“We’re Hiring” But are they really?

We’ve all encountered folks in the industry that will swear up and down that business has never been better even when everything is falling apart behind the scenes, but apparently businesses in general may go to great lengths to keep up such appearances. One way they do this is by advertising job roles that they won’t actually fill. According to Joe Mercurio, project manager at Clarify Capital, 43% of employers who post ghost jobs aren’t actively trying to fill positions but rather it’s “because they want to keep employees motivated or they want to give off the impression that the company is growing.”

Clarify Capital gleaned this data from a survey it conducted which was then cited in the Wall Street Journal last week. The survey also found that employers have job listings up just to see who might apply, to have an active pool of candidates in case of turnover, or because they simply forget to delete listings for jobs that are no longer available.

According to the WSJ story, titled “Job Listings Abound, but Many Are Fake,” the number of ghost jobs distort hiring demand and applicants across different fields have reportedly found it increasingly difficult to apply for jobs where the employer is actually looking to fill it. The takeaway, perhaps, is that if one is pursuing a new opportunity right now, the presence of job listings may not be enough on its own to indicate which way a company is going. You’ll have to dig a little deeper so that you’re not disappointed.