Ghost job

A fake job, ghost job, or phantom job is a job posting for a non-existent or already filled position.

The employer may post fake job opening listings for many reasons, such as inflating statistics about their industries, protecting the company from discrimination lawsuits, fulfilling requirements by human-resources departments, identifying potentially promising recruits for future hiring, pacifying existing employees that the company is looking for extra help, or retaining desirable employees. They may also use this strategy to gather information regarding their competitors' wages.

There is a rising trend in employers promising remote work as "bait," and it underscores the relative power of the employers in the job market.

According to the career coaching service SamNova, a fake job listing can often be spotted as one that is either continuously open or repeatedly posted. These listings may have catchy titles, vague descriptions, a lack of detail, or contain reposts of previous listings.

A survey conducted by Clarify Capital has concluded that many companies and government entities have tricked job seekers with fake ads without the intent of hiring. In 2025 a Greenhouse study showed one in five job postings is fake or never filled.

See also

References

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  12. ^ Ropek, Lucas (2025-01-14). "1 in 5 Online Job Postings Are Either Fake or Never Filled, Study Finds". Gizmodo. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  13. ^ Cook, Lynn (2025-01-13). "Fake Job Postings Are Becoming a Real Problem". WSJ. Retrieved 2025-01-20.


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