I haven't personally seen that. I've seen us open a job and get really bad applicants, or one good applicant who ends up taking another job for whatever reason

I haven't personally seen that. I've seen us open a job and get really bad applicants, or one good applicant who ends up taking another job for whatever reasons, and have it go unfilled for long periods of time. I think we probably could have made the hire with a higher salary or looking in other regions or both, but the company wasn't flexible on those things. I've also seen my company open applications for a job that is almost definitely going to be an internal promotion rather than a new hire, but for the sake of "fairness" they interview a handful of other people. Hiring is expensive. It takes a lot of time and energy to do interviews and screens and stuff like that, and usually some higher ups are involved in the process, so wasting their time is probably worse than just not posting the job if you're not going to hire.