36% Of Job Adverts Are Fake—How To Spot Them In 2024

If you’re applying for jobs endlessly but with little success, the good news is, there’s a high chance that it’s not your fault at all.

The bad news is, the reason for this is completely out of your control—well, at least to some degree.

A recent survey of more than 700 recruiters in the U.S., conducted by MyPerfectResume, revealed that shockingly, 81% of recruiters post ghost job adverts. (A ghost job advert is one that is fake because the employer is either scoping for a talent pool and potential interest for the future, or the role is already filled but still shows an active hiring presence on the recruitment page and job boards.)When the weighting of these fake job adverts is calculated, it shows that approximately 36% of jobs posted online—more than a third—are actually not real vacancies.

Similarly, a June Resume Builder study uncovered findings that proved figures comparable to the MyPerfectResume study. Out of the 1,641 hiring managers surveyed, 40% of respondents admitted to posting fake job adverts this year, and three out of 10 say they currently have a ghost job advert active.

This disturbing trend is devastating to the mental health of those applying for jobs, who are desperately praying and hoping that the next job advert they respond to would be the one to become their dream job, only to have their hopes dashed.

It prompts the question: why do employers post fake, or “ghost” job adverts?

Why Employers Post “Ghost” Jobs

According to the same ResumeBuilder survey, “companies posted fake job listings to make it appear the company is open to external talent (67%), to act like the company is growing (66%), to make employees believe their workload would be alleviated by new workers (63%), to have employees feel replaceable (62%), and to collect resumes and keep them on file for a later date (59%).”

Some other reasons listed by the report include:

• 38% to maintain a presence on job boards even when not hiring
• 36% to assess the effectiveness of job descriptions
• 26% to build a talent pool for the future
• 26% to gain insights into the job market and competitors
• 25% to assess how difficult it would be to replace certain employees
• 23% to make the company look viable during a hiring freeze
• 20% to improve the reputation of the company
• 14% to improve the company’s online visibility
• 12% to collect resumes en masse

Now that you are aware of this alarming reality, you are most likely concerned that you are wasting your time and energy applying for more jobs, only to realize they aren’t real anyway.

Thankfully, there are some ways you can easily spot a fake, or ghost job advert, and prevent yourself from wasting your precious time and resources, dedicating them to real jobs instead. Here are some tips:

1. Don’t Apply For Old Jobs

When searching for your next role, narrow your filter on job boards to only include the last week in your results. This helps you to prioritize those listings that are fresh and not the ones that are outdated, have been around for months without seriously hiring, or were listed weeks ago but were already filled—and the recruiter forgot to take it down.

This makes even more sense when you consider the fact that according to ResumeBuilder, only 6% of companies keep ghost jobs active, on average, for less than one week. Most ghost jobs are active on platforms for a few weeks to months, with 28% of employers listing them for a couple of weeks, 31% for a month, and 19% for three months.

2. Watch Out For Vague Descriptions

A job advert that has a vague or generic description is a red flag, and you should avoid it at all costs. If it is not clear what your exact remit of responsibilities are, who you will be reporting to, salary, and other essential details, then the employer is most likely only seeking to collect resumes, or in the best case scenario, they are actually hiring but you may have miscommunication issues later in your working relationship with them.

You need to be especially careful when invited to a job interview. ResumeBuilder stated that of the companies who would contact applicants following a response to their ghost job listing, 85% always conducted an interview—unethically wasting the time of both parties.

Therefore, it is important to ensure there is transparency in the interview and that you ask detailed questions about the role, how it was created, future career progression prospects, and other questions related to the project for which they are hiring, including estimated timelines.

3. Check Company Hiring Reviews And Feedback

It’s always a good idea to look up the experiences of other employees and candidates who have interviewed at the same company, to see what their feedback is on their experiences. Platforms like Glassdoor and Indeed allow candidates and past and current employees to share their interview and application experiences transparently, and this gives you a clearer insight into what to expect should you decide to apply, from candidates who have been there and done it before you already.

Additionally, the company’s star rating on Glassdoor and Indeed should weigh heavily into your decision as to whether or not you will apply for the role. If the employer has less than four stars on Glassdoor, this is usually a big red flag, and it is worth checking if your suspicions are justifiable by researching why their rating by employees is so low.

4. Follow Up On Applications

Once you have applied for the job, you might want to follow up and make contact with a key decision-maker or recruiter for any specific questions you have regarding the role or the hiring process. This process can be conducted via email or over the phone. Watch out for indicators such as the quality of the response, how evasive the reply may appear to be, and if they even respond at all.

In some cases, it would be wiser to make contact regarding any questions you have, prior to applying, so you can have peace of mind. For example, you could ask them what led to the role becoming available (whether it is newly created or the person who last held the position left the company), and what their expected hiring timeline is.

5. Trust Your Gut

Last but not least, if something doesn’t seem right and smells fishy, it most likely is. It’s better to follow your gut feeling and listen to your intuition, than to waste hours of precious time in tailoring a bespoke cover letter, resume, and application, only to find out later that, for one reason or another, the job you were applying for didn’t really exist in the first place.

Ghost jobs suck. No one likes to know that they more than a third of the roles they have applied for throughout their job search were time-wasters due to lack of transparency on the employer’s part. But what matters now is that you take the reins in your hands and decide what you will do from here.

Are you going to pity yourself, or will you make a difference and decide to be wiser next time? Are you going into your job search blindfolded, hoping for the best, or are you going in with a strategy, armed with research and your intuition?