A new problem has emerged in the job market troubling job seekers where companies post jobs even though they have no intention of hiring, often called “ghost jobs”.
A Fullerton resident, Chung sent out his resume to more than 300 companies in the six months after he was laid off last year, but only less than 10 companies got back to him.
Chung said, “I thought it was a bit odd because some of them I was looking for required fewer years of experience and a lower salary, but I didn’t hear back from them. In some cases, they stopped contacting me while I was trying to schedule an interview, which made me wonder if they were actually looking to hire someone.”
Park, a resident of Irvine, noticed something strange when he was looking for a new job. Less than 24 hours after posting the job, it said the company was no longer accepting applications. “I felt like I wasted my time polishing my resume for that job,” Park said.
According to a survey of 649 companies by Resume Builder, as many as 30% of them were posting fake jobs as of May, and a total of 39% of recruiters said they had posted fake jobs this year, meaning more than one-third of all companies have posted or are still posting fake jobs.
The reasons for posting fake jobs varied. The most common (67%) was to appear open to external talent, while 66% said it was to create an impression that the company is growing. Signaling employees that the hire will alleviate workload (63%) and making employees feel that they could be replaced (62%) also ranked high, indicating that “internal enforcement” is a motive for fake job postings.
“We post a lot of jobs even when we’re not sure if we’re going to hire someone from outside,” a recruiter at a global corporation who asked not to be identified told the Korea Daily, explaining that it’s to ”broaden the talent pool.”
“In some cases, malicious behavior has been a problem, such as interviewing a rival company’s employees to steal insider information or steal their portfolios and ideas,” he said, warning that fake job postings can lead to bigger problems.
The number of fake job postings varies from company to company. Twenty-six percent of companies said they had three or fewer fake job postings last year, followed by four to five (19%), six to 10 (19%), and 11 to 25 (10%). Thirteen percent of companies even reported posting 75 or more fake jobs.
“Whether it is to create an illusion that the company is expanding or to foster a sense of replaceability among employees, such practices are unacceptable,” said Stacie Haller, Chief Career Advisor at Resume Builder. ”Employees deserve transparency about the companies they are dedicating their time to.”
BY WONHEE CHO, HOONSIK WOO [cho.wonhee@koreadaily.com]
