Vanta Logo
SPONSOR
Automate SOC 2 & ISO 27001 compliance with Vanta. Get $1,000 off.
Published
2 min read
Up to date

Trevor I. Lasn

Staff Software Engineer, Engineering Manager

Ghost Jobs Should Be Illegal

How fake job postings became a systemic problem in tech recruiting

Companies are increasingly posting positions they have no intention of filling - a practice known as ghost jobs. While the exact scale is hard to measure, anyone who’s job hunted recently has likely encountered these phantom postings.

Ghost jobs emerge from a perfect storm of corporate incentives. Companies want to maintain talent pipelines. Hiring managers need to show growth potential. Recruiters are measured on activity metrics.

The result? Job postings have morphed from genuine hiring tools into marketing channels.

Think of it like a restaurant that takes reservations but never intends to seat you. They just want to gauge interest and keep a waiting list. It might help their planning, but it fundamentally breaks trust with customers.

When job postings don’t reflect real hiring intent, we lose our ability to read market signals. It’s like trying to gauge housing demand by looking at listings - if half the houses aren’t actually for sale, the data becomes meaningless.

This distortion affects everyone. Job seekers can’t tell which opportunities are real. Companies can’t accurately gauge market rates. Industry analysts can’t track actual demand. The noise drowns out the signal.

Every ghost job posting adds to what I call the “trust tax” - the extra effort and emotional labor required to navigate a system you can’t fully trust. Job seekers must now treat every posting with skepticism, companies must work harder to prove their authenticity, and the whole process becomes more inefficient.

Markets tend to correct inefficiencies over time. The ghost job era will likely end one of two ways: either companies will voluntarily move toward more transparent practices, or new platforms and tools will emerge to force transparency.

The tech industry faces enough real challenges without adding artificial ones. Ghost jobs might seem like a clever short-term tactic, but they’re creating long-term damage to the hiring ecosystem.

It’s time for companies to exorcise these ghosts and return to honest hiring practices.

If you found this article helpful, you might enjoy my free newsletter. I share developer tips and insights to help you grow your skills and career.


More Articles You Might Enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you might find these related pieces interesting as well. If you like what I have to say, please check out the sponsors who are supporting me. Much appreciated!

Tech
11 min read

Google's Journey: From Search Engine to Tech Giant

Exploring the key innovations and strategies that transformed Google into a global technology leader

Oct 1, 2024
Read article
Tech
5 min read

The Fight to Free JavaScript from Oracle's Control

The creator of JavaScript and Node.js are challenging Oracle's control over the JavaScript name

Nov 23, 2024
Read article
Tech
5 min read

Is Age Really a Factor in Tech?

Silicon Valley has a reputation for youth worship. The 'move fast and break things' mentality often translates to a preference for younger, supposedly more adaptable workers.

Oct 8, 2024
Read article
Tech
3 min read

Google is Killing Information Economics on the Internet

Google’s Gemini pulls summaries from websites and slaps them directly into the search results

Sep 11, 2024
Read article
Tech
5 min read

Cloudflare Study: 39% of Companies Losing Control of Their IT and Security Environment

New research reveals a shocking loss of control in corporate IT environments

Oct 3, 2024
Read article
Tech
3 min read

Tattoos Won't Break Your Tech Career

Building a tech career with a sword tattooed on my neck

Dec 10, 2024
Read article
Tech
6 min read

Objective-C Is a Total Abomination (opinion)

Objective-C is, without a doubt, one of the ugliest programming languages out there

Aug 24, 2024
Read article
Tech
4 min read

No, Quantum Computers Won't Break All Encryption

Symmetric encryption algorithms like Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) are largely quantum-resistant already

Oct 31, 2024
Read article
Tech
3 min read

The Internet is Becoming an Ocean of LLM-Generated Junk

The internet’s full of content, but most of it is becoming junk. I’m talking about the stuff generated by Large Language Models (LLMs). These AI tools are cranking out endless articles, and the quality? It's bad—really bad.

Sep 9, 2024
Read article

Become a better engineer

Here are engineering resources I've personally vetted and use. They focus on skills you'll actually need to build and scale real projects - the kind of experience that gets you hired or promoted.

Many companies have a fixed annual stipend per engineer (e.g. $2,000) for use towards learning resources. If your company offers this stipend, you can forward them your invoices directly for reimbursement. By using my affiliate links, you support my work and get a discount at the same!


This article was originally published on https://www.trevorlasn.com/blog/ghost-jobs-should-be-illegal. It was written by a human and polished using grammar tools for clarity.