as a small rant, I am getting tired of the whiplash between "it's harder than ever to find a job" and "the economy has recovered and unemployement is record lows". This is normally easily explainable but these seem to both be bipartisan points from my browsing on the topic. So I am simply perplexed. -------
On topic: Ghost jobs are such a weird concept in this day and age. As we see here, it is extremely easy to get hundreds, thousands of resumes within days of a job posting, so why pretend to keep resumes on record to call people on later? The latest I've been contacted about such a role was some 5 months later, and that was due to a referral randomly pinging the company for a tangential job. Otherwise, anything that hasn't responded within a month may as well be cast to the void.
The most common lip service seems to be what you expect:
>Half the respondents reported they keep job listings open indefinitely because they "always open to new people". More than one in three respondents said they kept the listings active to build a pool of applicants in case of turnover – not because a role needs to be filled in a timely manner.
Exactly my point. But maybe it's just me. Has anyone ever had a >1 month response from a company that has experienced turnover?
> More than 40% of hiring managers said they list jobs they aren't actively trying to fill to give the impression that the company is growing. A similar share said the job listings are made to motivate employees, while 34% said the jobs are posted to placate overworked staff who may be hoping for additional help to be brought on.
Well, these seem to be the more brutally honest answers. Fraud is probably too strong a word, but this does feel like exploitive behavior that should be reigned in.