What is Ghost Jobs?
Ghost Job is a fake job posting for a position advertised by companies where there is no intention of filling vacancies anytime soon. Whether online or offline, these vacancies are either already filled or simply do not exist. Companies use these deceptive tactics for various reasons. Those are the following;
Why do Companies post Ghost jobs?
Employers post fake job vacancies for many reasons, such as to showcase their branding, increase statistics about their industries, identify the right candidates’ variation in the job market, protect the company from discrimination lawsuits, and more.
How do you identify the Ghost Job?
As a job seeker, your role in identifying ghost jobs is crucial. Here are the top 5 points to help you distinguish between genuine vacancies and ghost jobs.
1. Check Posting Dates
If you notice the job post date is over several weeks or months while fulfilling a job post, it may indicate that there is no intention of genuine hiring or that the post is fulfilled but has yet to be deleted.
2. Vague Role Description
If you notice numerous unnecessary role descriptions or requirements when applying for a job, you should be cautioned. The company does not represent the true openings.
3. No Contact Details
If you notice no valid details or vague contact just below the job vacancy, with which they cannot be identified, or they become unresponsive despite multiple follow-ups, that could be a red flag.
4. Unresponsive Follow-Up
If you don’t receive a response or are informed that the position is no longer available, it might have been a ghost job.
Tips for employees to avoid Ghost Jobs
With the alignment of the world’s tech trends, most companies follow the flow and appear mostly online. Hence, candidates indeed follow the trends, and from researching job opportunities to securing and starting a new position, candidates utilize the Internet throughout the entire process. In such scenarios of finding a ghost job while applying, the candidate should be aware of the posting dates, duration, and the content of the post, whether it is relevant or not. The candidate should be mindful of whether the company takes too long to recruit; if yes, it does ghost him.
