23 ms·

I'd support it at the federal level. It's cruel towards people looking for work, and it costs them real time at a point in their lives when time is such a criti

I'd support it at the federal level. It's cruel towards people looking for work, and it costs them real time at a point in their lives when time is such a critical factor.

Mountain_Skies 4mo ago
Calculate the aggregate amount of time candidates spent on applying the ghost job and use the job's purported rate of pay to calculate the amount of money the company stole from the public. Was it enough to be felony theft? The person posting, or whoever instructed it to be posted, gets charged the same as if they stole that amount from a till. Instant end of ghost job postings as most wouldn't even try to find the loopholes and edge cases when prison is a risk for getting a workaround wrong.
- Retric 4mo ago
  Fraud seems like a more direct issue.
- JackFr 4mo ago
  Sending people to prison seems like a great way to get no jobs posted.
FireBeyond 4mo ago
Don't even start me on what I think is the next big issue, "ghost application harvesting": I think Wellfound (f/k/a AngelList) is doing this. The jobs advertised on there are real... I'd been on the job market four months. Every day I did the rounds: Levels, Wellfound, YC/jobs, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn. It is what it is, as a crappy jobs market. Wellfound? I didn't ever hear from anything from their job ads. And I'm pretty certain that whatever Wellfound/AngelList was, it has become a company that just markets resume writing services, resume review services, all sorts of other services that draw in your money somehow. Why do I say that? 120+ applications on Wellfound since then. Crickets. Absolutely nothing. One day I got an email, "Your profile has been viewed!". Weird, never seen an email like that from Wellfound. Indeed, "You have 1 profile view in the last 90 days". Huh. 120+ applications, 120+ times me answering filling out Wellfound's content questions on "why you would be a good fit for this role", "tell us about x and y and z", no interviews, no contact, only ONE company has ever even viewed my profile (and for what it's worth, it's not a company that has any positions open). Well, maybe my answers suck, you say. Maybe my resume isn't as impressive as I think it is. But similar answers and the same resume get me fairly steady hits on every other site I mentioned, I've got to multiple final rounds, I've been explicitly told I was hirable, I was just the number two, I was "in the top three". And to be clear, many of the companies I see on WF are advertising on other sites too. My suspicion? WF DOES take job listings, but they also harvest them from other sites - the job is real, but there's no-one from the employer reviewing the applications to their "phantom" job at Wellfound... and meanwhile all people like me are doing are providing content for WF to harvest and train models for their real business model: AI-driven resume writing and review service and other products. My AI video interview? Viewed... zero times. Huh.
- grimcompanion 4mo ago
  Totally agree. I actually got a job off of AngelList back in the day, when I was fairly junior. Was getting messages from hiring managers, founders, and in-house recruiters almost daily. 5 years later, I updated my profile with a much more legit background than before, messaged a few places - it's been 100% crickets.
engineer_22 4mo ago
What is cruel about having a public mailbox for stuffing job applications?
- RandallBrown 4mo ago
  It's cruel to have people spend time and energy applying for a job that doesn't actually exist and they have no chance of being hired for, despite their qualifications.
  - rapidaneurism 4mo ago
    I suspect they would hire a Nobel laureate that was willing to work as an unpaid intern.
  - engineer_22 4mo ago
    Online? It's like, a few clicks, maybe a few hurried minutes. Unless, maybe you're so clueless that you do spend significant amount of time on each hand crafted submission, hoping the (unbeknownst to you) 23 yr old HR admin with a degree in comparative psych will appreciate the subtle indicators of subject matter expertise you've carefully woven through your cover letter and provocatively embedded in your relevant experience. Or perhaps instead, you took the time to look up the name of the hiring manager and reviewed all their socials to try to understand them better and thoughtfully included hints through your application that you share common interests, you might even see them in a bar or restaurant on their side of town, maybe you'll talk to them, you think to yourself, but no it would be too much we should simply observe, and wait, the work we've put into the application will speak for itself... In either case, yes I agree life will be hard for you, perhaps even cruel, for such a rare flower the light of day is cruelty. I wish you luck. Don't email me.
- wtfwhateven 4mo ago
  Terrible, perhaps even knowingly dishonest, analogy.

I'd support it at the federal level. It's cruel towards people looking for work, and it costs them real time at a point in their lives when time is such a critical factor.

Mountain_Skies 4mo ago

Calculate the aggregate amount of time candidates spent on applying the ghost job and use the job's purported rate of pay to calculate the amount of money the company stole from the public. Was it enough to be felony theft? The person posting, or whoever instructed it to be posted, gets charged the same as if they stole that amount from a till. Instant end of ghost job postings as most wouldn't even try to find the loopholes and edge cases when prison is a risk for getting a workaround wrong.

Retric 4mo ago
Fraud seems like a more direct issue.
JackFr 4mo ago
Sending people to prison seems like a great way to get no jobs posted.

FireBeyond 4mo ago

Don't even start me on what I think is the next big issue, "ghost application harvesting": I think Wellfound (f/k/a AngelList) is doing this. The jobs advertised on there are real... I'd been on the job market four months. Every day I did the rounds: Levels, Wellfound, YC/jobs, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn. It is what it is, as a crappy jobs market. Wellfound? I didn't ever hear from anything from their job ads. And I'm pretty certain that whatever Wellfound/AngelList was, it has become a company that just markets resume writing services, resume review services, all sorts of other services that draw in your money somehow. Why do I say that? 120+ applications on Wellfound since then. Crickets. Absolutely nothing. One day I got an email, "Your profile has been viewed!". Weird, never seen an email like that from Wellfound. Indeed, "You have 1 profile view in the last 90 days". Huh. 120+ applications, 120+ times me answering filling out Wellfound's content questions on "why you would be a good fit for this role", "tell us about x and y and z", no interviews, no contact, only ONE company has ever even viewed my profile (and for what it's worth, it's not a company that has any positions open). Well, maybe my answers suck, you say. Maybe my resume isn't as impressive as I think it is. But similar answers and the same resume get me fairly steady hits on every other site I mentioned, I've got to multiple final rounds, I've been explicitly told I was hirable, I was just the number two, I was "in the top three". And to be clear, many of the companies I see on WF are advertising on other sites too. My suspicion? WF DOES take job listings, but they also harvest them from other sites - the job is real, but there's no-one from the employer reviewing the applications to their "phantom" job at Wellfound... and meanwhile all people like me are doing are providing content for WF to harvest and train models for their real business model: AI-driven resume writing and review service and other products. My AI video interview? Viewed... zero times. Huh.

grimcompanion 4mo ago
Totally agree. I actually got a job off of AngelList back in the day, when I was fairly junior. Was getting messages from hiring managers, founders, and in-house recruiters almost daily. 5 years later, I updated my profile with a much more legit background than before, messaged a few places - it's been 100% crickets.

engineer_22 4mo ago

What is cruel about having a public mailbox for stuffing job applications?

RandallBrown 4mo ago
It's cruel to have people spend time and energy applying for a job that doesn't actually exist and they have no chance of being hired for, despite their qualifications.
- rapidaneurism 4mo ago
  I suspect they would hire a Nobel laureate that was willing to work as an unpaid intern.
- engineer_22 4mo ago
  Online? It's like, a few clicks, maybe a few hurried minutes. Unless, maybe you're so clueless that you do spend significant amount of time on each hand crafted submission, hoping the (unbeknownst to you) 23 yr old HR admin with a degree in comparative psych will appreciate the subtle indicators of subject matter expertise you've carefully woven through your cover letter and provocatively embedded in your relevant experience. Or perhaps instead, you took the time to look up the name of the hiring manager and reviewed all their socials to try to understand them better and thoughtfully included hints through your application that you share common interests, you might even see them in a bar or restaurant on their side of town, maybe you'll talk to them, you think to yourself, but no it would be too much we should simply observe, and wait, the work we've put into the application will speak for itself... In either case, yes I agree life will be hard for you, perhaps even cruel, for such a rare flower the light of day is cruelty. I wish you luck. Don't email me.
wtfwhateven 4mo ago
Terrible, perhaps even knowingly dishonest, analogy.