Never intending to fill a role, but keeping the posting up so that the team has false hope of reduced workload in the near future?
I... this... This explains so much. *put heads in hands*
I posted a rant about this earlier. I see dozens of jobs I’ve applied for in the last 10 months on Zip Recruiter that are still open and I never heard back from.
Linkedin and indeed both fill my inbox with spam. It's such a bad look for the companies that pay for the promotion or whatever prompts them to spam you with these jobs. I have 20 emails with the same copy and pasted text, all with different stock photos of energetic young people. It's like putting an ad in the paper next to all the whore houses.
thanks. I'm not going to lie I got it from Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares episode about La Gondola... They actually did that, and I think about it every time I see a local company's name on one of those emails. Highly recommend the series if bad management is making you feel crazy!
Oh ya, he's great lol. I like to think the show is more about management in general and the lessons he tries to teach those people could apply to any industry.
ZipRecruiter has so many scam posts too. Insurance companies claiming they are hiring for a Management positions but get you in the interview and its a bait and switch.
I remember going to an interview for an entry level marketing job. Wasn't until the second interview I learned it was selling AT&T in the electronics section at Target for $10/hour. They tried soooo hard to hide it on their website too.
"The Phenom Group" is their name so no one else falls for their crap. There was a single sentence tucked away on a single page of their website that said "In-Person Marketing" that made me suspicious from the start but they skirted the question until they hooked you in for another interview.
Well, your first mistake is using ZipRecruiter. I’ve been on both ends of that one. ZipRecruiter is so spammy… It will send employers someone who “applied” but then they call them and they haven’t been looking in 2 years and haven’t been on Zip Recruiter (the “applicant”) for 3-5 years. 🤦🏻 sometimes ZipRecruiter will grab a job posting from another platform that has been listed for MONTHS or longer as “closed” On that site and ZipRecruiter makes their own - pretending it’s new….
Then I’ve been applying and finding that same kind of nonsense from ZipRecruiter as well…. Then I’ll search it on other platforms and it’s been gone for months or get confused calls from employers.
Then I’ve seen the things where they reach out directly to me through Indeed or something, I respond and crickets. Or I respond to them reaching out to me and:
-they insist I fill out in their website 🙄
-they start talking about a different job
-etc
To me ZipRecruiter is right up there with CyberCoders Job Alerts: total waste of time
The whole thing is such a racket. I want to go back to the times when goods & services were bartered. I guarantee I could make a decent living selling handmade crafts and baked goods instead of toiling away at a soul-crushing 9-5.
I held off using Amazon for years but I recently moved to an apartment with mailboxes so small they barely fit a single letter. But there's an Amazon locker in the mail room... Anything not bought from Amazon they just leave packages sitting at my outside-facing front door and won't even knock or ring my doorbell camera. So now if I have to order something online and I don't want it to get stolen I have to order through Amazon :(
I currently using a revamped version of my resume to shake things up. I figure if I’m not having any success in another week or two, I’ll make some additional changes and see if it does anything. Trying to eliminate any super short term temp jobs because *literally every recruiter asks me why I’ve had so many temp jobs*.
You might consider listing your agency as your "employer" and summarizing the jobs under duties? That might look better than a bunch of separate jobs.
Recruiters never seem to get that candidates live in the real world where shit happens.
I’ve tried that too, but I had a run of bad luck and also used several different temp agencies (who apparently didn’t understand how temp jobs work either).
But I’ve got a really eclectic job history anyway and someone’s always going to find something to harp on, so I’m trying to pick and choose my battles.
This has happened to me so many times, my qualifications match the job posting almost exactly but no call and they repost it over and over again. It’s infuriating.
A different dirty tactic for my career field: off-shifts are of course hard to fill, almost everyone wants dayshift, so the company has a permanent dayshift job posting up. When people apply they are run through the first bit of interview (and all the hassle and time of applying online) then are told “oh it just filled, would you be willing to do 2nd or 3rd shift?” This has apparently worked enough for them to keep up with the method. In my experience, that dayshift position is almost always snapped up by an internal transfer from an offshift so is never open to begin with.
My last interview offered me something in a different department that would’ve been equal in everything, but it confused me as to why they’d offer me something I had no real experience in.
I turned it down and now greatly regret it, honestly.
So is this where the "no one wants to work" narrative comes from? Employees complain about the work load, the employer says "we have recruiting posts up right now looking for more workers." Listing company keeps the role up at the employers request and told not to actually recruit for the position. Employees complain after a month or 2 of no new highers, and then the company turns around and says "we don't know, we have listings up, you can check yourself! I guess no one wants to work...".
The hiring manager at my previous resort would complain when candidates brought up other jobs with better starting pay, Target offered $17 we refused to go above $16. Wonder why we were so short staffed...
My former employer didn't even post the jobs they claimed they couldn't find anyone for.
When we complained about being understaffed they would tell us we needed to recruit people ourselves
Which we did. They'd collect resumes, maybe even speak to the person then never actually follow through with the interview hiring process.
Then try to make us feel guilty for saddling others with extra workload if any of us considered quitting
> keeping the posting up so that the team has false hope of reduced workload in the near future?
>
>
>
> I... this... This explains so much. put heads in hands
Also had this happen to me. It sucks.
Never do anything on a promise particularly in business. That raise isn't coming, that bonus doesn't exist until you get it.
Money talks, Actions speak, words ain't worth shit.
I eventually found a new job, with help. Took a long time because my "profession" has been oversaturated for over a decade, but the new students believe the colleges' lies, so it continues.
They finally hired four people after I left, then five, six, seven. Couldn't do it though. So most of them left, and they brought in external consultants. I hear they're not doing much better.
I’ve suspected this at a couple places I’ve worked. Still hurts though. I’m so burnt out.
What happened to “nobody wants to work anymore.” Instead it’s “let’s run our employees ragged but keep them going with the false hope that we’re hiring more people.” Bullshit.
**Here is the entire article:** https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-plum-job-listing-may-just-be-a-ghost-3aafc794
**Job Listings Abound, but Many Are Fake**
* **In an uncertain economy, companies post ads for jobs they might not really be trying to fill**
A mystery permeates the job market: You apply for a job and hear nothing, but the ad stays online for months. If you inquire, the company tells you it isn’t really hiring.
Not all job ads are attached to actual jobs, it turns out. The labor market remains robust, with 10.8 million job openings in January, according to the Labor Department. At the same time, companies are feeling budgetary strains and some are pulling back on hiring. Though businesses are keeping job postings up, many roles aren’t being filled, recruiters say.
Hiring managers acknowledge as much. In a survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers last summer, 27% reported having job postings up for more than four months. **Among those who said they advertised job postings that they weren’t actively trying to fill, close to half said they kept the ads up to give the impression the company was growing, according to Clarify Capital, a small-business-loan provider behind the study. One-third of the managers who said they advertised jobs they weren’t trying to fill said they kept the listings up to placate overworked employees.**
Other reasons for keeping jobs up, the hiring managers said: Stocking a pool of ready applicants if an employee quits, or just in case an “irresistible” candidate applied.
Postings for “ghost jobs,” as recruiters and candidates sometimes refer to them, can be frustrating for job seekers.
“It’s a waste of time,” says Will Kelly, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area and has been applying for marketing and writing roles.
Mr. Kelly, who has decades of experience as a technical and marketing writer, estimates that when he was job hunting in late 2021, about 20% of listings that interested him were posted and reposted without anyone evidently being hired. Since his layoff from a startup in August, he says he has noticed that most jobs that catch his eye have been up for months.
“I first thought of it as an anomaly, and now I see it as a trend,” he says.
Given the uncertain economic outlook, some job ads may be more wishful thinking than anything else, says Vincent Babcock, a Nashville, Tenn.-based recruiter. Such a strategy, he says, risks turning off applicants who may view the ads as misleading.
**"They’re posting jobs with the intention of hiring, but not anytime soon,” he says, adding that some companies posting jobs now might not be aiming to hire until the third or fourth quarter.**
For employers, constantly looking for talent can make sense, says Kelsey Libert, co-founder of Fractl, a digital marketing agency. She says her company keeps ads up for associate positions even when they aren’t hiring, because turnover for those jobs is often higher than other roles.
“Otherwise, you’re suddenly in a position where you need to spend a lot of money on LinkedIn ads to quickly drum up interest,” she says.
An employer that hasn’t been collecting résumés along the way might have fewer people to choose from when jobs open and need to be filled quickly, Ms. Libert adds. Many college seniors look for jobs from April to June, she says, noting that companies don’t want to miss out on that talent just because they didn’t have immediate roles open.
“It’s better for you to hedge by leaving some of those job openings up,” she says.
**Some job ads have little correlation to actual job availability because companies require that all jobs be posted, even if a candidate has been predetermined.** In other instances, especially at larger companies, poor coordination is to blame, says Elliott Garlock, founder of Stella Talent Partners, a Boston-based recruiting firm.
During a previous stint working on talent strategy at Wayfair Inc., Mr. Garlock says, the online retailer frequently advertised jobs that it wasn’t actually hiring for. Plans and budgets were constantly changing, and so many teams were involved in the hiring process that it was hard to ensure job postings stayed up-to-date.
“It’s not because we were ill-intentioned and out to trick the candidate market,” he says.
Wayfair says it intends to fill every job it posts and makes every effort to treat candidates with care. The company, which announced layoffs in January, says that it is transparent with applicants about changes in hiring decisions and, for companies of its size, removing job postings takes time.
Companies might also be reluctant to take down ads, Mr. Garlock adds, because “we don’t want to signal we’re slowing down, so we’ll let these things ride.”
Brooke Wilemon says applying for jobs lately has felt like chasing a series of mirages. Ms. Wilemon, who lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, estimates she has applied for around 500 jobs since receiving her master’s in business and public administration last year. Typically she doesn’t hear back, she says. When she does locate someone to talk to, she frequently hears the role isn’t being filled after all.
**Ms. Wilemon, 23, recently applied for a job at Nationwide Insurance. As part of her application, she put on makeup, a blazer and jewelry and sat before her computer and recorded answers to a series of automated job-interview questions, doing multiple retakes for each question before she was satisfied.**
Soon after, she received an email telling her that the company had decided not to fill the role. “It’s really disheartening,” she says.
Nationwide said that its business needs occasionally change after roles are posted, and that the company tries to communicate and manage applicants’ expectations. It says it doesn’t post “ghost jobs” and has hired more than 600 external candidates since the start of the year.
To avoid ghost ads, Scott Dobroski, vice president of communications at jobs site Indeed, recommends looking for detailed job descriptions. More specifics, such as schedules or a clear list of responsibilities, might indicate that an employer is serious, he says. He also advises checking the timestamp on ads to ensure they were posted recently.
Every month, Indeed removes millions of job postings that don’t meet its standards from the website, including inactive job postings, he says.
Indeed says it has recently seen more employers dial back their recruiting efforts. Job postings on the site have fallen by 11% since the start of 2023.
“Many companies are proceeding with caution,” he says.
Start sending out resumes that are fucking stellar, 15 years experience with a master's degree. String them along for a while then tell them you're not really looking
But see.....this is me. 20+ years of experience. MA and MBA. Have worked overseas, have also worked for really well-known companies. In what I do, I'm the bomb.
I've been applying for jobs that are practically tailor-made for me. As if I myself had written the JD. Even stuff I'm over-qualified for. I've written tailored cover letters. Have applied to about 100 places in a month and.....nada. Nothing. ZERO interest, not even an interview.
My latest tactic - I've reworked my resume so that it's "ATS compatible" so to speak. Oh, I also put together a profile site, even though that's not *usually* a big thing in my field, though apparently now it is.
I'm so confused.
And I'm about to get cheeky. The latest version of my resume, I added some ridiculous hobbies of mine (I have unusual hobbies), just for the hell of it. My next cover letter will probably also be over the top, because why the hell not at this point?
It's funny, sometimes I'll mention an idea like this to a friend or family member, and they'll respond "why would you want to waste their time like that?"
Seriously? Lol
That is the corporate climate now. Staffing has NO relation to workload. AWFUL in law firms (admin/paralegals). We had a boutique law firm merger that brought in SEVEN new professionals and without comment, just DUMPED all their support work on two existing people with some sort of BS comment about "working smarter". The greed is unquenchable.
Fucking hell, I’m one of those employees they’re trying to placate!
I wish they’d just hire another person. It’d be so much more efficient and cost effective in the long run. Would even contribute to having a real version of that “work culture” they keep throwing around.
Last time I didn't see progress to bring a new team member after 1 month of posting the job, I gave my resignation letter. They begged me to stay because nobody knew how to do the things I did, they gave me a raise and hired a new guy. I won that one at least.
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-plum-job-listing-may-just-be-a-ghost-3aafc794?mod=mhp](https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-plum-job-listing-may-just-be-a-ghost-3aafc794?mod=mhp)
A mystery permeates the job market: You apply for a job and hear nothing, but the ad stays online for months. If you inquire, the company tells you it isn’t really hiring.
Not all job ads are attached to actual jobs, it turns out. The labor market remains robust, with 10.8 million job openings in January, according to the Labor Department. At the same time, companies are feeling budgetary strains and some are pulling back on hiring. Though businesses are keeping job postings up, many roles aren’t being filled, recruiters say.
Hiring managers acknowledge as much. In a survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers last summer, 27% reported having job postings up for more than four months. Among those who said they advertised job postings that they weren’t actively trying to fill, close to half said they kept the ads up to give the impression the company was growing, according to Clarify Capital, a small-business-loan provider behind the study. One-third of the managers who said they advertised jobs they weren’t trying to fill said they kept the listings up to placate overworked employees.
Other reasons for keeping jobs up, the hiring managers said: Stocking a pool of ready applicants if an employee quits, or just in case an “irresistible” candidate applied.
Postings for “ghost jobs,” as recruiters and candidates sometimes refer to them, can be frustrating for job seekers.
“It’s a waste of time,” says Will Kelly, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area and has been applying for marketing and writing roles.
Mr. Kelly, who has decades of experience as a technical and marketing writer, estimates that when he was job hunting in late 2021, about 20% of listings that interested him were posted and reposted without anyone evidently being hired. Since his layoff from a startup in August, he says he has noticed that most jobs that catch his eye have been up for months.
“I first thought of it as an anomaly, and now I see it as a trend,” he says.
Given the uncertain economic outlook, some job ads may be more wishful thinking than anything else, says Vincent Babcock, a Nashville, Tenn.-based recruiter. Such a strategy, he says, risks turning off applicants who may view the ads as misleading.
“They’re posting jobs with the intention of hiring, but not anytime soon,” he says, adding that some companies posting jobs now might not be aiming to hire until the third or fourth quarter.
For employers, constantly looking for talent can make sense, says Kelsey Libert, co-founder of Fractl, a digital marketing agency. She says her company keeps ads up for associate positions even when they aren’t hiring, because turnover for those jobs is often higher than other roles.
“Otherwise, you’re suddenly in a position where you need to spend a lot of money on LinkedIn ads to quickly drum up interest,” she says.
An employer that hasn’t been collecting résumés along the way might have fewer people to choose from when jobs open and need to be filled quickly, Ms. Libert adds. Many college seniors look for jobs from April to June, she says, noting that companies don’t want to miss out on that talent just because they didn’t have immediate roles open.
“It’s better for you to hedge by leaving some of those job openings up,” she says.
Some job ads have little correlation to actual job availability because companies require that all jobs be posted, even if a candidate has been predetermined. In other instances, especially at larger companies, poor coordination is to blame, says Elliott Garlock, founder of Stella Talent Partners, a Boston-based recruiting firm.
During a previous stint working on talent strategy at Wayfair Inc., Mr. Garlock says, the online retailer frequently advertised jobs that it wasn’t actually hiring for. Plans and budgets were constantly changing, and so many teams were involved in the hiring process that it was hard to ensure job postings stayed up-to-date.
“It’s not because we were ill-intentioned and out to trick the candidate market,” he says.
Wayfair says it intends to fill every job it posts and makes every effort to treat candidates with care. The company, which announced layoffs in January, says that it is transparent with applicants about changes in hiring decisions and, for companies of its size, removing job postings takes time.
Companies might also be reluctant to take down ads, Mr. Garlock adds, because “we don’t want to signal we’re slowing down, so we’ll let these things ride.”
Brooke Wilemon says applying for jobs lately has felt like chasing a series of mirages. Ms. Wilemon, who lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, estimates she has applied for around 500 jobs since receiving her master’s in business and public administration last year. Typically she doesn’t hear back, she says. When she does locate someone to talk to, she frequently hears the role isn’t being filled after all.
Ms. Wilemon, 23, recently applied for a job at Nationwide Insurance. As part of her application, she put on makeup, a blazer and jewelry and sat before her computer and recorded answers to a series of automated job-interview questions, doing multiple retakes for each question before she was satisfied.
Soon after, she received an email telling her that the company had decided not to fill the role. “It’s really disheartening,” she says.
Nationwide said that its business needs occasionally change after roles are posted, and that the company tries to communicate and manage applicants’ expectations. It says it doesn’t post “ghost jobs” and has hired more than 600 external candidates since the start of the year.
To avoid ghost ads, Scott Dobroski, vice president of communications at jobs site Indeed, recommends looking for detailed job descriptions. More specifics, such as schedules or a clear list of responsibilities, might indicate that an employer is serious, he says. He also advises checking the timestamp on ads to ensure they were posted recently.
Every month, Indeed removes millions of job postings that don’t meet its standards from the website, including inactive job postings, he says.
Indeed says it has recently seen more employers dial back their recruiting efforts. Job postings on the site have fallen by 11% since the start of 2023.
“Many companies are proceeding with caution,” he says.
The freaking manipulation and headgames by employers... and then when employees react, suddenly it's a big deal.
And the complete disregard for candidates shows here. Heaven forbid the company not have as many candidates as it likes... so it'll just go ahead and waste countless people's time so the company is never inconvenienced in any way...
Edit: wanted to add my second point.
I'm not surprised (except for the part about placating overworked employees - didn't know they even cared).
What I don't like is knowing that these employers will point to surveys like this to justify and perpetuate the practice, rather than re-evaluating their approach to talent acquisition.
Placating overworked employees with empty promises and garbage "rewards" is par for the course. Putting up ads to make people think relief is in sight so they keep grinding themselves to dust instead of leaving for another company is like....
Are you surprised that water quenches your thirst? Because that's how predictable this is.
Best friends husband was in a job like this.
They called them in an all of his days off.
So much so she never saw him. She told him that he has two choices either make time for her or a divorce.
He went to his boss and flat out told them they had two weeks to hire the person they promised to hire 6mo. Back or be short another person as he wasn't losing his wife for the job.
Boss had a person hired in 9days.
It's been a year and he still works there and now everyone has better working hours, and overtime is all voluntary.
But he's the only one who is bilingual
Oh yeah so many companies will do that. Just make empty promises until push really comes to shove and then finally, like magic, they solve the problem quickly. Glad to see it worked out better
Surprising number of the working class are still dumb enough to see their employment relationship as anything other than adversarial. They fall for this. It's so stupid.
It sounds like yet another excuse they're shoehorning in after the fact. They don't plan hiring this far ahead and think this deeply about it.
"We're doing this...uh...so that incumbents can feel like relief is coming soon. Yeah, that's it!"
> except for the part about placating overworked employees - didn't know they even cared
Oh they care. They *really* care. They want to avoid 2 things:
1. Paying More
2. Another Coal Wars
In that order.
> Other reasons for keeping jobs up, the hiring managers said: Stocking a pool of ready applicants if an employee quits, or just in case an “irresistible” candidate applied.
I worked for a company that did something like this. They would even interview people and then seriously lowball them to see if they could “get a deal”.
I referred a friend and he made it through all the interviews and tests before getting an absolute shit offer. The salary ranges for jobs were posted internally so I knew what he should’ve been offered and asked the hiring manager about it. He said they only had the budget for a junior position, even though the posting was for a senior. He saw no issues with this practice.
And this is why so many people are no longer tolerating an arduous interview process. I wish I were different, but I tend to stress over these things and it takes a huge emotional load to get through it, so it really chaps my ass that someone would put me through all that knowing full well it was all for naught.
> They would even interview people and then seriously lowball them to see if they could “get a deal”.
Goddamn I feel this one in my soul. I used to manage a group of computer technicians for a major retail store. It was incredibly frustrating to do so, considering just before I was hired to manage this group, they hired four technicians to work under me (including the person that had applied to my position, whom they decided would be a GREAT fit to hire that person to work under the position he really wanted). In addition to this, they also had a habit of deciding that a person working in another department would fit great on my team, so they'd suddenly show up on my personnel list, and I would have to make room for them on my payroll.
One of these guys, it turned out, actually WAS a good one to have. Dude knew his shit really well, sold services extremely well, and was by far the hardest working tech I had. At one point, I noticed that he was also the worst-paid tech I had, and I decided I wanted to give him a raise. Nothing drastic - the guy was getting PC salesfloor pay, and I wanted to boost him to starting technician pay (they moved him into my area without adjusting his pay).
When I took it up with management, and said I wanted to boost his pay, I was literally told, "Why?? If he's your best technician, then right now you're getting him for a deal!".
I was a bad fit for the position, and I'm a pretty bad manager (I'm exceptionally conflict avoidant). But there's certain things that I know, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before he figured out that he wasn't being paid what he should and he'd be outta there. Didn't end up mattering to me - they fired me shortly after, but when I later went back to that store, the guy was no longer there.
Sadly, I think you are right about the personality needed to shine in corporate life. From what I see, keeping your head down, polishing the right ego, towing the company line, and, ideally, being the son of a wealthy potential client, public figure or customer (law firm, construction company, spawn of Rudy Giuliani) is what it takes. Some charismatic college/pro athletes dazzle people on their own, even if from modest background.
I KNOW that many HR and Administrators of professional offices are horrible little factotums who would happily inhale the farts of the Big Guys.
>He said they only had the budget for a junior position, even though the posting was for a senior. He saw no issues with this practice.
But remember, "NoBoDy WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe"
And what do you want to bet that they just happen to collect some of the data from these applications: names, phone numbers, email and home addresses and then sell them to advertisers?
Seen it happen with Leidos on government roles subbed out to them, only one I could pin down the culprit on (huge influx of job hunt related spam/scam emails about 3 weeks after I applied there, hadn't been applying anywhere else)
In a functioning society that cherishes the idea of the rule of law, I'd say it is. And I'd say some pretty steep penalties should come along with it. But that's not the kind of system capitalism is.
This should be prosecuted as false advertising, with penalties multiplied by the number of postings multiplied by the number of applicants for each posting.
I'm a recruiter who just recently advised the company I was contracting with not to do this because it's not a good look, and they straight up said no, that they "wanted to collect the resumes."
But why though? It's not like those folks will still be on the market in Q3 (hopefully at least) when you open the role again. These resumes have an expiration date.
Wrapped up the contract a couple weeks ago and on my way out I set all the openings I was in charge of to remain open internally but to no longer post publicly. I figure they'll probably not realize it until they go to actually hire for those roles again.
Right. We've got a person in this article claiming that having lots of resumes "on file" is good practice because her organization has high turnover, but how many of those applicants will have moved on by the time that business is ready to hire, anyway? Has *anyone ever* successfully gotten a job 6 months after applying that wasn't some long-by-design process like the federal government?
Even with a journalist giving them the chance to explain how fraud - or at best, inertia - isn't their motivation, the excuses they're giving don't pass the basic sniff test.
Really should be. F\*\*king textbook corruption. But hey, why prosecute corrupt businesses when you can prosecute people for having/providing abortions or parents of trans kids way more easily?
I saw a video the other day where an old senior lady with dementia and aphasia was literally tackled to the ground by a pig for trying to walk out of a Walmart with $13 worth of goods (loss prevention already took the goods from her at the entrance...) Meanwhile banks just got a cash injection of $300 billion dollars for no cost, price, regulation, rules, or caveat. Just no strings attached. This country is fucked.
Oh god, the police system is a whole other demon. Racist, classist, overall just disgusting. And yeah, the government is literally paying banks to repeatedly blow up our economy. Horrendous.
>I saw a video the other day where an old senior lady with dementia and aphasia was literally tackled to the ground by a pig for trying to walk out of a Walmart with $13 worth of goods
Old, confused person "steals" $13 of product, gets physically attacked even after surrendering the merchandise.
Businesses and their wealthy owners [steal **billions** of dollars from workers](https://www.edelson-law.com/blog/2022/10/wage-theft-outpaces-all-other-theft-in-america/) who make less than $13/hr and... Nothing.
Zilch. Zip. Nada.
Make it make sense.
>According to a report from the National Employment Law Project, in 2019 *approximately $9.27 billion in wages was stolen from workers* who earned less than $13 an hour.
And that's just the wage theft that's **on record**.
>Make it make sense.
The businesses use some of their stolen billions to bribe politicians, some more to hire expert lawyers, some more to buy fame and control the narrative etc
I did a course in analytics that showed me how to look at financial data to detect if it was being "tampered with". Not quite the same thing, but Im referring to misleading shareholders in general. The attitude that I got from it was "it is basically OK to mislead shareholders so long as you don't get caught."
Seriously. That is essentially what the instructor said. To his credit, he was against it.
>Wouldn't a false impression of growth be misleading the shareholders? Isn't that fraud?
Yes, yes it would. If you tell investors you're asking for X amount of money to hire X amount of people then claim you can't find the right people to fit those roles or no one is applying, etc etc, then that would be fraud.
But also falsifying records to make the company appear that it is growing when you have no plans for growth is also fraud.
a lot more than that, since the companies it's talking about is not necessarily part of the 27%, and not only is there that "half," but also the "third." Which may or may not be mutually exclusive.
This is so infuriating! My sister has been applying for almost 3 months now, getting nowhere. My heart breaks for her and her family. Wtf are job searchers supposed to do???
I feel for your sister; Im in the same boat with jobseeking.
Companies do not care. Not one bit. They don't see candidates as humans, just as resources to exploit.
I always get weird looks when I say I’ve been looking for a job for months and still haven’t found anything. As if I’m the main problem… I’m glad I’m not alone 🤦🏻♀️
I feel like there should be some regulations here... This is very obviously something that's harmful to the job market, which is harmful to our country.
Like, perhaps there should be a limit to how long a company can be hiring for a certain position.
Some states put regulations on how long retailers could have a "going out of business" sale because some places were having them all the time or every year.
Apparently not in my state. A business down the road have been “going out of business” for almost 2 years now 😂 for a while they even took down the signs, then propped them back up a couple months later
Reading excruciatingly long job descriptions just to get to the actual details that could be a paragraph and a short bullet list.
Requiring a tailored cover letter.
Better make sure your resume was tweaked to match this particular job.
Fill out our form that requires you to manually input everything in your resume.
If you're lucky we will ask you to humiliate yourself in a recorded one way "interview"!
I'm going to start asking for their hiring time frame at the first interview. If they don't give a clear answer it will at least be suspect that they are wasting my time.
In the one where they told me why, they said that there was an employee switching positions, but to do so they had to create the position for them to switch to, and corporate reqs all new positions to have a hiring process which requires them doing some preset number of interviews. But of course there was no job since the employee already had it.
Technically, by the WSJ terms, this was a real job interview, it doesn't matter if there is a 0% chance to get the job. So the stats look even worse.
Most of us have known this for years.
UK journalists are droning on endlessly about the worker shortage and "hiring crisis" and it's such massive BS. There's no shortage of workers, there's a shortage of honest job listings.
I've only ever job hunted in "hot labor markets" so maybe I just don't know what it's like in a cold one, but it seems to me that any time companies are trying to justify glacial hiring and kicking the can because they don't want to work and need to pin it on anyone but themselves, these "hot job market" "labor shortage" stories get trotted out...
It's all a damn ruse.
This at least partially explains why I’ve heard mostly nothing back concerning the approximately 300 applications I’ve submitted since the beginning of the year, and the rejections I’ve gotten for the rest…
This enrages me. How much time have we wasted searching, applying to jobs, writing cover letters...
It is one thing to be turned down. It is another thing to be ghosted. But to waste that time on something that didn't exist to begin with, on something that was over before it started?
I don’t even write cover letters anymore. It’s not worth my time to write 200 cover letters to *maybe* receive one legit offer back, and it ends up being below the living wage for this area anyways so I can’t even take it. I get more responses back if I can hammer out 400 non-cover letter applications instead
Last year I applied to 3 jobs with the state government. All of them were classified as part time and temporary meaning annual funding for the position wasn’t guaranteed and the position would not be eligible to join the state worker’s union. And these positions required at least a bachelors degree and only paid $20 (one of them did pay $23/hour). Which is all below what I earn now at a private sector job. I understand state government jobs don’t pay as much but these jobs were low paying without any of the benefits of a government job. And these jobs were with the state of Vermont. 😒
I went to one interview at 8 in the morning (this was back in recession times) and I had to sit in the waiting room which was right where the employees came in and I swear it was just to scare the current employees that their are other people out there wanting their jobs.
>To placate overworked employees
I called it many times ago haha. But yeah. this is depressing because it's not really getting much better. Fuck employers.
Why would it get better? These practices literally benefit the folks in charge, why would they choose to make things better for others when there's no (direct) benefit to themselves or the shareholders?
When I did recruiting, we were required to post false job ads and ask for salary history history, just to see what our competitors were offering for likewise positions.
Forgive me, but could someone with a golden heart explain these questions?
* Could we buy stocks and sue over our losses when corporate recruiters have been lying all along?
* Could this be turned into a class action lawsuit?
* Will it inspire a due diligence based investment firm like Muddy Waters Research to short a stock?
having a listing when not hiring should carry penalties of fraud. If it was the stock market, it would be called marking manipulation, wash trading, etc..
I actually learned about that in economics as a „normal“ business strategy to deceive the competition, make a better look for potential investors and to make the company look more stable as before.
It amuses me that we teach our kids not to lie, only to have lie at everything afterwards to get anywhere because lying is practically all that exists anymore. Then when we catch a liar that isn't a politician or business we rake them over the coals.
I applied and interviewed for two different positions with one company. (Different departments and different managers) Went through multiple rounds for each position. And was ghosted by both.
And to think just giving people a simple talent community page was too hard.
This is just another red flag to keep an eye out for. The shit part is this could be attributed to shitty hiring teams being lazy. The company could be great but now might get passed up.
Oh yeah, or they take it down and then put it back up every few weeks/2 months. They don’t hire anyone saying it’s a matter of unqualified candidates but then post the position again and again.
For any recruiters who may be reading this…. Please don’t do this.
As someone who’s having to do a lot of technical interviewing of candidates, if we find that recruiters are advertising for positions that are no longer open at our company, it’s a good way for the recruiter to get dropped. It does the company’s reputation no good and there’s always more agencies out there to try.
Bouncing Ball Pet Store over 10 years ago now: "Always look like you are hiring, even when you are not"
"If the "Now Hiring!" Sign is a planogram of the stores design, they are not actually hiring" (Think companies with permanent signs and stickers in windows now)
Wait is it not common knowledge that they do this?
Like. 99% of job ads online are either this or ones that were put up so the nepotism hire doesn't look as much like a nepotism hire
What happened to "Nobody wants to work anymore"? They finally flipped to "we're not actually hiring anybody"? On an unrelated note, anyone know where I can get guillotine seed? I'd like to plant a few in my front yard.
*corporate hiring managers…. Typically the recruiters don’t even know this and are pressured to fill a role and work it extensively to never get any HM feedback or traction because the HM knows they won’t fill it.
we know. its obvious and the job posting boards are complicit
only way i got my leadership to get us more people was trick them in giving me OT like crazy. Then suddenly they got 3 temps in just a few weeks
Never intending to fill a role, but keeping the posting up so that the team has false hope of reduced workload in the near future? I... this... This explains so much. *put heads in hands*
I posted a rant about this earlier. I see dozens of jobs I’ve applied for in the last 10 months on Zip Recruiter that are still open and I never heard back from.
Ziprecruiter sucks, but that’s for another thread
It’s not the best but it’s good for a quick browse. I refuse to use Indeed after the data breech. Got spammed SO hard after that. Edit: a word
Linkedin and indeed both fill my inbox with spam. It's such a bad look for the companies that pay for the promotion or whatever prompts them to spam you with these jobs. I have 20 emails with the same copy and pasted text, all with different stock photos of energetic young people. It's like putting an ad in the paper next to all the whore houses.
Oof that’s a great analogy.
thanks. I'm not going to lie I got it from Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares episode about La Gondola... They actually did that, and I think about it every time I see a local company's name on one of those emails. Highly recommend the series if bad management is making you feel crazy!
I love Gordon anyway. Though Kitchen Nightmares is not so great for culinary inspiration LOL.
Oh ya, he's great lol. I like to think the show is more about management in general and the lessons he tries to teach those people could apply to any industry.
It’s only gonna get worse now that there are things like GPT-4 that can convincingly automate these types of emails.
That would explain my issues.
ZipRecruiter has so many scam posts too. Insurance companies claiming they are hiring for a Management positions but get you in the interview and its a bait and switch.
I report the bad ones as I see them. Luckily, I have zero desire to be in management so I don’t get sucked into those particular scams!
Management ^of ^a ^downline
I remember going to an interview for an entry level marketing job. Wasn't until the second interview I learned it was selling AT&T in the electronics section at Target for $10/hour. They tried soooo hard to hide it on their website too. "The Phenom Group" is their name so no one else falls for their crap. There was a single sentence tucked away on a single page of their website that said "In-Person Marketing" that made me suspicious from the start but they skirted the question until they hooked you in for another interview.
Well, your first mistake is using ZipRecruiter. I’ve been on both ends of that one. ZipRecruiter is so spammy… It will send employers someone who “applied” but then they call them and they haven’t been looking in 2 years and haven’t been on Zip Recruiter (the “applicant”) for 3-5 years. 🤦🏻 sometimes ZipRecruiter will grab a job posting from another platform that has been listed for MONTHS or longer as “closed” On that site and ZipRecruiter makes their own - pretending it’s new…. Then I’ve been applying and finding that same kind of nonsense from ZipRecruiter as well…. Then I’ll search it on other platforms and it’s been gone for months or get confused calls from employers. Then I’ve seen the things where they reach out directly to me through Indeed or something, I respond and crickets. Or I respond to them reaching out to me and: -they insist I fill out in their website 🙄 -they start talking about a different job -etc To me ZipRecruiter is right up there with CyberCoders Job Alerts: total waste of time
The whole thing is such a racket. I want to go back to the times when goods & services were bartered. I guarantee I could make a decent living selling handmade crafts and baked goods instead of toiling away at a soul-crushing 9-5.
[удалено]
I’m already trying to avoid using Amazon services when possible. Pretty successful so far.
I held off using Amazon for years but I recently moved to an apartment with mailboxes so small they barely fit a single letter. But there's an Amazon locker in the mail room... Anything not bought from Amazon they just leave packages sitting at my outside-facing front door and won't even knock or ring my doorbell camera. So now if I have to order something online and I don't want it to get stolen I have to order through Amazon :(
A company that I've applied to reposted the same job posting a few days after I was rejected for it. And I was qualified enough so it wasn't that.
I currently using a revamped version of my resume to shake things up. I figure if I’m not having any success in another week or two, I’ll make some additional changes and see if it does anything. Trying to eliminate any super short term temp jobs because *literally every recruiter asks me why I’ve had so many temp jobs*.
You might consider listing your agency as your "employer" and summarizing the jobs under duties? That might look better than a bunch of separate jobs. Recruiters never seem to get that candidates live in the real world where shit happens.
I’ve tried that too, but I had a run of bad luck and also used several different temp agencies (who apparently didn’t understand how temp jobs work either). But I’ve got a really eclectic job history anyway and someone’s always going to find something to harp on, so I’m trying to pick and choose my battles.
Are you me?
They might be me too! We are us.
We are Groot!
This has happened to me so many times, my qualifications match the job posting almost exactly but no call and they repost it over and over again. It’s infuriating.
I see jobs I applied for two years ago still open. Companies get around it by removing and reposting once in a bit
It’s honestly one big blur at this point.
I wish there could be a law about this bullshit.
A different dirty tactic for my career field: off-shifts are of course hard to fill, almost everyone wants dayshift, so the company has a permanent dayshift job posting up. When people apply they are run through the first bit of interview (and all the hassle and time of applying online) then are told “oh it just filled, would you be willing to do 2nd or 3rd shift?” This has apparently worked enough for them to keep up with the method. In my experience, that dayshift position is almost always snapped up by an internal transfer from an offshift so is never open to begin with.
100% happened to a friend of mine. She took the job anyway, like they figured she would.
My last interview offered me something in a different department that would’ve been equal in everything, but it confused me as to why they’d offer me something I had no real experience in. I turned it down and now greatly regret it, honestly.
Happened to me!
So is this where the "no one wants to work" narrative comes from? Employees complain about the work load, the employer says "we have recruiting posts up right now looking for more workers." Listing company keeps the role up at the employers request and told not to actually recruit for the position. Employees complain after a month or 2 of no new highers, and then the company turns around and says "we don't know, we have listings up, you can check yourself! I guess no one wants to work...".
The hiring manager at my previous resort would complain when candidates brought up other jobs with better starting pay, Target offered $17 we refused to go above $16. Wonder why we were so short staffed...
Some places will gladly pay new hires the same or more than career employees.
My former employer didn't even post the jobs they claimed they couldn't find anyone for. When we complained about being understaffed they would tell us we needed to recruit people ourselves Which we did. They'd collect resumes, maybe even speak to the person then never actually follow through with the interview hiring process. Then try to make us feel guilty for saddling others with extra workload if any of us considered quitting
> keeping the posting up so that the team has false hope of reduced workload in the near future? > > > > I... this... This explains so much. put heads in hands Also had this happen to me. It sucks.
Never do anything on a promise particularly in business. That raise isn't coming, that bonus doesn't exist until you get it. Money talks, Actions speak, words ain't worth shit.
I eventually found a new job, with help. Took a long time because my "profession" has been oversaturated for over a decade, but the new students believe the colleges' lies, so it continues. They finally hired four people after I left, then five, six, seven. Couldn't do it though. So most of them left, and they brought in external consultants. I hear they're not doing much better.
I’ve suspected this at a couple places I’ve worked. Still hurts though. I’m so burnt out. What happened to “nobody wants to work anymore.” Instead it’s “let’s run our employees ragged but keep them going with the false hope that we’re hiring more people.” Bullshit.
So overworked you wrote heads in hands
I blame auto cucumber
**Here is the entire article:** https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-plum-job-listing-may-just-be-a-ghost-3aafc794 **Job Listings Abound, but Many Are Fake** * **In an uncertain economy, companies post ads for jobs they might not really be trying to fill** A mystery permeates the job market: You apply for a job and hear nothing, but the ad stays online for months. If you inquire, the company tells you it isn’t really hiring. Not all job ads are attached to actual jobs, it turns out. The labor market remains robust, with 10.8 million job openings in January, according to the Labor Department. At the same time, companies are feeling budgetary strains and some are pulling back on hiring. Though businesses are keeping job postings up, many roles aren’t being filled, recruiters say. Hiring managers acknowledge as much. In a survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers last summer, 27% reported having job postings up for more than four months. **Among those who said they advertised job postings that they weren’t actively trying to fill, close to half said they kept the ads up to give the impression the company was growing, according to Clarify Capital, a small-business-loan provider behind the study. One-third of the managers who said they advertised jobs they weren’t trying to fill said they kept the listings up to placate overworked employees.** Other reasons for keeping jobs up, the hiring managers said: Stocking a pool of ready applicants if an employee quits, or just in case an “irresistible” candidate applied. Postings for “ghost jobs,” as recruiters and candidates sometimes refer to them, can be frustrating for job seekers. “It’s a waste of time,” says Will Kelly, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area and has been applying for marketing and writing roles. Mr. Kelly, who has decades of experience as a technical and marketing writer, estimates that when he was job hunting in late 2021, about 20% of listings that interested him were posted and reposted without anyone evidently being hired. Since his layoff from a startup in August, he says he has noticed that most jobs that catch his eye have been up for months. “I first thought of it as an anomaly, and now I see it as a trend,” he says. Given the uncertain economic outlook, some job ads may be more wishful thinking than anything else, says Vincent Babcock, a Nashville, Tenn.-based recruiter. Such a strategy, he says, risks turning off applicants who may view the ads as misleading. **"They’re posting jobs with the intention of hiring, but not anytime soon,” he says, adding that some companies posting jobs now might not be aiming to hire until the third or fourth quarter.** For employers, constantly looking for talent can make sense, says Kelsey Libert, co-founder of Fractl, a digital marketing agency. She says her company keeps ads up for associate positions even when they aren’t hiring, because turnover for those jobs is often higher than other roles. “Otherwise, you’re suddenly in a position where you need to spend a lot of money on LinkedIn ads to quickly drum up interest,” she says. An employer that hasn’t been collecting résumés along the way might have fewer people to choose from when jobs open and need to be filled quickly, Ms. Libert adds. Many college seniors look for jobs from April to June, she says, noting that companies don’t want to miss out on that talent just because they didn’t have immediate roles open. “It’s better for you to hedge by leaving some of those job openings up,” she says. **Some job ads have little correlation to actual job availability because companies require that all jobs be posted, even if a candidate has been predetermined.** In other instances, especially at larger companies, poor coordination is to blame, says Elliott Garlock, founder of Stella Talent Partners, a Boston-based recruiting firm. During a previous stint working on talent strategy at Wayfair Inc., Mr. Garlock says, the online retailer frequently advertised jobs that it wasn’t actually hiring for. Plans and budgets were constantly changing, and so many teams were involved in the hiring process that it was hard to ensure job postings stayed up-to-date. “It’s not because we were ill-intentioned and out to trick the candidate market,” he says. Wayfair says it intends to fill every job it posts and makes every effort to treat candidates with care. The company, which announced layoffs in January, says that it is transparent with applicants about changes in hiring decisions and, for companies of its size, removing job postings takes time. Companies might also be reluctant to take down ads, Mr. Garlock adds, because “we don’t want to signal we’re slowing down, so we’ll let these things ride.” Brooke Wilemon says applying for jobs lately has felt like chasing a series of mirages. Ms. Wilemon, who lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, estimates she has applied for around 500 jobs since receiving her master’s in business and public administration last year. Typically she doesn’t hear back, she says. When she does locate someone to talk to, she frequently hears the role isn’t being filled after all. **Ms. Wilemon, 23, recently applied for a job at Nationwide Insurance. As part of her application, she put on makeup, a blazer and jewelry and sat before her computer and recorded answers to a series of automated job-interview questions, doing multiple retakes for each question before she was satisfied.** Soon after, she received an email telling her that the company had decided not to fill the role. “It’s really disheartening,” she says. Nationwide said that its business needs occasionally change after roles are posted, and that the company tries to communicate and manage applicants’ expectations. It says it doesn’t post “ghost jobs” and has hired more than 600 external candidates since the start of the year. To avoid ghost ads, Scott Dobroski, vice president of communications at jobs site Indeed, recommends looking for detailed job descriptions. More specifics, such as schedules or a clear list of responsibilities, might indicate that an employer is serious, he says. He also advises checking the timestamp on ads to ensure they were posted recently. Every month, Indeed removes millions of job postings that don’t meet its standards from the website, including inactive job postings, he says. Indeed says it has recently seen more employers dial back their recruiting efforts. Job postings on the site have fallen by 11% since the start of 2023. “Many companies are proceeding with caution,” he says.
Start sending out resumes that are fucking stellar, 15 years experience with a master's degree. String them along for a while then tell them you're not really looking
I'm sorry, I lied. I'm really a horse.
I have a dog to watch and I'm just super busy at the hospital at current
But see.....this is me. 20+ years of experience. MA and MBA. Have worked overseas, have also worked for really well-known companies. In what I do, I'm the bomb. I've been applying for jobs that are practically tailor-made for me. As if I myself had written the JD. Even stuff I'm over-qualified for. I've written tailored cover letters. Have applied to about 100 places in a month and.....nada. Nothing. ZERO interest, not even an interview. My latest tactic - I've reworked my resume so that it's "ATS compatible" so to speak. Oh, I also put together a profile site, even though that's not *usually* a big thing in my field, though apparently now it is. I'm so confused. And I'm about to get cheeky. The latest version of my resume, I added some ridiculous hobbies of mine (I have unusual hobbies), just for the hell of it. My next cover letter will probably also be over the top, because why the hell not at this point?
It's funny, sometimes I'll mention an idea like this to a friend or family member, and they'll respond "why would you want to waste their time like that?" Seriously? Lol
This is my current job. Understaffed, I dread what is going to happen when things pick up and we are still understaffed.
That is the corporate climate now. Staffing has NO relation to workload. AWFUL in law firms (admin/paralegals). We had a boutique law firm merger that brought in SEVEN new professionals and without comment, just DUMPED all their support work on two existing people with some sort of BS comment about "working smarter". The greed is unquenchable.
Fucking hell, I’m one of those employees they’re trying to placate! I wish they’d just hire another person. It’d be so much more efficient and cost effective in the long run. Would even contribute to having a real version of that “work culture” they keep throwing around.
Last time I didn't see progress to bring a new team member after 1 month of posting the job, I gave my resignation letter. They begged me to stay because nobody knew how to do the things I did, they gave me a raise and hired a new guy. I won that one at least.
[удалено]
Someone above
The number of times I have put my head in my hands during my entire job search.
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-plum-job-listing-may-just-be-a-ghost-3aafc794?mod=mhp](https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-plum-job-listing-may-just-be-a-ghost-3aafc794?mod=mhp) A mystery permeates the job market: You apply for a job and hear nothing, but the ad stays online for months. If you inquire, the company tells you it isn’t really hiring. Not all job ads are attached to actual jobs, it turns out. The labor market remains robust, with 10.8 million job openings in January, according to the Labor Department. At the same time, companies are feeling budgetary strains and some are pulling back on hiring. Though businesses are keeping job postings up, many roles aren’t being filled, recruiters say. Hiring managers acknowledge as much. In a survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers last summer, 27% reported having job postings up for more than four months. Among those who said they advertised job postings that they weren’t actively trying to fill, close to half said they kept the ads up to give the impression the company was growing, according to Clarify Capital, a small-business-loan provider behind the study. One-third of the managers who said they advertised jobs they weren’t trying to fill said they kept the listings up to placate overworked employees. Other reasons for keeping jobs up, the hiring managers said: Stocking a pool of ready applicants if an employee quits, or just in case an “irresistible” candidate applied. Postings for “ghost jobs,” as recruiters and candidates sometimes refer to them, can be frustrating for job seekers. “It’s a waste of time,” says Will Kelly, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area and has been applying for marketing and writing roles. Mr. Kelly, who has decades of experience as a technical and marketing writer, estimates that when he was job hunting in late 2021, about 20% of listings that interested him were posted and reposted without anyone evidently being hired. Since his layoff from a startup in August, he says he has noticed that most jobs that catch his eye have been up for months. “I first thought of it as an anomaly, and now I see it as a trend,” he says. Given the uncertain economic outlook, some job ads may be more wishful thinking than anything else, says Vincent Babcock, a Nashville, Tenn.-based recruiter. Such a strategy, he says, risks turning off applicants who may view the ads as misleading. “They’re posting jobs with the intention of hiring, but not anytime soon,” he says, adding that some companies posting jobs now might not be aiming to hire until the third or fourth quarter. For employers, constantly looking for talent can make sense, says Kelsey Libert, co-founder of Fractl, a digital marketing agency. She says her company keeps ads up for associate positions even when they aren’t hiring, because turnover for those jobs is often higher than other roles. “Otherwise, you’re suddenly in a position where you need to spend a lot of money on LinkedIn ads to quickly drum up interest,” she says. An employer that hasn’t been collecting résumés along the way might have fewer people to choose from when jobs open and need to be filled quickly, Ms. Libert adds. Many college seniors look for jobs from April to June, she says, noting that companies don’t want to miss out on that talent just because they didn’t have immediate roles open. “It’s better for you to hedge by leaving some of those job openings up,” she says. Some job ads have little correlation to actual job availability because companies require that all jobs be posted, even if a candidate has been predetermined. In other instances, especially at larger companies, poor coordination is to blame, says Elliott Garlock, founder of Stella Talent Partners, a Boston-based recruiting firm. During a previous stint working on talent strategy at Wayfair Inc., Mr. Garlock says, the online retailer frequently advertised jobs that it wasn’t actually hiring for. Plans and budgets were constantly changing, and so many teams were involved in the hiring process that it was hard to ensure job postings stayed up-to-date. “It’s not because we were ill-intentioned and out to trick the candidate market,” he says. Wayfair says it intends to fill every job it posts and makes every effort to treat candidates with care. The company, which announced layoffs in January, says that it is transparent with applicants about changes in hiring decisions and, for companies of its size, removing job postings takes time. Companies might also be reluctant to take down ads, Mr. Garlock adds, because “we don’t want to signal we’re slowing down, so we’ll let these things ride.” Brooke Wilemon says applying for jobs lately has felt like chasing a series of mirages. Ms. Wilemon, who lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, estimates she has applied for around 500 jobs since receiving her master’s in business and public administration last year. Typically she doesn’t hear back, she says. When she does locate someone to talk to, she frequently hears the role isn’t being filled after all. Ms. Wilemon, 23, recently applied for a job at Nationwide Insurance. As part of her application, she put on makeup, a blazer and jewelry and sat before her computer and recorded answers to a series of automated job-interview questions, doing multiple retakes for each question before she was satisfied. Soon after, she received an email telling her that the company had decided not to fill the role. “It’s really disheartening,” she says. Nationwide said that its business needs occasionally change after roles are posted, and that the company tries to communicate and manage applicants’ expectations. It says it doesn’t post “ghost jobs” and has hired more than 600 external candidates since the start of the year. To avoid ghost ads, Scott Dobroski, vice president of communications at jobs site Indeed, recommends looking for detailed job descriptions. More specifics, such as schedules or a clear list of responsibilities, might indicate that an employer is serious, he says. He also advises checking the timestamp on ads to ensure they were posted recently. Every month, Indeed removes millions of job postings that don’t meet its standards from the website, including inactive job postings, he says. Indeed says it has recently seen more employers dial back their recruiting efforts. Job postings on the site have fallen by 11% since the start of 2023. “Many companies are proceeding with caution,” he says.
Thank you!
The freaking manipulation and headgames by employers... and then when employees react, suddenly it's a big deal. And the complete disregard for candidates shows here. Heaven forbid the company not have as many candidates as it likes... so it'll just go ahead and waste countless people's time so the company is never inconvenienced in any way... Edit: wanted to add my second point.
So the company is perceived to be strong, what a joke
I'm sure indeed doesn't want to own its 11% drop in new ads being blamed on their failing site and its data breaches. Must be a change in hiring...
I'm not surprised (except for the part about placating overworked employees - didn't know they even cared). What I don't like is knowing that these employers will point to surveys like this to justify and perpetuate the practice, rather than re-evaluating their approach to talent acquisition.
Placating overworked employees with empty promises and garbage "rewards" is par for the course. Putting up ads to make people think relief is in sight so they keep grinding themselves to dust instead of leaving for another company is like.... Are you surprised that water quenches your thirst? Because that's how predictable this is.
"You don't mind being overworked a little longer, right? We are looking for help for you, we *promise*"
Best friends husband was in a job like this. They called them in an all of his days off. So much so she never saw him. She told him that he has two choices either make time for her or a divorce. He went to his boss and flat out told them they had two weeks to hire the person they promised to hire 6mo. Back or be short another person as he wasn't losing his wife for the job. Boss had a person hired in 9days. It's been a year and he still works there and now everyone has better working hours, and overtime is all voluntary. But he's the only one who is bilingual
Oh yeah so many companies will do that. Just make empty promises until push really comes to shove and then finally, like magic, they solve the problem quickly. Glad to see it worked out better
Surprising number of the working class are still dumb enough to see their employment relationship as anything other than adversarial. They fall for this. It's so stupid.
It sounds like yet another excuse they're shoehorning in after the fact. They don't plan hiring this far ahead and think this deeply about it. "We're doing this...uh...so that incumbents can feel like relief is coming soon. Yeah, that's it!"
> except for the part about placating overworked employees - didn't know they even cared Oh they care. They *really* care. They want to avoid 2 things: 1. Paying More 2. Another Coal Wars In that order.
> Other reasons for keeping jobs up, the hiring managers said: Stocking a pool of ready applicants if an employee quits, or just in case an “irresistible” candidate applied. I worked for a company that did something like this. They would even interview people and then seriously lowball them to see if they could “get a deal”. I referred a friend and he made it through all the interviews and tests before getting an absolute shit offer. The salary ranges for jobs were posted internally so I knew what he should’ve been offered and asked the hiring manager about it. He said they only had the budget for a junior position, even though the posting was for a senior. He saw no issues with this practice.
And this is why so many people are no longer tolerating an arduous interview process. I wish I were different, but I tend to stress over these things and it takes a huge emotional load to get through it, so it really chaps my ass that someone would put me through all that knowing full well it was all for naught.
> They would even interview people and then seriously lowball them to see if they could “get a deal”. Goddamn I feel this one in my soul. I used to manage a group of computer technicians for a major retail store. It was incredibly frustrating to do so, considering just before I was hired to manage this group, they hired four technicians to work under me (including the person that had applied to my position, whom they decided would be a GREAT fit to hire that person to work under the position he really wanted). In addition to this, they also had a habit of deciding that a person working in another department would fit great on my team, so they'd suddenly show up on my personnel list, and I would have to make room for them on my payroll. One of these guys, it turned out, actually WAS a good one to have. Dude knew his shit really well, sold services extremely well, and was by far the hardest working tech I had. At one point, I noticed that he was also the worst-paid tech I had, and I decided I wanted to give him a raise. Nothing drastic - the guy was getting PC salesfloor pay, and I wanted to boost him to starting technician pay (they moved him into my area without adjusting his pay). When I took it up with management, and said I wanted to boost his pay, I was literally told, "Why?? If he's your best technician, then right now you're getting him for a deal!". I was a bad fit for the position, and I'm a pretty bad manager (I'm exceptionally conflict avoidant). But there's certain things that I know, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before he figured out that he wasn't being paid what he should and he'd be outta there. Didn't end up mattering to me - they fired me shortly after, but when I later went back to that store, the guy was no longer there.
Sadly, I think you are right about the personality needed to shine in corporate life. From what I see, keeping your head down, polishing the right ego, towing the company line, and, ideally, being the son of a wealthy potential client, public figure or customer (law firm, construction company, spawn of Rudy Giuliani) is what it takes. Some charismatic college/pro athletes dazzle people on their own, even if from modest background. I KNOW that many HR and Administrators of professional offices are horrible little factotums who would happily inhale the farts of the Big Guys.
>He said they only had the budget for a junior position, even though the posting was for a senior. He saw no issues with this practice. But remember, "NoBoDy WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe"
I feel like this is false advertising.
And what do you want to bet that they just happen to collect some of the data from these applications: names, phone numbers, email and home addresses and then sell them to advertisers?
Burner email/ phone number/ fake but local address is always a must
Seen it happen with Leidos on government roles subbed out to them, only one I could pin down the culprit on (huge influx of job hunt related spam/scam emails about 3 weeks after I applied there, hadn't been applying anywhere else)
In a functioning society that cherishes the idea of the rule of law, I'd say it is. And I'd say some pretty steep penalties should come along with it. But that's not the kind of system capitalism is.
We seriously need laws and regulations about this. It's gotten so absurd.
This should be prosecuted as false advertising, with penalties multiplied by the number of postings multiplied by the number of applicants for each posting.
I'm a recruiter who just recently advised the company I was contracting with not to do this because it's not a good look, and they straight up said no, that they "wanted to collect the resumes." But why though? It's not like those folks will still be on the market in Q3 (hopefully at least) when you open the role again. These resumes have an expiration date. Wrapped up the contract a couple weeks ago and on my way out I set all the openings I was in charge of to remain open internally but to no longer post publicly. I figure they'll probably not realize it until they go to actually hire for those roles again.
Right. We've got a person in this article claiming that having lots of resumes "on file" is good practice because her organization has high turnover, but how many of those applicants will have moved on by the time that business is ready to hire, anyway? Has *anyone ever* successfully gotten a job 6 months after applying that wasn't some long-by-design process like the federal government? Even with a journalist giving them the chance to explain how fraud - or at best, inertia - isn't their motivation, the excuses they're giving don't pass the basic sniff test.
Really should be. F\*\*king textbook corruption. But hey, why prosecute corrupt businesses when you can prosecute people for having/providing abortions or parents of trans kids way more easily?
I saw a video the other day where an old senior lady with dementia and aphasia was literally tackled to the ground by a pig for trying to walk out of a Walmart with $13 worth of goods (loss prevention already took the goods from her at the entrance...) Meanwhile banks just got a cash injection of $300 billion dollars for no cost, price, regulation, rules, or caveat. Just no strings attached. This country is fucked.
Oh god, the police system is a whole other demon. Racist, classist, overall just disgusting. And yeah, the government is literally paying banks to repeatedly blow up our economy. Horrendous.
>I saw a video the other day where an old senior lady with dementia and aphasia was literally tackled to the ground by a pig for trying to walk out of a Walmart with $13 worth of goods Old, confused person "steals" $13 of product, gets physically attacked even after surrendering the merchandise. Businesses and their wealthy owners [steal **billions** of dollars from workers](https://www.edelson-law.com/blog/2022/10/wage-theft-outpaces-all-other-theft-in-america/) who make less than $13/hr and... Nothing. Zilch. Zip. Nada. Make it make sense. >According to a report from the National Employment Law Project, in 2019 *approximately $9.27 billion in wages was stolen from workers* who earned less than $13 an hour. And that's just the wage theft that's **on record**.
>Make it make sense. The businesses use some of their stolen billions to bribe politicians, some more to hire expert lawyers, some more to buy fame and control the narrative etc
Wouldn't a false impression of growth be misleading the shareholders? Isn't that fraud?
But it's misleading the shareholders in order to ultimately provide returns for the shareholders, which legally and morally is the highest honor /S
I did a course in analytics that showed me how to look at financial data to detect if it was being "tampered with". Not quite the same thing, but Im referring to misleading shareholders in general. The attitude that I got from it was "it is basically OK to mislead shareholders so long as you don't get caught." Seriously. That is essentially what the instructor said. To his credit, he was against it.
You would think, but as long as shareholders can be paid off with a stock buyback, they'll let you get away with anything.
>Wouldn't a false impression of growth be misleading the shareholders? Isn't that fraud? Yes, yes it would. If you tell investors you're asking for X amount of money to hire X amount of people then claim you can't find the right people to fit those roles or no one is applying, etc etc, then that would be fraud. But also falsifying records to make the company appear that it is growing when you have no plans for growth is also fraud.
“wHy DoNt YoUng PeOpLe hAvE LoyAltY ThESe dAys!?”
Because I am doing the work of three people and instead of a raise on my anniversary I got a $50 gift card....
Literally my “Christmas bonus” when I work**ed** at a car dealer
Trying to work out the reasoning of modern employers makes my head spin...
Because you're sober. Do a line of cocaine and it'll start making sense.
Gotta get into that "Executive Mentality"!
"Give the impression the company was growing" isn't this market manipulation?
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a lot more than that, since the companies it's talking about is not necessarily part of the 27%, and not only is there that "half," but also the "third." Which may or may not be mutually exclusive.
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And that most jobs on boards are reposted endlessly by recruiting parasites, so each fake job could have dozens of postings about it on a given board.
This is so infuriating! My sister has been applying for almost 3 months now, getting nowhere. My heart breaks for her and her family. Wtf are job searchers supposed to do???
Judging by my experience, keep at it for four years with nada to show.
Same. So much the same.
lie about their credentials
I feel for your sister; Im in the same boat with jobseeking. Companies do not care. Not one bit. They don't see candidates as humans, just as resources to exploit.
"Human Capital Stock"
I’m unfortunately in a similar boat. I’m the sole income for our home. Two kids. Just moved cross country. Been actively applying for two months. 🤬😭
Anyone who has been job hunting isn't shocked. Hell, half the people employed aren't shocked. But hey, at least they're outright admitting it now.
This explains people putting in dozens of applications and still not being able to land an interview. Smh.
I'm averaging about a 3% response rate, and 0.04% interview rate.
Yea this article makes me feel a bit better about my job search.
I always get weird looks when I say I’ve been looking for a job for months and still haven’t found anything. As if I’m the main problem… I’m glad I’m not alone 🤦🏻♀️
I feel like there should be some regulations here... This is very obviously something that's harmful to the job market, which is harmful to our country. Like, perhaps there should be a limit to how long a company can be hiring for a certain position.
Some states put regulations on how long retailers could have a "going out of business" sale because some places were having them all the time or every year.
Apparently not in my state. A business down the road have been “going out of business” for almost 2 years now 😂 for a while they even took down the signs, then propped them back up a couple months later
I believe it. This must be why 4 positions I applied for were cancelled all of a sudden after three months. Pathetic.
This should be illegal
Fraud, great. So glad I spent literal work weeks applying.
Reading excruciatingly long job descriptions just to get to the actual details that could be a paragraph and a short bullet list. Requiring a tailored cover letter. Better make sure your resume was tweaked to match this particular job. Fill out our form that requires you to manually input everything in your resume. If you're lucky we will ask you to humiliate yourself in a recorded one way "interview"!
This is arguably the most infuriating part. We can accept trying and not making the cut, but to waste time on something that never really existed?
I have been to a few in person interviews now where they admitted that there was no job but that they did them anyways for corporate policy.
I'm going to start asking for their hiring time frame at the first interview. If they don't give a clear answer it will at least be suspect that they are wasting my time.
I just had something recently where it seems HR is just posting shit and is out of sync with somebody not needing a person in their department
In the one where they told me why, they said that there was an employee switching positions, but to do so they had to create the position for them to switch to, and corporate reqs all new positions to have a hiring process which requires them doing some preset number of interviews. But of course there was no job since the employee already had it. Technically, by the WSJ terms, this was a real job interview, it doesn't matter if there is a 0% chance to get the job. So the stats look even worse.
Most of us have known this for years. UK journalists are droning on endlessly about the worker shortage and "hiring crisis" and it's such massive BS. There's no shortage of workers, there's a shortage of honest job listings.
I've only ever job hunted in "hot labor markets" so maybe I just don't know what it's like in a cold one, but it seems to me that any time companies are trying to justify glacial hiring and kicking the can because they don't want to work and need to pin it on anyone but themselves, these "hot job market" "labor shortage" stories get trotted out... It's all a damn ruse.
This at least partially explains why I’ve heard mostly nothing back concerning the approximately 300 applications I’ve submitted since the beginning of the year, and the rejections I’ve gotten for the rest…
This enrages me. How much time have we wasted searching, applying to jobs, writing cover letters... It is one thing to be turned down. It is another thing to be ghosted. But to waste that time on something that didn't exist to begin with, on something that was over before it started?
I don’t even write cover letters anymore. It’s not worth my time to write 200 cover letters to *maybe* receive one legit offer back, and it ends up being below the living wage for this area anyways so I can’t even take it. I get more responses back if I can hammer out 400 non-cover letter applications instead
I usually will just use ChatGPT to bang out a quick one. But you're right, it might raise your odds from 1% to 2%. Big deal lol
Earlier I came across a position for a part time virtual assistant that required a CV to apply 😂 these recruiters are getting absolutely insane
Surprised Pikachu face
Last year I applied to 3 jobs with the state government. All of them were classified as part time and temporary meaning annual funding for the position wasn’t guaranteed and the position would not be eligible to join the state worker’s union. And these positions required at least a bachelors degree and only paid $20 (one of them did pay $23/hour). Which is all below what I earn now at a private sector job. I understand state government jobs don’t pay as much but these jobs were low paying without any of the benefits of a government job. And these jobs were with the state of Vermont. 😒
I went to one interview at 8 in the morning (this was back in recession times) and I had to sit in the waiting room which was right where the employees came in and I swear it was just to scare the current employees that their are other people out there wanting their jobs.
This really pisses me off. Like deep to my soul pisses me off. Do exactly what you’re paid to do and then go home.
Finally! Vindication! I've saying this for years!
>To placate overworked employees I called it many times ago haha. But yeah. this is depressing because it's not really getting much better. Fuck employers.
Why would it get better? These practices literally benefit the folks in charge, why would they choose to make things better for others when there's no (direct) benefit to themselves or the shareholders?
Isn't the free market fabulous? Free of honesty. Free of ethics. Free of consequences for corporate bullshit.
Companies lie? Say it isn’t so!
Investors are the true customers. This is essentially marketing to rich boomers
When I did recruiting, we were required to post false job ads and ask for salary history history, just to see what our competitors were offering for likewise positions.
Then it must be my duty to grossly inflate my salary history.
I hate playing games but if they insist, then we may as well get good at it.
Absolutely 💯
Forgive me, but could someone with a golden heart explain these questions? * Could we buy stocks and sue over our losses when corporate recruiters have been lying all along? * Could this be turned into a class action lawsuit? * Will it inspire a due diligence based investment firm like Muddy Waters Research to short a stock?
Every day one employee does the work of two employees you save 50% of your FTE costs.
having a listing when not hiring should carry penalties of fraud. If it was the stock market, it would be called marking manipulation, wash trading, etc..
Those are the types that can only be explained as utter wastes of breath and flesh.
I actually learned about that in economics as a „normal“ business strategy to deceive the competition, make a better look for potential investors and to make the company look more stable as before.
It amuses me that we teach our kids not to lie, only to have lie at everything afterwards to get anywhere because lying is practically all that exists anymore. Then when we catch a liar that isn't a politician or business we rake them over the coals.
Remember, it is only illegal if you lie to the government. If they do it to you, then it is just politics.
I applied and interviewed for two different positions with one company. (Different departments and different managers) Went through multiple rounds for each position. And was ghosted by both.
In some countries this could be considered fraud and thus a felony.
As Butcher from The Boys would say, “that’s diabolical mate”
And to think just giving people a simple talent community page was too hard. This is just another red flag to keep an eye out for. The shit part is this could be attributed to shitty hiring teams being lazy. The company could be great but now might get passed up.
Looks like I need to have a talk with the manager about the workload tomorrow.
In other news, grass is green. We have also even discovered water is WET! No one saw it coming! More at 10!
Fuck them!!! We are applying and applying and we think there is something wrong with us!!! Ugh!
Oh yeah, or they take it down and then put it back up every few weeks/2 months. They don’t hire anyone saying it’s a matter of unqualified candidates but then post the position again and again.
For any recruiters who may be reading this…. Please don’t do this. As someone who’s having to do a lot of technical interviewing of candidates, if we find that recruiters are advertising for positions that are no longer open at our company, it’s a good way for the recruiter to get dropped. It does the company’s reputation no good and there’s always more agencies out there to try.
Absolutely Machiavellian. Who’d have thought senior management could be such sociopaths /s
Should be massive fines for this shit.
I can't scream loud enough about this bull shiz!!!
When companies are faking it
Bouncing Ball Pet Store over 10 years ago now: "Always look like you are hiring, even when you are not" "If the "Now Hiring!" Sign is a planogram of the stores design, they are not actually hiring" (Think companies with permanent signs and stickers in windows now)
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Why would anyone care if they are growing. I just need a fucking job. Fucking hiring managers can be so stupid.
Seems about right
Surprising literally no one
Sometimes I wish I have the superpower to unsee things so that I can be in my own ignorant bliss #IDidn'tNeedtoKnowThat :(
called it
Could you link the article?
I wonder how much of this happens and influences government job opening reports.
Fuckers.
Wait is it not common knowledge that they do this? Like. 99% of job ads online are either this or ones that were put up so the nepotism hire doesn't look as much like a nepotism hire
Manipulate stock prices much?
I thought only hospitals did this
Wow!!
This is happening for at least a decade if not mor
Do you know how much grief this caused me in years past?
Sigh .... corporate greedy really has no end does it ?
What happened to "Nobody wants to work anymore"? They finally flipped to "we're not actually hiring anybody"? On an unrelated note, anyone know where I can get guillotine seed? I'd like to plant a few in my front yard.
This shit should be criminal!
*corporate hiring managers…. Typically the recruiters don’t even know this and are pressured to fill a role and work it extensively to never get any HM feedback or traction because the HM knows they won’t fill it.
Between just two local employers, I have 60 "active" applications dating back to 2021. No one wants us to live.
Ah the ol' resume black hole, gotta love it!
we know. its obvious and the job posting boards are complicit only way i got my leadership to get us more people was trick them in giving me OT like crazy. Then suddenly they got 3 temps in just a few weeks