Fake Job Listings Are Proliferating | Hacker News Reader

Fake Job Listings Are Proliferating

wsj.com

28 pointslxm28 comments

It should be illegal.

Fake job postings are used to harvest data, to give fake signals like the company is growing.

One is a privacy problem, the other one is fraud.

If you get a response saying the position was filled, you should be able to request for the job posting to be removed, or they should do it within a reasonable period of time.

If the position remains open after they tell you it is closed just apply again.

It does seem like the SEC should be involved at least for public companies.

I have been an investor for the last three decades and have NEVER heard anyone mention anything regarding companies health etc based on how many job openings they have (outside of some pitch like “XYZ is planning to hire XXX people for their ZZZ). can’t see why SEC would be involved here in any way. Maybe Dept of Labor but not sure what they could do

...some pitch like “XYZ is planning to hire XXX people for their ZZZ."

exactly.

We need more regulation of commercial speech. It should be unlawful with serious penalties to knowingly mislead people via commercial speech.

> In law, fraud is intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud

> Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, [...]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

I concur. We already have laws about commercial speech regarding false advertising laws in the US. I am not sure why a job listings cannot be beholden to similar laws, as well. Aren't companies, on some highly pedantic level, "advertising" that they have an open position when listing a job?

What people fail to understand is that fake job postings pollute the pool and make real hiring impossible. We’re back to a referrals only job market.

I was never able to get a job through applications on LinkedIn, Indeed, etc. Every job I got was through a referral, and the same is true for my friends who are also programmers.

I am so screwed then. I have been wishy-washy about going on the hunt again. However, I have absolutely no network. Every dev I worked with that I have any way of contacting, which were not many to begin with, has completely left the field in pursuit of some other role.

Nothing new, just amplified by AI.

Companies inflate open roles to make themselves look more legit. A bonus is they can trawl for candidates and keep resumes in the back pocket. AI makes this easier so it can be done for less effort so more companies can do it.

If you want a real job that really exists, aim for intros to hiring managers.

Who are these people keeping resumes in their "back pocket". Has anyone ever been reached out about a job months or years later. Has anyone here ever just keep a resume just in case?

This actually happened to me once, with about 4 years between sending my cv and recruiter contact. I don't believe it's very common tho.

Was it effective? Did you take a chance on the role they were offering you?

It was Google in 22. I passed their interviews and hiring committee, but before getting an offer they started the hiring freeze and big purge. So yes and no I suppose.

My 'company' is actually a governmental agency, and they even had one or a few fake job postings. So, I completely understand companies using fake postings to artificially inflate themselves, but that would have not be relevant for us.

So, why did it happen then? Well, we have a handful of people on H1-B visas. Apparently, there is some requirement that employers are required to demonstrate that there are not any other capable applicants than the one they are sponsoring or something like that. So, my employer made the posts, collected all the resumes, and just stored them in one of my coworker's desk drawers.

I wonder how often other employers are doing this very same thing as well?

That’s why tools like Jobs Applier AI Agent are proliferating as well. Fight fire with fire, I guess?

We need a snappy word for everything in life becoming a shitty escalating cat and mouse game. I’m hearing the word enshittification a lot these days but unsure if it’s right here

No "enshittification" is a specific process where you use VC money to make something great and attract a lot of users then you open it up to third parties to make money together with your platform, gradually making it shittier for end users, then once you have killed off competition and have third parties locked in you start turning the screws on them making everything shitty for everyone while you shovel money into your accounts.

Slopification

It isn't quite snappy or trendy but "vicious cycle" describes it well, but not completely.

It's generally called an arms race. When SUVs came along and now everybody has a big car because everybody else has a big car that's an arms race.

You can call it a butter battle if you’d like

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book

What if any are good ways to check if a job listing is fake?

https://archive.ph/hMVPg

Fake jobs, fake candidates, fake/useless work, and fake/inflationary money! All for what? It'll all go to zero. Meanwhile, if you want to get a job, a good recruiter still works, although there are many fake recruiters too.

it's been happening for decades, data aggregation, understanding the market, stealing personal data, stealing applicant ideas, you name it, the job application is a great rip off tool

https://archive.is/7lemP

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