such a role was some 5 months later, and that was due to a referral randomly pinging the company for a tangential job. Otherwise, anything that hasn't responded within a month may as well be cast to the void. The most common lip service seems to be what you expect: >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. Exactly my point. But maybe it's just me. Has anyone ever had a >1 month response from a company that has experienced turnover? > 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. Well, these seem to be the more brutally honest answers. Fraud is probably too strong a word, but this does feel like exploitive behavior that should be reigned in.
- dan-robertson 3y agoRegarding the start of the topic, just note the world is not homogeneous. For example the US economy/job market is in a better state than the uk one; there are seasonal fluctuations in demand for work that keep statistics always changing; some jobs may be more in demand than others (eg low-skill wages were going up in the US while big tech companies did layoffs). And the news story is so often on the complaining side (eg that there are no jobs or that there are no workers) where I think it can be easy to not notice that the direction changed.
- 3y ago
- Kluggy 3y agoI had applied for one job via linked in a few years back and it was entirely a scam to do data collection. They kept asking for more and more info about me. I stopped responding when they wanted to run a credit check and asked me to email them my social security number.
- yieldcrv 3y agoThis is why you put typos and obvious flaws earlier in the communication, so you only spend time dealing with less discerning people I think scammers rely on that too much, in other faster moving areas I think looking exactly like official communication will get higher quality marks, but for recruiting typos are the way
- gruez 3y ago1. Why would scammers care? Presumably it's a numbers game for them, and most job applicants are genuine, so why would they bother screening out people with bad grammar/spelling? 2. If you're a job applicant, wouldn't having obvious typos/grammar issues make you look less professional? Also, "bad spelling/grammar = scam" is a heuristic that people use as well, so you're effectively banking on the fact that the employer is desperate enough for a rockstar engineer that they'll interview anyone who applies.
- yieldcrv 3y agoyeah you misread that completely, but my comment was based on understanding how scammers already operate the scammers use mispellings in their own job postings and communications, to attract people that would ignore the mispellings, because those people would ignore many other things too
- tracker1 3y agoI kind of think that is the case with Jobot. I don't think I've ever communicated or talked to an actual person.
- aussieguy1234 3y agoUsually, if I see a role i'm interested in is more than 1 month old, I won't apply. In the current market, I would probably reduce that to 2 weeks.
- shams93 3y agoWhat's worse is the clueless Feds count each of these as real jobs.
- perrygeo 3y agoI've seen these before. Someone is under a lot of pressure to hire/build a team. Hence the job posts. But they're not given any hiring power or budget. Hence ghosting. Most companies would rather leave the job open unfilled than admit they can't/won't fill it. I mean, how do you go back to a candidate and say "I'd love to hire you but I got overruled and now you're 6 months in the hiring backlog, sorry about our internal politics." But take the job post down - never! The position isn't filled yet!
- tracker1 3y agoWe really appreciate your time and effort in applying for $Position. We've decided not to move forward with your candidacy at this time. Feel free to apply for other open positions at $site.
- fbdab103 3y agoI will take a rejection! Way better than the application going into a black hole. My favorite is when the company remembers to clear out its inbox, and you receive a rejection for a role you applied to some 10+ months ago.
- tracker1 3y agoConsidering I've been applying for hundreds of jobs in the past few months, I think I'd Rather hear nothing if I never actually spoke to a person.
- underlipton 3y agoThat this is widespread is a blanket indictment of America's executive and managerial classes. Maybe start laying them off.
- nebula8804 3y agoHow? Please tell us as we desperately need an answer. They just go and infect every company. It is still generally considered an achievement to get a business degree from an elite school in some circles so the pipeline is not going away either.
- heavyset_go 3y agoIt costs (little to) nothing to keep them up, so why not do it?
- al_borland 3y agoThey need to bring back the newspaper model. Change per word and for each day it runs.
- Joel_Mckay 3y agoData miners, staffing agency lead generation firms, and phishers... Some are brazen enough to advertise their "AI Powered HR tools" as they waste applicants time. In some places it is a crime to collect personal information without a time constrained retention window, and honest disclosure of intended use-case. The fact remains that unless a company has posted a recent position on their site it likely won't exist for general applicants. Best of luck, =)
- vlachen 3y agoThe recruiters are the worst. Or, as you put it, staffing agency lead generation firms. I had not recognized it as such, but the truth is the truth. And that description the fucking truth. What follows below is a rant, and you can ignore it if you like. Most of these sorts of contacts come from Linkedin, where I have an up-to-date profile showing the nearly 11 years of work in mechanical product and equipment design as a Mechanical Design Engineer, a few of those years being an Engineering Manager for a small automation group. I keep getting hit up by recruiters for positions that, frankly, would be a career change. "Our client has an urgent need for a structural engineer." Well, that's great, of course, but I'm not one of those. That's really a branch of Civil or Architectural Engineering. Not Mechanical. "That's OK, you're still a great fit." We end up going through the process of finding out the compensation, where I question: Are you sure they're going to be willing to pay someone who is new at this job the same salary as someone who's been working in their field for over a decade? I'm talking to these people because I rarely pass on learning about an opportunity. There's a chance for me to go for my Professional Engineer license in these gigs, so it's worth exploring a little bit. Invariably, we get to the point of receiving feedback from the hiring firm and the response is "Well... you aren't a structural / Professional / MEP / BIM engineer, which is what we require." Bonus points for that part of the feedback being received during an interview by the miserable fuck who didn't know when to ignore a recruiter: me. To round all this out be to be back on topic: Thank you @joel_mckay for that "staffing agency lead generation firm" line. That helps me to realize what I've been coming to suspect is true: These aren't actually recruiters hired by firms. They're people scouring Linkedin for anyone who's a) breathing and b) has some overlapping words, for a job post the "recruiter" probably also found on Linkedin.
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoThis is fraud. Make it a felony, have a couple of high-profile convictions, and the problem will disappear. It happens because it's zero risk and low cost on one side, and the resources expended on the candidate side is of no concern to those committing the fraud. Attach real actual jail time to the fraud and the value proposition completely changes.
- dlevine 3y agoA relative of mine works for a large tech company. Her manager has 2 open reqs on the team. However, he has been told that he can’t hire anyone in California or New York. This is not to say that there are no qualified candidates elsewhere, but there are a ton of qualified candidates in the Bay Area that he can’t hire. He will probably eventually fill the roles, but it will take a lot longer.
- throwaway5959 3y agoWhy not CA or NY?
- FridgeSeal 3y agoNon-American here: do those states happen to have better employee protections by any chance?
- cooljoseph 3y agoYes.
- red-iron-pine 3y agoGenerally, yes. CA and NY are also states that mandatory pay range disclosures for job adverts, too.
- al_borland 3y agoIt could be due to pay. Some companies adjust pay based on where people live, adjusted for COL. CA and NY tend to be on the high end. Just one possible theory, there could be many other reasons.
- ghaff 3y agoThat's the most likely explanation. Companies don't want to go through a whole hiring process just to have a candidate laugh at the offer. Whether or not companies have any sort of formal don't hire in CA or NY policy, I see a lot of non-SV companies informally pulling back from CA--closing offices and the like.
- mianos 3y agoMaybe they all have an interview process like that post here yesterday on Canonical or Google, where people do ten interviews, each one trying harder and hard to avoid employing a perfectly qualified application so they can inflate their self worth?
- worldwidelies 3y agoI worked at a large company. My manager told me there's a legal requirement to post jobs publicly even though the position was intended for internal hiring. I don't know how true this is. If it is true, this could explain some of the 'ghost jobs'.
- al_borland 3y agoI’ve heard of this before as well. I’ve actually looked at applying for some internal jobs and was told not to bother, because it was the posting for a certain person. Had it happen for me once as well. A new team was being formed that I was part of. I was given a certain job post ID to apply for that was meant for me. Some people got upset, because they were told to apply for a level 2 position, when they saw a level 3 or 4 position was also out there that they wanted to go for… but the decisions had already been made.
- ghaff 3y agoYears after the fact, I was curious if a job opening created for me when a higher-up wanted to bring me in was posted for a bit. If so, other people probably didn't have much of a chance. Although I had some interviews, I don't think I ever even applied to the job through the online system.
- al_borland 3y agoThat makes me wonder if another one of my promotions was posted. My interview was the manager walking up to me while I was standing off to the side in the lunchroom waiting for someone else, and he simply said, “if anyone asks, I interviewed you.” He then walked away and I had a promotion.
- ergocoder 3y agoCompany's website is rife with ghost jobs. I worked in one where there was a layoff and hiring freeze. Yet the website contains hundreds of open positions.
- stefanos82 3y agoWithout knowing anything about economics or how they work, what crosses my mind and that is just a hypothesis, yet a plausible scenario, is that companies do this to maintain their financial validity due to current market turbulence of uncertainty...because if you think about it, if they don't show they are hiring, they will give the impression of stagnation, thus the loss of their current market value; but if they show they are hiring, without the outsiders knowing they are actually do not, it gives the false impression of company's growth, thus reassuring investors' financial concerns. I hope I'm very wrong, but I have my doubts...
- SavageBeast 3y agoI see a good number of what are obviously copied reqs and some that are just so ridiculous that they can't be real (lottery winning salary etc, remote work, C-level title, etc). 2 basic explanations here, maybe 3. If you wanted to start a recruiting operation you'd start with no job reqs and no customer firms most likely. You're going to need some of those. One way to get them would be to source a pool of resumes, talk to some candidates, sell them on your fake portfolio of reqs etc. NOW you got a pool of quality resumes and some candidates you can pump and you start making calls and sending emails to companies requesting they sign your payment agreement for access to all the awesome candidates in your pool. Alternatively, if you work a W2 job in HR/corporate recruiting, you have metrics and a schedule of work like anyone else. The metaphorical left arm of corporate and the equivalent right arm are not aware of each others existence and operation in this setting. You get job reqs in a system and you post them. Are they approved for hire? Are they Hopes and Dreams from department managers? Are they vetted internally to be real at all? Who knows. All the person positing knows is that they're getting paid to be at work, be a recruiter, and source people. They post these reqs and keep cashing paychecks. This is normal. Still yet, there are advertised govt. positions for state agencies. Recruiters often just take these reqs unaltered from the state entity and post them as if they're repping them. They're not most likely but they may have some broader agreement with a state organization for payment so they post them anyhow. This is free inventory for recruiters and any add they place, anyone they talk to, any resume they get .. thats a fish in the boat for free. Of course this happens. In my own pursuits I have a set of rules I rate reqs by. Being able to get someone on the phone is important. If you're real, you can hop on a call and you in fact want to. When I do talk to someone they shouldn't be asking me for SSN or other IDs either, because they want to "submit" you right away, thus binding the company they submit your info to for payment in the event of your hire. This is a game in itself because you are forever burned to come into this company again either on your own or via a higher quality recruiter. DO NOT EVER FALL FOR THIS. Another one is you'd better speak English as well as I do (I'm in the US) and if you don't you're an offshore resume mill and I want none of what you're doing. All sorts of dirty recruiting tricks once you really get into this.
- AngieBenton6 3y ago[dead]
- Croline79 3y ago[dead]
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