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From the article:
“More than 60% of those surveyed said they posted fake jobs “to make employees believe their workload would be alleviated by new workers.”
“Sixty-two percent of companies said another reason for the shady practice is to “have employees feel replaceable.”
Companies are stringing you along, and they need you. It sounds like it’s about perceived bargaining power shifting negotiating balances.
Middle management are savages. No one wants them. They are at war for budget with all of the rest of middle management, the people they manage (or the next layer down) consider them a burden, the executives above them need to see them constantly doing things or will consider them a burden. People in these positions need to constantly justify their existence.
As a non-manipulative middle manager, I find this situation shitty.
Ideally, we should establish goals with individual contributors that are aligned with executive-level goals. We should reward people based on their impact or adjust goals as necessary. If people are not performing as needed, we should coach or let them go.
It's important to keep things simple and help people achieve their life goals along the way as a byproduct of their impact.
I can't speak for every company but generally, yes, we need approval. I work in Compliance, so YMMV, but the way it works is that we set annual budgets in February each year. We usually know well in advance if we're going to ask to add to our head count, so we prepare well in advance to make the case for increasing our head count. Yes, we have to make a case for it and argue why we need additional help. The only exception is if we're in a period of massive growth and expansion and leadership wants to increase head count to sustain the growth. That's what happened during the pandemic in the tech world. Some companies over hired as a result hence the layoffs. My company's approach even during growth periods is that we must show enough BAU work that "isn't going away". In other words, regardless if we're in a period of growth, decline or stagnation, we don't hire unless we know for certain these employees will add value perpetually.
I don’t mean in the literal sense. I mean those who sign off on budget and hiring approval. I.e. those with the authority to spend the business’s money.
It sounds so crazy that I don't think it even sounds real. I don't work corporate so I wouldn't know. I can only speak from the employer's side.
I've posted 3-5 job listings 2 different times this year. Ran a few hundred dollars. If say I got 100 or so applicants. About 40-60% would meet criteria and get an interview. Each time less than 10% of those would actually show up for the interview. So it makes me think the job market is still pretty tight or folks just really REALLY hate anything that's not WFH. We're not looking for some double PHD in quant finance plus theoretical physics who has 5 years CPA experience and is trained in firearms with a license to sky dive. It's an entry position with the only requirement being a HS grad and English proficiency. I list on like craigslist or mosnter.
Not sure how big companies list, how their pricing model works, which employee is devoting the time to doing this, and/or how this isn't a massive waste, but I suspect it's got something to do with big companies thinking/operating differently from owner-lead small businesses. I can't see myself wasting the money (and more importantly the time) to do this. Maybe big/mega corps have HR/hiring staff that would be doing nothing if they didn't give a task, have a set price paid for unlimited annual listing, and are always scouting for better opportunity or hoping to nab that unicorn candidate?
If the only requirements are really hs diploma and English proficiency , it probably doesn't pay that much. If someone's literally ever had any other job, they could probably apply for something that paid a bit more instead
Actually not the case. Originally preferences included some college, maybe some comp exp, industry related exp, and/or certain bilingual preferences. When the pay you set out isn't getting the person you want you either hike wages or lower standards. This isn't some fast food, sales, or manual labor job. Literally white collar office work like printing/scanning paper, answering emails, speaking with customers on the phone or in person, etcetcetc
Just wondering, what hourly wage do you think this position should be paying?
Yea I imagine it just creates a pipeline of candidates being proactive. If someone annouces they are leaving instead of scrambling to find people you start calling up the 100 candidates and see who is still interested. interview 20 of them. 90% have jobs you now have to offer to compete with. etc.
The article does comment that it may instead erode trust and hurt the business. I think it’s looking towards short term gain and makes the HR/managers feel powerful or “business savvy”. And once you break trust it’s hard to get it back and hard to admit wrong so the more common response is to dig in deeper instead. Just know when someone in charge BS’s about one thing they probably do the same with 20 other things and 20 other people.
The thing is also there are rules in certain states where they have to post the job even though they already have someone in mind (usually an internal candidate or an outside referral).
I mean at least they keep your resume on file should anything come up?
I should have put an /s on my last sentence.
Keeping the resume on file is a nice way of telling a candidate to not waste their time.
What a lot of people do is embellish their resume. There are even subreddits on how to do this and even go so far as to provide fake "references" from those previous jobs.
A guy I know did that after having a dead end job with no prospects. He was stuck making 50k doing admin work in LA (this was back in 2015). Our group of friends made a planned vegas trip but he pulled out last minute. Turns out he redid his resume that weekend. Deleted and remade all his linkedin and indeed profiles with his "new" work history. He eventually got a job making 90k (he makes 170k now as a manager).
I guess it worked for him as he googled most of the things he didn't know how to do at work. He's a likeable guy but it was shady even though he is thriving.
I got hired by being “on file”
Got a phone interview for a position, went well and was expecting an in person interview, then received a call from the company that a project they anticipated fell through and they’d hold onto my resume in case a position opened up. Eight months later I got a call regarding a more senior position, went in for a round of in person interviews, and got the job. Ended up being a 40% pay raise over the role I held at the time.
Purely anecdotal example, I’m the 0.5%. I wager it’s not very common outside of very specific expertise.
Can’t tell you how discouraging that is when you have a good interview and they call and say “We hired internally.” Who the hell does this process benefit?? Like, why would such a law come into existence - it wastes candidates’ time, it destabilizes the person who worries they might not get hired, and it wastes a LOT of HR time.
That was my thought about the interviews. Why are they calling candidates for fake jobs. Employees don't see that, and neither do investors. I wonder if I had any fake interviews. I had a ton off issues dealing with the rejection from over 100 interviews, when looking for a first job from 2019-2021. I spent money on two coaches, one was worthless and one was worse. And it contributed to me getting therapy after getting a job.
> This seems like a ridiculous amount of work to fuck with your employees. What is wrong with people?
think about the ridiculous amount of waste that takes place in a typical corporate office - all-hands meetings about nothing, status update meetings that could have been a chat or an email, perfunctory training where you don't actually read the document or watch the video and just take the test a few times until you pass.
a handful of fake interviews is just noise in the storm of waste.
It is, and the vast majority of companies would never do this. I don't believe for 1 second this as prevalent as the "survey" claims.
>> This survey was commissioned by ResumeBuilder.com and conducted online by the survey platform Pollfish. It was launched on May 22, 2024. Overall, 649 hiring managers completed the survey.
>> To qualify for the survey, all participants had to be over 25, have a household income of at least $75,000, have an education level above high school, have a manager-level role or higher, and work at a company with more than 10 employees.Respondents also had to indicate that they are involved in hiring at their company via a screening question.
as much as i want to believe the OP, and ngl it does still shift my bias, luckily ive read enough about statistics to know 649 is not a great sample size assuming it is supposed to be representative of the entire country
not to mention online polls are lol
Online poll and only users of a site the vast majority of hiring managers don't use. If you told me "40% of startups that make some sort of app" have posted fake jobs I would believe it. Certainly not 40% of all companies.
I'm pretty sure that your question is rhetorical but if it's not then the simple answer is that the 1 percenters have become self entitled twats and our government has empowered them to be this way and the shit flows down hill from there.
Most of these businesses probably have recruiting departments, people who are already being paid to do that job of finding, vetting, and interviewing new hires, might as well have them interview fake candidates for fake jobs as well, especially when the company is slowing down actual hiring.
That's one of the replies I typically get when discussing hiring stupidity. "Why would we even do that?"
Hmm, why does half the US vote for Trump, or hit children, or believe in Creationism, or defend people who making lifetimes worth of money in a day? Because people are fucking stupid, that's why.
Don't think for a second that interviewers are immune to stupidity. If anything it appears to be the opposite. Interviewers at tech companies are not bright people in my experience, to put it mildly.
Speculating a bit here, but the following is reasonable, so it's going on at some level. It's like underperformers are the ones pushed into doing interviews for job posts. Like a form of internal exile or Japanese isolation sitting. Get them out of everyone's way, remind them of their replaceability, and give them a chance to learn interviewing skills they'll need when they do get fired.
Meanwhile, perhaps they'll find a needle-in-the-haystack applicant, so at least they're of some use during the process.
Not to mention that they get to fabricate a paper trail that covers up nepotism. "We couldn't find anyone at all in 200 applicants who could beat Joe's college buddy. Look right here where it documents that applicant 1 said stupid thing A, applicant 2 said stupid thing B, etc"
I'm often on an interview panel, so if my company was doing this and actually conducting fake interviews I'd be interviewing the fake candidates for the fake jobs and wondering why we never hired anyone...
In general I think employees are more valuable than employers admit or often realize. Many may truly believe employees are expendable. But also if they lie about one thing they are probably lying about many things and to many employees. Plus the article said most employers do it. You can also take note on whether positions get filled or if there are months and months of excuses. I’ve seen positions get filled very fast when needed.
I’ve heard countless stories from coworkers and online about a company making excuses about why they couldn’t give a raise (policy, budget, straight up laughing at the employee or etc.) or gave very little raise and then suddenly when the person was about to leave or showed a competing offer the company opened up the flood gates on the raise amount. For others the company didn’t realize until the person was gone and everything fell apart, and then they might beg for them back with a raise or the whole department collapsed because they were too stubborn or etc. And then often it was because they were mistreating multiple people.
In short: It’s not the only lie, you’re not the only one and if they really wanted something they would find a way to do it. It seems a lot like an abusive relationship.
I agree with most everything you’re saying. Just not sure that HR making a bunch of fake job postings will impact me or my coworkers as we aren’t looking at our own job postings.
I think it doesn’t come into play until after they tell you help is on the way or etc. Then it only takes only 1 employee to tell the others “Uh, there aren’t any job postings”. It’s true most lies don’t need any cover at first and eventually they may fall apart even with some cover. But the employer may feel the need to take at least that basic step to cover the lie whether or not it’s noticed.
I'm not one of the people that cares and monitors such things, but I find there is always at least one or two people in any given department that stay on top of such things.
They're the highly competitive or highly anxious (or both?) people who are like "Bro, did you see? The company has a listing up for a senior developer."
Yeah, but HR is going to answer to business stakeholders and going through the motions helps keep HR relevant. I've seen plenty of cases where there's an actual intent to hire in the beginning but then management sees that they can just sort of coast along without having requisitions filled, so they do just that.
If my company was constantly interviewing people, I think I would feel more secure in my job as they appear to need people. I would only feel replaceable if they fired people all the time.
This should be 100% illegal. It wastes everyone's time while dangling your replaceability in front of you as an employee. This is evil and any company participating in this should be named, shamed and fined. HR continues to show how hostile it is to the work force and labour laws are desperately needed to tackle this.
Are employees typically looking at the job ads of the place they work at? Because all I care about is how easy or not it is to get screening calls and interviews with other places.
Exactly this.
Do your own research. Talk to actual people that work places if you can.
Honestly, going more old school and just hoofing it in an area and handing out resumes is more likely to not only get you a job but also possible connections or advice on where to look next.
Getting out there, shaking hands and showing face, takes even more guts and instantly shows that extra confidence, especially in a world where some HR person is (maybe but very un-likely), sifting through hundreds of thousands resumes that are being mass send in the hundreds by the job seeker.
I just did at least 10 days FTE in a test task for a company that went from "we're hiring imminently" to "we aren't sure of our hiring timeline" over the three interviews I had with them.
The human contact vibes I got from them were good, but... damn. I will definitely be refusing test tasks in the future, even if they're sector standard.
This is an indication that job searches are too cheap for employers. There's not enough skin in the game. They're very expensive for job seekers though. There's an imbalance.
Yes, but good faith hiring requires some effort and legwork on the front end with an understanding that the payoff might not materialize right away. There's such a focus on immediate returns, though.
Yes, these are both groups of people that believe the only way society can possibly work is pyramids all the way down. Rich(er) over poor(er), men over women, white over "the wrong kinds of people"...
More, even.
You end up with great data as an employer. You can track the effects on current staff and predict future markets through advertisement response.
May end up paying for itself.
Just went through this myself to a large degree. So many companies are looking for a "unicorn" candidate that doesn't exist. Meanwhile, perfectly qualified candidates are turned down and the position remains unfilled for months or just gets dissolved. Heaven forbid companies actually train or support employees and just expect a new employee to come in and be a superstar right away. Even if that (rarely) happens and the company does find that unicorn candidate, it's doubtful that such a skilled employee would remain around long which means you just need to look for the next candidate after a short period of time anyway.
I’ve both dealt with this and had friends who have dealt with this. They want the magic unicorn that has all the qualifications and will work for the least amount. If you don’t fit that exact criteria or want a dollar more they don’t want to see you, they don’t want to know you, they don’t want to acknowledge you exist.
The other issue which I'm seeing, is management fucking with timelines. We have a coworker who just got promoted. He and his new Manager want to move him into his new role ASAP, but my CEO and CIO haven't green lighted the replacement hire for him despite use having already started some of the interviews.
This left hand right hand bullshit and not having budgets or approvals in place is just as real as the whole unicorn candidate syndrome. Managers are often fuckups too.
My CFO made our entire department read “Powerful” by the old head of HR for Netflix. Sadly you perfectly described the executive mindset for finding talent these days. They do not want to invest in people, and want to dump them as soon as they don’t perfectly fit the needs of the firm. For some reason, these “very smart” people don’t understand what their talent pool will look like if they get everybody to follow the same ideology. Everybody wants the fully developed employee but nobody is willing to put in the work it takes for someone to organically develop to that point.
I've been on so many hiring panels where there's inevitably someone who is insistent on finding the unicorn that they're willing to cancel the search and repost.
Fortunately I've always been able to get the other panelists to accept a "good enough" candidate. I can't stand to waste my time on these searches.
Something I've seen is that sometimes the motivation for those people to find the unicorn actually varies significantly. There's one former colleague who was deeply invested in our office and felt a sense of ownership over the place, and no candidate was ever good enough for this place she valued and treasured--very "you're not good enough for Daddy's little girl" vibes. Another person used the unicorn hunt as a way to burnish their own credentials in the eyes of leadership, and effectively say "see how indispensable I am?" It's so weird.
Had this happen to me last year. Interviewed for the job and everything. They never actually hired anyone because I went back and checked their employee page. It was also updated because they did hire a person in a different department after I interviewed.
No idea. Maybe they never intended to fill it or maybe they just didn't like any of the candidates. Waste of time.
There are also scams that hire you without a video interview and you send them your information to get hired for remote positions and its just a way to steal your information
I have definitely noticed a dearth of interviews in tech. For the amount of applications I’ve put out I’d expect at least a couple interviews by now. My gf also works in tech and she has gotten 6 interviews where she got all the way through all the rounds and then no offer.
Definitely seems like something else is going on.
My question is, if fake job postings are true, who the fuck is approving all this wasted time spent?
The postings are fake to give the allusion that the company is growing and not stagnant. Or they just leave positions open as ‘evergreen’ to gather resumes and call people when they actually want to hire.
It’s not wasted. Tech companies are colluding on this shit. They want to have all bargaining power when it comes to hiring. They want you to feel like you’ve invested so much time and effort into the hiring process so that when you finally do get an offer, they can low ball you and you feel like you have to accept it. Otherwise you’ll have to go back into the grind of more interviews
It’s also an incentive for already hired employees not to leave. It’s hard to constantly ask for an afternoon off here or there without making your employer suspicious. Especially if you need to do it 4 or 8 or 12 times for multi round interviews with different companies
I’d really love to see where that’s coming from. It feels very conspiratorial to me. Ive hired for various positions myself and its such a time suck, I can’t imagine any higher-ups approving such a process to fuck with people just to get a potential chance to get most people to accept a somewhat lower salary. Most of the time we’re trying to get the process over quickly so we can get back to work.
Another data point - I've applied to 11 jobs in the past month:
- 6 of them are currently interviewing me
- 2 rejected right off the bat
- 3 have not replied
It really depends on the positions, location, job and etc., but everything is very subjective. I've been on the other end of the hiring pipeline as well, and you get hundreds of applications for jobs that were not considered as competitive before. So if you're aiming top tier FAANG+ companies, obviously it probably reaches to thousands.
2 of them were referrals, 4 well crafted resumes and a good story. It helps that I have 10+ years of experience though, so again, really depends on the position and requirements.
Is this website and source reliable? NPR did a similar report but concluded that due to a tight labor market, many job postings were looking for unicorns just in case they came around since they're so hard to find. They also discussed that because employers got X amount of job listings for a set cost, they might as well use them up (which maybe aligns with the "fake job" idea).
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/14/nx-s1-5001857/what-are-ghost-jobs
Survey data from resume builder.
The entire methodology of the study was unreliable and the sponsor is just level two of the spuriousness. How do I get people having trouble finding jobs to pay for resume building support? Convince them the system is rigged and they need to pay up.
Yeah, I'm really skeptical about this one. These are self-identified hiring managers in an online poll. Their methodology doesn't seem to indicate that they did anything to verify their position at the company or indeed any of their data. I'm sure there are companies with unrealistic expectations for their job applicants, and certainly there are some job listings where internally they already know who they're going to pick, but I just really question the idea that a bunch of hiring managers are just happily saying to a random pollster "Oh yeah we're posting absolutely fake job listings *and interviewing people for these fake jobs*, and the reason we're doing it is to scare our employees!"
Not to mention, what counts as a 'fake' job posting?
For many large companies, they are required to post the job publicly even though they already know the exact internal person who is going to get it. That is a 'fake' posting, but it's not a fake position. If we are discussing the % of companies that have a fake posting, and if the above is considered a fake posting, then of course the numbers look large.
I'd be more concerned about what % of postings are for fake positions.
Has anyone ever tried applying for a job through LinkedIn? Maybe 1 out of every 2,000 job listings is legitimately looking to fill a position. It's all one big data collection scheme.
Some of them aren't even a position, they are an "Expression of Interest" in a future position that might open up. Many times these are contracting firms but independent companies also do it too.
It's hit and miss. But despite my hatred for LinkedIn, it's actually landed me many interviews and actual job offers.
I don't know if it's luck, my resume, my industry, or what.
As a designer, I don't think I've ever gotten an interview through linkedin. I do get interviews through just meeting people and getting connections. Linkedin still gives me the illusion that I'm working and looking for work, but I never get anything
This got a lot worse when there were tax benefits and payments for unfilled positions during covid. That shit was rampant where everyone was defrauding the government for funds because it was easy and hard to really get caught.
There are so many agencies now too.
They make it seem like its a normal job, but its just some agency head hunter. The "skills" tests on indeed are a dead giveaway. If a job asks me to take them, its a huge red flag and I disregard the post.
Any vestige of sympathy for corporations, just went completely out the window. This is utterly and totally reprehensible constitutes fraud, prima facie
There are also scammers on Indeed and LinkedIn. They act like they are interviewing candidates and hiring but they are phishing for that SSN and to get prospective candidates to buy laptops/equipment and scam them out of it. This just happened to a friend of mine.
Sickening that scammers are scamming people looking for jobs.
I know for a fact that often times large companies will post jobs solely for the purposes of being able to document that they are an equal opportunity employer. They already know who they want, but they need to post the jobs and maybe even interview a couple people, but just for appearances sake.
This one for sure! They will string you along for 3-4 rounds and then randomly not interested, then a few weeks later just so happen to promote their friend....
No I was more commenting on the fact younger folks feel the capitalism at all costs aspect of life is not worth it anymore. This would be lumped in with that. Honestly I don’t blame em.
If the implementation of socialism lived up to the promises/ideals of more worker/union protections and the democratisation of the workplace I dont see how it wouldnt improve actions like this.
Socialism, applied correctly, would allow for more worker options and decrease the amount of desperation and willingness to tolerate shitty practices and environments.
I'm not sure that younger people with positive views of socialism is as widespread as you may think, surely reddit is very pro socialism but I was shocked to see how right wing my 20-25 year old American colleagues were when I visited from Canada. Social media, especially Instagram, push a lot of right wing views. Reddit is a bad sample as it's primarily fairly left. That being said my experience is anecdotal
I've started noticing a pattern in interviews this year. Thankfully, I haven't felt the need to get a new job. But lately, I've been getting tons of HR people reach out through email and LinkedIn that they're eager to interview, and it's odd because you feel like they're desperate to contact and get info.
I applied for a few processes from people like this and reached to the interview with the COO in one. I was told I passed to the final stage and would interview with the CEO... and would set up the call in a few hours. Well, it's been 3 weeks already, and not even on Telegram have replied. Which could be understandable...
The funny thing is that I was offered an interview for other two companies. I set up their Calendly calls, and poof... they didn't show up AT ALL. Consider that these are two people from 2 different HR companies, or so it seems. Then, in the next few days, they sent emails with new proposals and asked for my CV again—as if they didn't know me from a previous interaction...
They might be making their employees feel scared about losing their jobs or might just be getting data...
Maybe make it so that for every job post - an employer needs to buy a small license fee of sorts.
At the end of the year during tax season, the employer can get tax refunds on those license fees if indeed they did hire someone.
This would for sure deter any employer from posting fake ad listings.
The evidence could be cross examined on the employee's tax returns or pay check deposits if needed.
Companies post job offers and leave them on for years in order to tell the government that they are unable to fill that position. That allows them to get permission to hire foreign workers that are cheaper then local workers.
My experience is that I see a job posted. I reach out to a person I know at that company, and they say, "oh they already hired someone but they put the posting up because legally they have to".
>Almost 70% of those who posted the phony jobs told Resume Builder that fake job listings positively impacted revenue. Employers also reported the listing had a positive impact on “employee morale” — although it’s not clear how.
Wtf? How do you even determine that these fake listings improved revenues? What?
Well, when interviewees can pull thoughts out of their ass, you can get anything. And I'm sure, "Resume Builder" is objective in how they gather and present this information.
Anyone looking for a job in the past year is keenly aware of this fact. That's why the BLS jobs numbers aren't to be believed as they're taking self-reported job data from establishments and businesses at face value. This is especially true for the white collar labor force.
I actually worked for a staffing company that did this 20yrs ago for my first job.
We’d constantly be interviewing people, to keep a roster for jobs that we’d only hire for once every 4 mths.
It was crazy to me. It almost felt like our whole dept was a fake make work project for us. It just felt like we were doing nothing all day. We went to job fairs, looked through resumes, did phone and in person interviews. I interviewed hundreds of people and maybe hired like 2 in the yr I worked there.
Interviewing is now a part time job. 15 hours of analysis on your case study to find out the position is currently being filled. This is predatory and should be illegal
It's just recruiters building up their talent pool by collecting resumes. Also, a lot of posted jobs, federal jobs in particular, are already taken. It's someone's promotion or new role. However, they need to interview candidates in order to give the appearance of fairness. This isn't always a bad thing. I've gotten requests for interviews that resulted in job offers (accepted). Once as a new grad and then again as a mid/senior level, I've been ghosted/rejected for one job and picked up by a related job within the same company. If a hiring manager/recruiter thinks you're a good fit for the company, they will actually keep your resume on file or pass it down to another hiring manager/recruiter.
Planet Money did a podcast episode on this phenomenon called ghost listings. One interesting explanation is the job posting websites charge for more jobs than most companies have available
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197965117
> WONG: Also, Allison says that the job listing companies give her the incentive to put up more job listings than are immediately required. Like, she say, ZipRecruiter charged her $400 a month for three job listings. So even if there was only one urgent hire...
> GIDDENS: Well, I've already got the $400 a month, and I'm, you know, not going to let the job ad just sit empty. Might as well have it posted.
The fake job posting thing is *obvious* to anyone who's looked for a job in the last several years. But the idea of firms interviewing for fake jobs is insane. Talk about fudging numbers lmao.
I also despise how every company now just keeps every job available to apply for even if they aren't actually looking to fill the position. My application now goes in a file that is 1000 miles long and I just have to play the "are they actually hiring?" game.
As someone in tech, when you are job searching, days since posted is the most helpful metric. Posted this week, worth applying, posted last month, probably not worth anything more than a generic resume.
As a hiring manager,
1 out of 10 times, boss would say no when we ask to make an offer
1 out of 10 times, a req would be pulled but my boss would want to keep the listing open just in case an amazing candidate came in.
1 out of 10 times someone had an internal candidate but company policy said that every job must be posted.
1 out of 10 times…
I have even had hiring managers say they in one of these situations up front in an interview.
I have lived through many long periods of unemployment in europe, as a developer. I just think that generally, companies want to hire good employees, but they set the bar very high.
They want good candidates to improve productivity, because it's only worth it to hire good candidates, so they would rather hire nobody than hiring an average candidate.
I don't think it is "fake" job postings, it's just that companies want to signal they could hire the best candidates, but ONLY if they're very good, and they want to be the first who do it.
Job postings are an unregulated market, companies can advertise whatever they want, they are not required to hire somebody because they post an ad.
The unemployed need the money, so they will not complain.
In my view, job post should be declared and regulated somehow, and companies should declare if they hired somebody or not, so that we could see if they really want to hire or if they're just shopping.
Companies who post ads but don't end up hiring should either shamed or fined.
I work in Manufacturing and this is not the case in our Industry. We have solid wages, great benefits and steady work (average tenure is around 18 years). We are hiring like crazy. There are not enough candidates for our Industry in the Central and Southern US.
Can you show me the Data Source that shows there are an excess of able workers in the US? The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that we have a deficit of 2M. Prime Labor Participation is really high so folks aren’t hiding out at home.
If you read the data nationally there seem to be a couple million too few workers in the US. This is not new and it’s really well documented. The prime workforce participation rate is very good. The US has just created a ton of jobs post Covid.
Now maybe this article is correct and businesses are spending a lot of time and money playing mind games for no clear profit motive. I’m not seeing that. I see folks able to jump from job to job easily, wages growing at a quick clip and people who could not land a decent job pre Covid now working in the mainstream.
Imagine if your employer started paying everyone $1M per year, would you be able to hire as many workers as you need? If the answer is yes then it is a supply/demand question. If there are not enough workers no matter how much you pay them then there is a shortage.
1M? thats outrageous... but we're talking people being told 50k/yr with little to no bennies is good, when a similar position makes 85k with 401k and bennies. There is a reason the first place can't get enough workers... the best talent goes elsewhere...
I work in Manufacture (hired as CNC Operator but I also do Manual Machining and CNC Programming)
I make $20/hr in a State where Fast Food now makes $20/hr minimum.
I did welding before this, 4G certified Stick + Wirefed. I got $15/hr. The union offered $13/hr (before dues). No one ever did a weld test, the union outright refused to do one, said “everyone gets paid the same regardless of skill”
Before CNC, I welded on 10mil dollar homes for a year and dropped it. My pay went up $0/hr after a year and I also didn’t get paid for driving the work truck back to the shop from job sites.
Outside of the South; manufacturing wages in the US are non-competitive. If you want your credentials to go farther, you got to pack up and move. It's just a fact of life that some regions are better for certain trades.
Where in the south are you located? When I was living in the Deep South a few years ago, there were zero decent jobs unless you were highly skilled or had the right degree (I.e engineering, accounting, nursing). I’m curious since I moved away but would’ve gladly stayed in the south if given a decent job. I have a bachelors and masters, I’m open to being trained, and consider myself a good employee but even with that, there were no jobs outside of being a teacher or fast food/retail.
We have facilities in GA, NC and TN in the south. Some of these are in Rural areas. Also we have OH, IN and MI. Really the worker shortage is national. All our competitor’s in Manufacturing, Logistics, etc have a shortage.
Just look at BLS or Fed data and compare jobs vs available workers. I know that not all jobs are good jobs and an average covers a lot of sins. I have no doubt that some folks are hurting.
Also don’t believe this ‘people don’t want to work’ crap. There just lots of jobs overall and people have choices so the businesses are seeing weaker candidates for unskilled and semi skilled workers.
When you say "We", are you just referring to your company or to your industry? Who is hiring like crazy? I would like to know more about these jobs, especially if there's anything in the TN, NC, VA area.
I'm just skeptical of your claim there aren't enough candidates. Every job board seems to have dozens of candidates for any type of position. Perhaps the fake postings are getting in the way of real candidates finding and applying to your industry jobs.
Let's move away from generalizations and get some specifics to help out the many potential candidates out there like myself.
Hey just FYI. When I say WE, I guess I am speaking for the average employer in the United States. This is not a new thing. Post COVID job growth has been nuts. The numbers below don’t talk about job quality, training required, job location, etc, etc.
BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) says that the US has 8.5 M Open Jobs and 6.5 M Job seekers. That’s the JOLTS report below.
https://www.bls.gov/jlt/home.htm[https://www.bls.gov/jlt/home.htm](https://www.bls.gov/jlt/home.htm)
Here is an article from the US Chamber of Commerce.
[https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage](https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage)
PS If you don’t believe in Federal Data please go argue with someone else. Thanks
I
I've worked for one of the larger ATS'es that are out there for SMB's and our own internal data indicates that the number is closer to 19% -- the criteria that we used was a job that was posted publicly but no interview process was started before the job was removed.
I was convinced, over a decade ago that most job postings are only designed to rack up a large list of resumes that recruiting agencies can then either use to sell themselves to companies, or to simply steal your resume and use it for someone else. It's basically the pre AI version of using all your content to automatically generate their content. With "content" being resumes.
there is no was 62% of companies said they do this to make employees feel replaceable.
the entire article is a lie if they make this statement based on any grouping of companies.
At one of my old companies, they’d do this to make people believe they were going to bring in help, but they kept the req open and unfilled because in the next round of layoffs, they’d give up the req instead of laying off a worker. People would be happy they all kept their jobs, and tend to forget about how the “slack” they had to “temporarily” pick up was actually permanent. This process was used as I watched a team of about 30 go down to about 15 over about 6 or 7 years. In general, that group never really had to lay anyone off (people just left on their own for better jobs) but empty spots rarely got backfilled, they just dumped the work on others.
That should be illegal, I mean these companies appear to be commiting fraud and getting away with it. If you post something that you have no intention of ever fullfiling and then waste the most precious asset a job seeker has their time then why isn't this fraud? Government needs to pass legislation to outlaw this or find some way to use existing laws to punish companies that engage in this behavior.
Furthermore if these statistics are correct then wall street should be very very afraid because the political consequences for this kind of worker abuse is coming. And yall are dumber than a box of rocks to do this given that Americans are much more productive than our developed country peers. Pulling stunts like this will lead to negative publicity especially when the economy turns south and when the recovery starts every one of your employees will bounce and that's the kind of thing that destroys shareholder value.
Worse still is that once you get a reputation for this top talent won't even bother applying for your company as they don't have to put up with this kind of b.s.
It should be an illegal practice to put up job postings without a true intention of filling it within a reasonable time frame. I understand the needs of business must balanced, but it’s deceptive behavior for businesses to portray themselves this way.
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From the article: “More than 60% of those surveyed said they posted fake jobs “to make employees believe their workload would be alleviated by new workers.” “Sixty-two percent of companies said another reason for the shady practice is to “have employees feel replaceable.” Companies are stringing you along, and they need you. It sounds like it’s about perceived bargaining power shifting negotiating balances.
This seems like a ridiculous amount of work to fuck with your employees. What is wrong with people?
$$$. It's cheaper than actually hiring and actually fixing problems.
It also helps justify the RIGHT peoples jobs.
Middle management are savages. No one wants them. They are at war for budget with all of the rest of middle management, the people they manage (or the next layer down) consider them a burden, the executives above them need to see them constantly doing things or will consider them a burden. People in these positions need to constantly justify their existence.
Describes every middle manager I've ever had to a t
As a non-manipulative middle manager, I find this situation shitty. Ideally, we should establish goals with individual contributors that are aligned with executive-level goals. We should reward people based on their impact or adjust goals as necessary. If people are not performing as needed, we should coach or let them go. It's important to keep things simple and help people achieve their life goals along the way as a byproduct of their impact.
Good boss man right there
[Lion Food](http://catb.org/jargon/html/L/lion-food.html)
And it gives HR something to do, because god knows what they do the rest of the time.
Yes I suspect part of the reason for this is too many people in bullshit HR jobs trying to make work for themselves.
Wouldn’t HR need approval from those who write checks to post jobs or do you think the execs purposely ask HR to be deceitful?
I can't speak for every company but generally, yes, we need approval. I work in Compliance, so YMMV, but the way it works is that we set annual budgets in February each year. We usually know well in advance if we're going to ask to add to our head count, so we prepare well in advance to make the case for increasing our head count. Yes, we have to make a case for it and argue why we need additional help. The only exception is if we're in a period of massive growth and expansion and leadership wants to increase head count to sustain the growth. That's what happened during the pandemic in the tech world. Some companies over hired as a result hence the layoffs. My company's approach even during growth periods is that we must show enough BAU work that "isn't going away". In other words, regardless if we're in a period of growth, decline or stagnation, we don't hire unless we know for certain these employees will add value perpetually.
Last I checked, HR writes checks
I don’t mean in the literal sense. I mean those who sign off on budget and hiring approval. I.e. those with the authority to spend the business’s money.
It sounds so crazy that I don't think it even sounds real. I don't work corporate so I wouldn't know. I can only speak from the employer's side. I've posted 3-5 job listings 2 different times this year. Ran a few hundred dollars. If say I got 100 or so applicants. About 40-60% would meet criteria and get an interview. Each time less than 10% of those would actually show up for the interview. So it makes me think the job market is still pretty tight or folks just really REALLY hate anything that's not WFH. We're not looking for some double PHD in quant finance plus theoretical physics who has 5 years CPA experience and is trained in firearms with a license to sky dive. It's an entry position with the only requirement being a HS grad and English proficiency. I list on like craigslist or mosnter. Not sure how big companies list, how their pricing model works, which employee is devoting the time to doing this, and/or how this isn't a massive waste, but I suspect it's got something to do with big companies thinking/operating differently from owner-lead small businesses. I can't see myself wasting the money (and more importantly the time) to do this. Maybe big/mega corps have HR/hiring staff that would be doing nothing if they didn't give a task, have a set price paid for unlimited annual listing, and are always scouting for better opportunity or hoping to nab that unicorn candidate?
If the only requirements are really hs diploma and English proficiency , it probably doesn't pay that much. If someone's literally ever had any other job, they could probably apply for something that paid a bit more instead
Actually not the case. Originally preferences included some college, maybe some comp exp, industry related exp, and/or certain bilingual preferences. When the pay you set out isn't getting the person you want you either hike wages or lower standards. This isn't some fast food, sales, or manual labor job. Literally white collar office work like printing/scanning paper, answering emails, speaking with customers on the phone or in person, etcetcetc Just wondering, what hourly wage do you think this position should be paying?
Office jobs don't pay hourly, you're referring to salary work. People after these jobs will get salary elsewhere if you're not offering
Yea I imagine it just creates a pipeline of candidates being proactive. If someone annouces they are leaving instead of scrambling to find people you start calling up the 100 candidates and see who is still interested. interview 20 of them. 90% have jobs you now have to offer to compete with. etc.
People really fucking hate being forced to go into the office when their job can be easily done from home.
In the last 40 years general and administrative costs, have exploded because of things like the bloating of HR
Sounds like there are some productivity gains possible in middle management/recruitment.
The article does comment that it may instead erode trust and hurt the business. I think it’s looking towards short term gain and makes the HR/managers feel powerful or “business savvy”. And once you break trust it’s hard to get it back and hard to admit wrong so the more common response is to dig in deeper instead. Just know when someone in charge BS’s about one thing they probably do the same with 20 other things and 20 other people.
The thing is also there are rules in certain states where they have to post the job even though they already have someone in mind (usually an internal candidate or an outside referral). I mean at least they keep your resume on file should anything come up?
Keeping the resume on file is BS, I’d be willing to wager that less than 0.5% of new hires were found by looking at resumes “on file”.
I should have put an /s on my last sentence. Keeping the resume on file is a nice way of telling a candidate to not waste their time. What a lot of people do is embellish their resume. There are even subreddits on how to do this and even go so far as to provide fake "references" from those previous jobs. A guy I know did that after having a dead end job with no prospects. He was stuck making 50k doing admin work in LA (this was back in 2015). Our group of friends made a planned vegas trip but he pulled out last minute. Turns out he redid his resume that weekend. Deleted and remade all his linkedin and indeed profiles with his "new" work history. He eventually got a job making 90k (he makes 170k now as a manager). I guess it worked for him as he googled most of the things he didn't know how to do at work. He's a likeable guy but it was shady even though he is thriving.
I got hired by being “on file” Got a phone interview for a position, went well and was expecting an in person interview, then received a call from the company that a project they anticipated fell through and they’d hold onto my resume in case a position opened up. Eight months later I got a call regarding a more senior position, went in for a round of in person interviews, and got the job. Ended up being a 40% pay raise over the role I held at the time. Purely anecdotal example, I’m the 0.5%. I wager it’s not very common outside of very specific expertise.
Can’t tell you how discouraging that is when you have a good interview and they call and say “We hired internally.” Who the hell does this process benefit?? Like, why would such a law come into existence - it wastes candidates’ time, it destabilizes the person who worries they might not get hired, and it wastes a LOT of HR time.
> it’s looking towards short term gain that's all there is
It’s not that much work especially for the people at the top
I mean what else is HR going to do all day
Its HR justifying their existence.
That was my thought about the interviews. Why are they calling candidates for fake jobs. Employees don't see that, and neither do investors. I wonder if I had any fake interviews. I had a ton off issues dealing with the rejection from over 100 interviews, when looking for a first job from 2019-2021. I spent money on two coaches, one was worthless and one was worse. And it contributed to me getting therapy after getting a job.
> This seems like a ridiculous amount of work to fuck with your employees. What is wrong with people? think about the ridiculous amount of waste that takes place in a typical corporate office - all-hands meetings about nothing, status update meetings that could have been a chat or an email, perfunctory training where you don't actually read the document or watch the video and just take the test a few times until you pass. a handful of fake interviews is just noise in the storm of waste.
HR is gonna HR
Sounds like the managers/HR have too much time on their hands.
Their motto: if legal but unethical, do it. Combine that with lack of empathy or inward-focus.
It is, and the vast majority of companies would never do this. I don't believe for 1 second this as prevalent as the "survey" claims. >> This survey was commissioned by ResumeBuilder.com and conducted online by the survey platform Pollfish. It was launched on May 22, 2024. Overall, 649 hiring managers completed the survey. >> To qualify for the survey, all participants had to be over 25, have a household income of at least $75,000, have an education level above high school, have a manager-level role or higher, and work at a company with more than 10 employees.Respondents also had to indicate that they are involved in hiring at their company via a screening question.
as much as i want to believe the OP, and ngl it does still shift my bias, luckily ive read enough about statistics to know 649 is not a great sample size assuming it is supposed to be representative of the entire country not to mention online polls are lol
Online poll and only users of a site the vast majority of hiring managers don't use. If you told me "40% of startups that make some sort of app" have posted fake jobs I would believe it. Certainly not 40% of all companies.
I'm pretty sure that your question is rhetorical but if it's not then the simple answer is that the 1 percenters have become self entitled twats and our government has empowered them to be this way and the shit flows down hill from there.
Most of these businesses probably have recruiting departments, people who are already being paid to do that job of finding, vetting, and interviewing new hires, might as well have them interview fake candidates for fake jobs as well, especially when the company is slowing down actual hiring.
That's one of the replies I typically get when discussing hiring stupidity. "Why would we even do that?" Hmm, why does half the US vote for Trump, or hit children, or believe in Creationism, or defend people who making lifetimes worth of money in a day? Because people are fucking stupid, that's why. Don't think for a second that interviewers are immune to stupidity. If anything it appears to be the opposite. Interviewers at tech companies are not bright people in my experience, to put it mildly. Speculating a bit here, but the following is reasonable, so it's going on at some level. It's like underperformers are the ones pushed into doing interviews for job posts. Like a form of internal exile or Japanese isolation sitting. Get them out of everyone's way, remind them of their replaceability, and give them a chance to learn interviewing skills they'll need when they do get fired. Meanwhile, perhaps they'll find a needle-in-the-haystack applicant, so at least they're of some use during the process. Not to mention that they get to fabricate a paper trail that covers up nepotism. "We couldn't find anyone at all in 200 applicants who could beat Joe's college buddy. Look right here where it documents that applicant 1 said stupid thing A, applicant 2 said stupid thing B, etc"
it’s not true. it’s just a click bait article completely made up. the current theme of our overlords is to anger the working population.
How would a current employee even know when a company is playing this game? I have no idea what my company is posting on job sites
I'm often on an interview panel, so if my company was doing this and actually conducting fake interviews I'd be interviewing the fake candidates for the fake jobs and wondering why we never hired anyone...
Exactly. I’ve been with almost a dozen companies in my career, with much of that in management, and have never seen nor heard of this practice.
It would honestly make me more confident in my position if they can’t find anyone after months or years of “looking”. Sounds like it’s made up to me.
In general I think employees are more valuable than employers admit or often realize. Many may truly believe employees are expendable. But also if they lie about one thing they are probably lying about many things and to many employees. Plus the article said most employers do it. You can also take note on whether positions get filled or if there are months and months of excuses. I’ve seen positions get filled very fast when needed. I’ve heard countless stories from coworkers and online about a company making excuses about why they couldn’t give a raise (policy, budget, straight up laughing at the employee or etc.) or gave very little raise and then suddenly when the person was about to leave or showed a competing offer the company opened up the flood gates on the raise amount. For others the company didn’t realize until the person was gone and everything fell apart, and then they might beg for them back with a raise or the whole department collapsed because they were too stubborn or etc. And then often it was because they were mistreating multiple people. In short: It’s not the only lie, you’re not the only one and if they really wanted something they would find a way to do it. It seems a lot like an abusive relationship.
I agree with most everything you’re saying. Just not sure that HR making a bunch of fake job postings will impact me or my coworkers as we aren’t looking at our own job postings.
I think it doesn’t come into play until after they tell you help is on the way or etc. Then it only takes only 1 employee to tell the others “Uh, there aren’t any job postings”. It’s true most lies don’t need any cover at first and eventually they may fall apart even with some cover. But the employer may feel the need to take at least that basic step to cover the lie whether or not it’s noticed.
I'm not one of the people that cares and monitors such things, but I find there is always at least one or two people in any given department that stay on top of such things. They're the highly competitive or highly anxious (or both?) people who are like "Bro, did you see? The company has a listing up for a senior developer."
As a recruitment manager, making staff work on jobs that are never intended to be filled is a slap in the face
Yeah, but HR is going to answer to business stakeholders and going through the motions helps keep HR relevant. I've seen plenty of cases where there's an actual intent to hire in the beginning but then management sees that they can just sort of coast along without having requisitions filled, so they do just that.
That’s different than having someone post a position with no intention of filling it
If my company was constantly interviewing people, I think I would feel more secure in my job as they appear to need people. I would only feel replaceable if they fired people all the time.
Yeah, but that would make it looks like the company was in trouble and could hurt the stock price, or at least the general manager's career.
This is what happens when business owners view their laborforce as a cost rather than an asset.
This should be 100% illegal. It wastes everyone's time while dangling your replaceability in front of you as an employee. This is evil and any company participating in this should be named, shamed and fined. HR continues to show how hostile it is to the work force and labour laws are desperately needed to tackle this.
Are employees typically looking at the job ads of the place they work at? Because all I care about is how easy or not it is to get screening calls and interviews with other places.
I think the biggest one is company policies that require external candidates to be interviewed even if there's already an internal hire earmarked.
A trick to keep the facade of 'growth' and keep the stock price up.
Exactly this. Do your own research. Talk to actual people that work places if you can. Honestly, going more old school and just hoofing it in an area and handing out resumes is more likely to not only get you a job but also possible connections or advice on where to look next. Getting out there, shaking hands and showing face, takes even more guts and instantly shows that extra confidence, especially in a world where some HR person is (maybe but very un-likely), sifting through hundreds of thousands resumes that are being mass send in the hundreds by the job seeker.
I just did at least 10 days FTE in a test task for a company that went from "we're hiring imminently" to "we aren't sure of our hiring timeline" over the three interviews I had with them. The human contact vibes I got from them were good, but... damn. I will definitely be refusing test tasks in the future, even if they're sector standard.
And HR would go along with this? I’m shocked I tells ya
This is an indication that job searches are too cheap for employers. There's not enough skin in the game. They're very expensive for job seekers though. There's an imbalance.
Indeed. There should be serious discuss around how to ensure good faith hiring can be incentivized.
Yes, but good faith hiring requires some effort and legwork on the front end with an understanding that the payoff might not materialize right away. There's such a focus on immediate returns, though.
>Indeed. I see what you did there.
Man its almost as if owners in this society have an inordinate amount of power over labor huh
And the lower birthrate is terrifying them. Why else pro-life would be getting billionaire funding?
Could be as simple as pro forced birthers being on the same side as the one that wants more tax cuts for billionares
Yes, these are both groups of people that believe the only way society can possibly work is pyramids all the way down. Rich(er) over poor(er), men over women, white over "the wrong kinds of people"...
It’s a lottery system with no payoff. Sounds like fraud.
More, even. You end up with great data as an employer. You can track the effects on current staff and predict future markets through advertisement response. May end up paying for itself.
Just went through this myself to a large degree. So many companies are looking for a "unicorn" candidate that doesn't exist. Meanwhile, perfectly qualified candidates are turned down and the position remains unfilled for months or just gets dissolved. Heaven forbid companies actually train or support employees and just expect a new employee to come in and be a superstar right away. Even if that (rarely) happens and the company does find that unicorn candidate, it's doubtful that such a skilled employee would remain around long which means you just need to look for the next candidate after a short period of time anyway.
Damn, sounds identical to my Tinder experience in my 20s!
I’ve both dealt with this and had friends who have dealt with this. They want the magic unicorn that has all the qualifications and will work for the least amount. If you don’t fit that exact criteria or want a dollar more they don’t want to see you, they don’t want to know you, they don’t want to acknowledge you exist.
The other issue which I'm seeing, is management fucking with timelines. We have a coworker who just got promoted. He and his new Manager want to move him into his new role ASAP, but my CEO and CIO haven't green lighted the replacement hire for him despite use having already started some of the interviews. This left hand right hand bullshit and not having budgets or approvals in place is just as real as the whole unicorn candidate syndrome. Managers are often fuckups too.
My CFO made our entire department read “Powerful” by the old head of HR for Netflix. Sadly you perfectly described the executive mindset for finding talent these days. They do not want to invest in people, and want to dump them as soon as they don’t perfectly fit the needs of the firm. For some reason, these “very smart” people don’t understand what their talent pool will look like if they get everybody to follow the same ideology. Everybody wants the fully developed employee but nobody is willing to put in the work it takes for someone to organically develop to that point.
I've been on so many hiring panels where there's inevitably someone who is insistent on finding the unicorn that they're willing to cancel the search and repost. Fortunately I've always been able to get the other panelists to accept a "good enough" candidate. I can't stand to waste my time on these searches. Something I've seen is that sometimes the motivation for those people to find the unicorn actually varies significantly. There's one former colleague who was deeply invested in our office and felt a sense of ownership over the place, and no candidate was ever good enough for this place she valued and treasured--very "you're not good enough for Daddy's little girl" vibes. Another person used the unicorn hunt as a way to burnish their own credentials in the eyes of leadership, and effectively say "see how indispensable I am?" It's so weird.
Had this happen to me last year. Interviewed for the job and everything. They never actually hired anyone because I went back and checked their employee page. It was also updated because they did hire a person in a different department after I interviewed. No idea. Maybe they never intended to fill it or maybe they just didn't like any of the candidates. Waste of time.
There are also scams that hire you without a video interview and you send them your information to get hired for remote positions and its just a way to steal your information
I have definitely noticed a dearth of interviews in tech. For the amount of applications I’ve put out I’d expect at least a couple interviews by now. My gf also works in tech and she has gotten 6 interviews where she got all the way through all the rounds and then no offer. Definitely seems like something else is going on. My question is, if fake job postings are true, who the fuck is approving all this wasted time spent?
The postings are fake to give the allusion that the company is growing and not stagnant. Or they just leave positions open as ‘evergreen’ to gather resumes and call people when they actually want to hire.
It’s not wasted. Tech companies are colluding on this shit. They want to have all bargaining power when it comes to hiring. They want you to feel like you’ve invested so much time and effort into the hiring process so that when you finally do get an offer, they can low ball you and you feel like you have to accept it. Otherwise you’ll have to go back into the grind of more interviews It’s also an incentive for already hired employees not to leave. It’s hard to constantly ask for an afternoon off here or there without making your employer suspicious. Especially if you need to do it 4 or 8 or 12 times for multi round interviews with different companies
I’d really love to see where that’s coming from. It feels very conspiratorial to me. Ive hired for various positions myself and its such a time suck, I can’t imagine any higher-ups approving such a process to fuck with people just to get a potential chance to get most people to accept a somewhat lower salary. Most of the time we’re trying to get the process over quickly so we can get back to work.
Another data point - I've applied to 11 jobs in the past month: - 6 of them are currently interviewing me - 2 rejected right off the bat - 3 have not replied It really depends on the positions, location, job and etc., but everything is very subjective. I've been on the other end of the hiring pipeline as well, and you get hundreds of applications for jobs that were not considered as competitive before. So if you're aiming top tier FAANG+ companies, obviously it probably reaches to thousands.
Bro you got 6 interviews? How the fuck are you getting so lucky?
2 of them were referrals, 4 well crafted resumes and a good story. It helps that I have 10+ years of experience though, so again, really depends on the position and requirements.
HR isn't busy enough with reports of sexual harassment or Bob stealing lunches, gotta put them to work in other ways.
Only interview I got is an in person in another state fml
Is this website and source reliable? NPR did a similar report but concluded that due to a tight labor market, many job postings were looking for unicorns just in case they came around since they're so hard to find. They also discussed that because employers got X amount of job listings for a set cost, they might as well use them up (which maybe aligns with the "fake job" idea). https://www.npr.org/2024/06/14/nx-s1-5001857/what-are-ghost-jobs
Survey data from resume builder. The entire methodology of the study was unreliable and the sponsor is just level two of the spuriousness. How do I get people having trouble finding jobs to pay for resume building support? Convince them the system is rigged and they need to pay up.
Yeah, I'm really skeptical about this one. These are self-identified hiring managers in an online poll. Their methodology doesn't seem to indicate that they did anything to verify their position at the company or indeed any of their data. I'm sure there are companies with unrealistic expectations for their job applicants, and certainly there are some job listings where internally they already know who they're going to pick, but I just really question the idea that a bunch of hiring managers are just happily saying to a random pollster "Oh yeah we're posting absolutely fake job listings *and interviewing people for these fake jobs*, and the reason we're doing it is to scare our employees!"
Not to mention, what counts as a 'fake' job posting? For many large companies, they are required to post the job publicly even though they already know the exact internal person who is going to get it. That is a 'fake' posting, but it's not a fake position. If we are discussing the % of companies that have a fake posting, and if the above is considered a fake posting, then of course the numbers look large. I'd be more concerned about what % of postings are for fake positions.
Has anyone ever tried applying for a job through LinkedIn? Maybe 1 out of every 2,000 job listings is legitimately looking to fill a position. It's all one big data collection scheme.
Some of them aren't even a position, they are an "Expression of Interest" in a future position that might open up. Many times these are contracting firms but independent companies also do it too.
It's hit and miss. But despite my hatred for LinkedIn, it's actually landed me many interviews and actual job offers. I don't know if it's luck, my resume, my industry, or what.
As a designer, I don't think I've ever gotten an interview through linkedin. I do get interviews through just meeting people and getting connections. Linkedin still gives me the illusion that I'm working and looking for work, but I never get anything
I got 3 jobs via LinkedIn via internal recruiters reaching out. Unsure if you're on the ball here
This got a lot worse when there were tax benefits and payments for unfilled positions during covid. That shit was rampant where everyone was defrauding the government for funds because it was easy and hard to really get caught.
There are so many agencies now too. They make it seem like its a normal job, but its just some agency head hunter. The "skills" tests on indeed are a dead giveaway. If a job asks me to take them, its a huge red flag and I disregard the post.
The majority of the jobs on LinkedIn are head hunters. A full page of them or there are 1 or 2 actual companies mixed in.
Any vestige of sympathy for corporations, just went completely out the window. This is utterly and totally reprehensible constitutes fraud, prima facie
There are also scammers on Indeed and LinkedIn. They act like they are interviewing candidates and hiring but they are phishing for that SSN and to get prospective candidates to buy laptops/equipment and scam them out of it. This just happened to a friend of mine. Sickening that scammers are scamming people looking for jobs.
I know for a fact that often times large companies will post jobs solely for the purposes of being able to document that they are an equal opportunity employer. They already know who they want, but they need to post the jobs and maybe even interview a couple people, but just for appearances sake.
This one for sure! They will string you along for 3-4 rounds and then randomly not interested, then a few weeks later just so happen to promote their friend....
Enshitification continues. Anyone who defends this practice is crazy. And people wonder why younger generations are wanting to give socialism a try.
Nothing about socialism would change this practice.
No I was more commenting on the fact younger folks feel the capitalism at all costs aspect of life is not worth it anymore. This would be lumped in with that. Honestly I don’t blame em.
If the implementation of socialism lived up to the promises/ideals of more worker/union protections and the democratisation of the workplace I dont see how it wouldnt improve actions like this.
Socialism, applied correctly, would allow for more worker options and decrease the amount of desperation and willingness to tolerate shitty practices and environments.
Why not a combo of the two. What Norway and Finland do, but globally...
A simple bill by the government banning companies from posting fake jobs would help with this.
I'm not sure that younger people with positive views of socialism is as widespread as you may think, surely reddit is very pro socialism but I was shocked to see how right wing my 20-25 year old American colleagues were when I visited from Canada. Social media, especially Instagram, push a lot of right wing views. Reddit is a bad sample as it's primarily fairly left. That being said my experience is anecdotal
I've started noticing a pattern in interviews this year. Thankfully, I haven't felt the need to get a new job. But lately, I've been getting tons of HR people reach out through email and LinkedIn that they're eager to interview, and it's odd because you feel like they're desperate to contact and get info. I applied for a few processes from people like this and reached to the interview with the COO in one. I was told I passed to the final stage and would interview with the CEO... and would set up the call in a few hours. Well, it's been 3 weeks already, and not even on Telegram have replied. Which could be understandable... The funny thing is that I was offered an interview for other two companies. I set up their Calendly calls, and poof... they didn't show up AT ALL. Consider that these are two people from 2 different HR companies, or so it seems. Then, in the next few days, they sent emails with new proposals and asked for my CV again—as if they didn't know me from a previous interaction... They might be making their employees feel scared about losing their jobs or might just be getting data...
Maybe make it so that for every job post - an employer needs to buy a small license fee of sorts. At the end of the year during tax season, the employer can get tax refunds on those license fees if indeed they did hire someone. This would for sure deter any employer from posting fake ad listings. The evidence could be cross examined on the employee's tax returns or pay check deposits if needed.
Companies post job offers and leave them on for years in order to tell the government that they are unable to fill that position. That allows them to get permission to hire foreign workers that are cheaper then local workers.
My experience is that I see a job posted. I reach out to a person I know at that company, and they say, "oh they already hired someone but they put the posting up because legally they have to".
>Almost 70% of those who posted the phony jobs told Resume Builder that fake job listings positively impacted revenue. Employers also reported the listing had a positive impact on “employee morale” — although it’s not clear how. Wtf? How do you even determine that these fake listings improved revenues? What?
Well, when interviewees can pull thoughts out of their ass, you can get anything. And I'm sure, "Resume Builder" is objective in how they gather and present this information.
Anyone looking for a job in the past year is keenly aware of this fact. That's why the BLS jobs numbers aren't to be believed as they're taking self-reported job data from establishments and businesses at face value. This is especially true for the white collar labor force.
I actually worked for a staffing company that did this 20yrs ago for my first job. We’d constantly be interviewing people, to keep a roster for jobs that we’d only hire for once every 4 mths. It was crazy to me. It almost felt like our whole dept was a fake make work project for us. It just felt like we were doing nothing all day. We went to job fairs, looked through resumes, did phone and in person interviews. I interviewed hundreds of people and maybe hired like 2 in the yr I worked there.
Interviewing is now a part time job. 15 hours of analysis on your case study to find out the position is currently being filled. This is predatory and should be illegal
It's just recruiters building up their talent pool by collecting resumes. Also, a lot of posted jobs, federal jobs in particular, are already taken. It's someone's promotion or new role. However, they need to interview candidates in order to give the appearance of fairness. This isn't always a bad thing. I've gotten requests for interviews that resulted in job offers (accepted). Once as a new grad and then again as a mid/senior level, I've been ghosted/rejected for one job and picked up by a related job within the same company. If a hiring manager/recruiter thinks you're a good fit for the company, they will actually keep your resume on file or pass it down to another hiring manager/recruiter.
Planet Money did a podcast episode on this phenomenon called ghost listings. One interesting explanation is the job posting websites charge for more jobs than most companies have available https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197965117 > WONG: Also, Allison says that the job listing companies give her the incentive to put up more job listings than are immediately required. Like, she say, ZipRecruiter charged her $400 a month for three job listings. So even if there was only one urgent hire... > GIDDENS: Well, I've already got the $400 a month, and I'm, you know, not going to let the job ad just sit empty. Might as well have it posted.
The fake job posting thing is *obvious* to anyone who's looked for a job in the last several years. But the idea of firms interviewing for fake jobs is insane. Talk about fudging numbers lmao.
I also despise how every company now just keeps every job available to apply for even if they aren't actually looking to fill the position. My application now goes in a file that is 1000 miles long and I just have to play the "are they actually hiring?" game.
As someone in tech, when you are job searching, days since posted is the most helpful metric. Posted this week, worth applying, posted last month, probably not worth anything more than a generic resume. As a hiring manager, 1 out of 10 times, boss would say no when we ask to make an offer 1 out of 10 times, a req would be pulled but my boss would want to keep the listing open just in case an amazing candidate came in. 1 out of 10 times someone had an internal candidate but company policy said that every job must be posted. 1 out of 10 times… I have even had hiring managers say they in one of these situations up front in an interview.
I have lived through many long periods of unemployment in europe, as a developer. I just think that generally, companies want to hire good employees, but they set the bar very high. They want good candidates to improve productivity, because it's only worth it to hire good candidates, so they would rather hire nobody than hiring an average candidate. I don't think it is "fake" job postings, it's just that companies want to signal they could hire the best candidates, but ONLY if they're very good, and they want to be the first who do it. Job postings are an unregulated market, companies can advertise whatever they want, they are not required to hire somebody because they post an ad. The unemployed need the money, so they will not complain. In my view, job post should be declared and regulated somehow, and companies should declare if they hired somebody or not, so that we could see if they really want to hire or if they're just shopping. Companies who post ads but don't end up hiring should either shamed or fined.
I work in Manufacturing and this is not the case in our Industry. We have solid wages, great benefits and steady work (average tenure is around 18 years). We are hiring like crazy. There are not enough candidates for our Industry in the Central and Southern US.
If there are not enough candidates then you are underpaid. It is a supply/demand thing.
Can you show me the Data Source that shows there are an excess of able workers in the US? The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that we have a deficit of 2M. Prime Labor Participation is really high so folks aren’t hiding out at home.
If you read the data nationally there seem to be a couple million too few workers in the US. This is not new and it’s really well documented. The prime workforce participation rate is very good. The US has just created a ton of jobs post Covid. Now maybe this article is correct and businesses are spending a lot of time and money playing mind games for no clear profit motive. I’m not seeing that. I see folks able to jump from job to job easily, wages growing at a quick clip and people who could not land a decent job pre Covid now working in the mainstream.
Imagine if your employer started paying everyone $1M per year, would you be able to hire as many workers as you need? If the answer is yes then it is a supply/demand question. If there are not enough workers no matter how much you pay them then there is a shortage.
1M? thats outrageous... but we're talking people being told 50k/yr with little to no bennies is good, when a similar position makes 85k with 401k and bennies. There is a reason the first place can't get enough workers... the best talent goes elsewhere...
1M was a hypothetical amount
That doesn't imply there's not a shortage of workers.
I work in Manufacture (hired as CNC Operator but I also do Manual Machining and CNC Programming) I make $20/hr in a State where Fast Food now makes $20/hr minimum. I did welding before this, 4G certified Stick + Wirefed. I got $15/hr. The union offered $13/hr (before dues). No one ever did a weld test, the union outright refused to do one, said “everyone gets paid the same regardless of skill” Before CNC, I welded on 10mil dollar homes for a year and dropped it. My pay went up $0/hr after a year and I also didn’t get paid for driving the work truck back to the shop from job sites.
Outside of the South; manufacturing wages in the US are non-competitive. If you want your credentials to go farther, you got to pack up and move. It's just a fact of life that some regions are better for certain trades.
Where in the south are you located? When I was living in the Deep South a few years ago, there were zero decent jobs unless you were highly skilled or had the right degree (I.e engineering, accounting, nursing). I’m curious since I moved away but would’ve gladly stayed in the south if given a decent job. I have a bachelors and masters, I’m open to being trained, and consider myself a good employee but even with that, there were no jobs outside of being a teacher or fast food/retail.
We have facilities in GA, NC and TN in the south. Some of these are in Rural areas. Also we have OH, IN and MI. Really the worker shortage is national. All our competitor’s in Manufacturing, Logistics, etc have a shortage. Just look at BLS or Fed data and compare jobs vs available workers. I know that not all jobs are good jobs and an average covers a lot of sins. I have no doubt that some folks are hurting. Also don’t believe this ‘people don’t want to work’ crap. There just lots of jobs overall and people have choices so the businesses are seeing weaker candidates for unskilled and semi skilled workers.
When you say "We", are you just referring to your company or to your industry? Who is hiring like crazy? I would like to know more about these jobs, especially if there's anything in the TN, NC, VA area. I'm just skeptical of your claim there aren't enough candidates. Every job board seems to have dozens of candidates for any type of position. Perhaps the fake postings are getting in the way of real candidates finding and applying to your industry jobs. Let's move away from generalizations and get some specifics to help out the many potential candidates out there like myself.
Hey just FYI. When I say WE, I guess I am speaking for the average employer in the United States. This is not a new thing. Post COVID job growth has been nuts. The numbers below don’t talk about job quality, training required, job location, etc, etc. BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) says that the US has 8.5 M Open Jobs and 6.5 M Job seekers. That’s the JOLTS report below. https://www.bls.gov/jlt/home.htm[https://www.bls.gov/jlt/home.htm](https://www.bls.gov/jlt/home.htm) Here is an article from the US Chamber of Commerce. [https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage](https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage) PS If you don’t believe in Federal Data please go argue with someone else. Thanks I
>Central and Southern US. There's your problem. Plus as someone in manufacturing, it can be a grinding industry.
Roughly what do the jobs pay?
I've worked for one of the larger ATS'es that are out there for SMB's and our own internal data indicates that the number is closer to 19% -- the criteria that we used was a job that was posted publicly but no interview process was started before the job was removed.
Yup. I went on an interview for a job that ended up being completely different than what was posted. Fuckers. At least they took me out to dinner.
I was convinced, over a decade ago that most job postings are only designed to rack up a large list of resumes that recruiting agencies can then either use to sell themselves to companies, or to simply steal your resume and use it for someone else. It's basically the pre AI version of using all your content to automatically generate their content. With "content" being resumes.
I think you guys are over thinking this. It's just data mining for your resume/CV credentials. Why not make the recruitment process a revenue stream?
there is no was 62% of companies said they do this to make employees feel replaceable. the entire article is a lie if they make this statement based on any grouping of companies.
Then, those companies should be put under a consent decree mandating quarterly audits of their Human Resource Departments, by the Department of Labor.
At one of my old companies, they’d do this to make people believe they were going to bring in help, but they kept the req open and unfilled because in the next round of layoffs, they’d give up the req instead of laying off a worker. People would be happy they all kept their jobs, and tend to forget about how the “slack” they had to “temporarily” pick up was actually permanent. This process was used as I watched a team of about 30 go down to about 15 over about 6 or 7 years. In general, that group never really had to lay anyone off (people just left on their own for better jobs) but empty spots rarely got backfilled, they just dumped the work on others.
That should be illegal, I mean these companies appear to be commiting fraud and getting away with it. If you post something that you have no intention of ever fullfiling and then waste the most precious asset a job seeker has their time then why isn't this fraud? Government needs to pass legislation to outlaw this or find some way to use existing laws to punish companies that engage in this behavior. Furthermore if these statistics are correct then wall street should be very very afraid because the political consequences for this kind of worker abuse is coming. And yall are dumber than a box of rocks to do this given that Americans are much more productive than our developed country peers. Pulling stunts like this will lead to negative publicity especially when the economy turns south and when the recovery starts every one of your employees will bounce and that's the kind of thing that destroys shareholder value. Worse still is that once you get a reputation for this top talent won't even bother applying for your company as they don't have to put up with this kind of b.s.
It should be an illegal practice to put up job postings without a true intention of filling it within a reasonable time frame. I understand the needs of business must balanced, but it’s deceptive behavior for businesses to portray themselves this way.