Job seekers spend hours filling out online applications, tailoring their resumes and crafting thoughtful cover letters — which is why it can feel so dejecting when they don’t hear back from employers.

While this lack of response may be a symptom of a competitive talent market, new data suggests some of those jobs never really existed in the first place.

As it turns out, these online ads — called ghost jobs — are mere apparitions of actual opportunities. And avoiding them is yet another challenge for job seekers navigating an already competitive job market.

What Are Ghost Jobs?

Ghost jobs are employment opportunities that don’t really exist. Companies might post these job listings to build a pipeline of future candidates, get a better sense of the talent market or signal growth to employees and stakeholders. Whatever the reason, the company does not have a genuine intention of hiring a candidate anytime soon.

Nearly 40 percent of the more than 1,600 hiring managers surveyed by ResumeBuilder said they posted a fake job listing in 2024. The idea to post these jobs primarily came from human resources teams, followed by senior management and investors.

Ghost jobs are not entirely new. Some companies have always posted roles meant for an internal candidate, and recruiters have long posted “evergreen roles” for general positions that might come available at a future date.

There is a new dynamic at play, though. According to workforce analytics firm Revelio Labs, a job posted in 2024 is half as likely to result in a hire than a job posted four years prior. The findings, which analyzed online job listings and professional profiles, found that less than four people were hired for every 10 job listings in 2024, which is down from eight hires per 10 postings in January 2020.

This amounts to a frustrating experience for job seekers, who often apply to dozens of jobs without receiving a response. To add to the frustration, 85 percent of the hiring managers that posted a ghost job went so far as to interview candidates, even though they had no intention of hiring them.

“I think it’s really disingenuous,” Jennifer Preston, senior HR and recruiting consultant at Flex HR, told Built In. “I think those companies will start getting a reputation in the market.”

Why Do Companies Post Ghost Jobs? 

Hiring managers surveyed by ResumeBuilder said they posted ghost jobs because they wanted external candidates to think they were hiring, to give the perception that the company is growing and to make employees think that extra help is on the way — or that they are replaceable. They also said they wanted to keep resumes of available applicants on file for a later date.

To Develop a Talent Pipeline 

Some companies keep certain job postings listed perpetually, even if they’re not actively hiring for that position. This allows them to build up a stack of applicants they can call on when they get the approval to hire for that position. This is a common practice during periods of economic uncertainty, when companies may be waiting to see whether market conditions justify the hiring of a new employee.

These types of evergreen job postings have been around for years, according to Katie Hostasa, a former recruiter-turned-career coach at KMH Leadership. “The reality is that, if you found a candidate who was excellent, you could usually find a place for them,” Hostasa told Built In. “If you think of it in terms of fishing, you have your net out and see what fish you get.”

Justin Marcus, cofounder and CEO at recruiting platform Big 4 Talent, said recruiters working with staffing firms may post these general job postings to develop a pipeline of applicants, which in turn allows them to pick up more open roles. “That’s a bit of a naughty practice,” Marcus told Built In, ”but I have seen it done at several other staffing agencies.”

To Catch Top Candidates

For specialized, hard-to-fill roles, companies might keep a job posting online to catch top candidates who might be interested. Simon calls this tactic “cream skimming,” because it allows the company to identify the most qualified candidates without conducting an active hiring process.

“There’s no urgency behind filling the position,” Lisa Simon, chief economist at Revelio Labs, told Built In. “But if someone excellent comes along, they might reconsider.”

To Evaluate Internal Candidates

Companies might also post a job opening when they already have an internal candidate in mind for the position. Employers in the public sector post these job openings to comply with fair hiring requirements, and some companies may have their own internal requirements to ensure candidates from diverse backgrounds are being considered.

Sometimes, though, a company will want to see how their internal candidate stacks up against a broader talent market.

“It allows the company to truly evaluate all of the talent — be it externally, internally or other sources,” Preston said.

To Show Company Growth

One of the more cynical explanations behind ghost jobs is that companies are trying to give others the impression that the company is growing, even though it may not be.

If overstretched employees believe help is on the way to help them with their excessive workload, they might feel more hopeful and less likely to search for a new job. When investors think a company is on an upward trajectory, they might invest in the company and boost its valuation.

To Motivate Employees to Work Harder

Even more disturbingly, 62 percent of hiring managers surveyed by ResumeBuilder said they posted ghost jobs to make their employees feel replaceable. If employees see the company hiring for their position, the thinking goes, they may work harder out of fear of losing their job.

By Accident

A number of online job boards pull data from company websites and other job boards, so they might not always be up-to-date. When a company fills a position, they may remove the listing from their own website and wherever they posted the job, but “it might take a while for that sync to actually happen [on other websites],” Marcus said. “So people think that it’s a new job, but it’s really a job that was posted on ZipRecruiter nine months ago.”

How to Avoid Ghost Jobs

If you’re looking for jobs that won’t vanish into thin air, here are a few steps you can take.

Cross-Reference the Company Website

If you come across a promising job opportunity on a job board, double check that the listing is also posted on that company’s website. This can help you determine if you’re looking at a ghost job that has been lingering around third-party websites long after the position has been filled.

Check When the Job Was Posted

If a job was posted more than a month ago, the company is probably interviewing candidates and may not be considering new applicants. If a job has been posted for two or three months, there’s a chance that the company has already hired someone or is not actively looking for candidates. In either case, it could be a ghost job.

Be Wary of Vague Job Descriptions

If a job posting is light on specifics, it could be an evergreen posting used to collect potential applicants for a wide variety of roles in the future. The job posting might advertise a general job title, like “sales” or “customer service” without giving any specific information about which department is hiring, the seniority level of the position or details about the job responsibilities.

Reach Out to the Recruiter

If a job listing looks fishy — or even if it doesn’t — you could always reach out to the recruiter and ask for more specific information about the position. If a confidential role is being advertised through a recruiter, you could ask for the name of the client (although they might not tell you), or at least the company’s industry, size and location. In the interview process, you could try to gauge the tangibility of the job by asking why the job is open, if it’s a new or existing role or what the hiring timeline looks like. 

Reaching out to recruiters and hiring managers is also a great way to stand out from the pack and demonstrate your interest in the opportunity.

Tap Into Your Professional Network

One surefire way to avoid ghost jobs — and the best way to find a job in general — is to reach out to people in your professional network, attend local networking events and arrange informational interviews with people who work in your desired role and industry. Someone from your network may be able to tell you about a role that might not be listed on job boards, and they might be able to introduce you to the hiring manager for the role.

This strategy will make you less reliant on job boards, where your application can get lost in the shuffle of hundreds of resumes for positions that may or may not be real.

“Job seekers should dig deep into their network, reaching out to anyone and everyone they know,” Preston said. “The name of the game is building connections.”

Why Companies Shouldn’t Post Ghost Jobs

Even though posting ghost jobs comes with potential upside, as a general rule, misleading job applicants can be terrible for a company’s reputation. Job seekers may stop applying to jobs with that company, and they may share their experience with their social network to spare them from a similar situation. 

“The question is how bad is the reputational damage to the company,” Simon said. “For now, they’ve been getting away with it.”

Simon said the ghost job trend seems to correlate with companies’ perceived lack of respect for job seekers’ time and energy, which is also evidenced by the rise of another ghoulish trend — “ghosting,” or not contacting, applicants after a job interview. Job seekers’ reports of ghosting doubled between 2018 and 2023, according to the Revlio Labs study.

“I think it all sort of comes down to a deterioration in etiquette, in terms of hiring,” Simon said. “There’s something going on where companies aren’t treating their potential future employees as well as they used to.”

Aside from being unethical and off-putting to job seekers, ghost jobs can also hurt the morale of a company’s existing employees — either because they were either made to feel replaceable or because they are exhausted from working on an understaffed team.