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Comment by mamonster | Hacker News Reader

In Switzerland it's very common that if a hedge fund / financial company wants to hire a specific person from abroad(so he would need a permit) then they post a job ad that basically uniquely identifies that person's skillset, post it on glassdoor or jobs.ch or other, and then either get no response or filter people who think this is an actual opening.

They then go to the immigration authority and say "Look, we cannot fill this position on the local market, we need to look abroad" and then miraculously just the right candidate shows up.

Not sure how frequent it is in other countries, but if you see a ridiculous/incoherent job ad from a smaller company, it might be for a job that's already filled.

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This also happens every time an organisation wants to promote someone but some rule or regulation forces them to advertise the role externally. Copy-pasting directly from the candidate’s CV into the job listing.

Many years ago, I saw in the Washington Post help-wanted section an advertisement for somebody with a master's degree and fluent in Chinese, for wages that were about secretarial level. Much later I understood that this was work-visa stuff--hey, we can't hire locally for our needs!

I had a position created for me once because basically someone (very) higher-up I knew wanted to hire me. I'm a little sorry I never looked for the job description that in retrospect I imagine was posted. I suspect it had some requirements or strongly preferred prereqs that very few people would have met.

That's super common in the US and not just for hedge funds, it's practically everywhere.

My public administration clients do exactly that with my profile: they want to hire me but must pretend they consider competition, so they publish my resume as a requirement.

> Not sure how frequent it is in other countries, but if you see a ridiculous/incoherent job ad from a smaller company, it might be for a job that's already filled.

That's a required step in the US for converting a worker from a temporary(ish) work visa (H1-B) to a permanent residency visa (green card). They have to prove they can't fill the position with an American.

Which is stupid and terrible system. By the time that step is reached, the immigrant employee has probably been settled in the US for 5+ years. It would be a giant injustice if anyone gets hired for those job postings, because that would fuck over the immigrant employee, so the candidates have no chance.

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