Codecrafters logo
Advanced programming challenges. Build your own Redis, Shell, Git, Kafka, SQLite, etc. Signing up is free. 40% off if you upgrade.
Up to date
Published
2 min read

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.


Found this article helpful? You might enjoy my free newsletter. I share dev tips and insights to help you grow your coding skills and advance your tech career.

Interested in supporting this blog in exchange for a shoutout? Get in touch.


Liked this post?

Check out these related articles that might be useful for you. They cover similar topics and provide additional insights.

Tech
4 min read

Why I moved from Google Analytics to Simple Analytics

I ditched Google Analytics for a privacy-focused analytics tool that bypasses ad blockers

Nov 9, 2024
Read article
Tech
5 min read

Pkl: Apple's New Configuration Language That Could Replace JSON and YAML

A deep dive into Pkl, Apple's configuration language that aims to replace JSON and YAML

Nov 1, 2024
Read article
Tech
3 min read

Why Anthropic (Claude AI) Uses 'Member of Technical Staff' for All Engineers (Including Co-founders)

Inside Anthropic's unique approach to preventing talent poaching and maintaining organizational equality

Oct 23, 2024
Read article
Tech
5 min read

Can OSSPledge Fix Open Source Sustainability?

The Open Source Pledge aims to address open source sustainability challenges by encouraging companies to pay $2,000 per developer per year

Nov 17, 2024
Read article
Tech
8 min read

Apple's Secret Sauce: The Untold Stories Behind Its Success

Diving deep into the lesser-known factors that propelled Apple from a garage startup to a tech titan

Sep 30, 2024
Read article
Tech
5 min read

Cloudflare's AI Content Control: Savior or Threat to the Open Web?

How Cloudflare's new AI management tools could revolutionize content creation, potentially reshaping the internet landscape for both website owners and AI companies.

Sep 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

Introducing courses.reviews

Cutting through the noise of thousands of online courses to find the ones actually worth your time

Jun 2, 2025
Read article
Tech
10 min read

Amazon's Rise to Tech Titan: A Story of Relentless Innovation

How Jeff Bezos' 'Day 1' philosophy turned an online bookstore into a global powerhouse

Sep 30, 2024
Read article

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.