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Comment by alberth | Hacker News Reader

Just curious, why do you say that - given that many job board cost money to post on.

One of my friends almost got scammed by a fake job posting just yesterday. The job was for a real company with a real site and headquarters in the US, and the fake recruiter was impersonating the identity of a real recruiter on LinkedIn. They realized it was a scam when the "recruiter" told them that the job interview would be over Telegram. Often these fake jobs will string applicants along, then start asking them for money to pay for "onboarding fees".

Or they'll ask you to fill out an "application form" that includes your full name, date of birth, address, SSN, driver's license number, etc. Hmmm...

Many do, but not all. Also the cost to post a job is trivial compared to the cost of filling the role.

I don't know what the OP was thinking but it is very common for companies to say they are hiring when they don't have a specific position to fill at the time. First, because it is a sign of health, particularly if you want to position yourself as growing. Second, a lot of HR people want to have a pool of people to contact when a position opens.

> Second, a lot of HR people want to have a pool of people to contact when a position opens.

I wonder, is that even legal in California given the CCPA? If they're not actually actively hiring, what "business purpose" do they have for retaining that data?

I feel like anyone in California who gets a call back from HR thanks to this data mining should report the privacy violation.

The “marketing” aspect of a job posting is bad because it’s not genuine. And a large proportion of applicants are using automated tools which is adding to the problem. The people who are actually looking for a matching role and who actually write their application themselves are simply lost in the noise.

Sometimes it's the job board itself creating the fake ads to boost their own numbers. Indeed is pretty notorious for doing this.

The cost to post is trivial, especially if you don't fill the position. It's about looking prestigious and maintaining the impression that you're hiring.

Also seems necessary for all the H-1B fraud.

I never thought about this, but maybe it's way cheaper than other methods of personal data capturing.

Plus, the personal data on a resume is likely high-quality and accurate because the job seeker is incentivized to be contact-able. High value PII and it's just being handed over...

I was advised by a few recruiters to remove all PII from my resume but my email, both for privacy reasons and because it's better to funnel all offers to the same location. I still keep my phone number on there, but if someone really wants my data, it's remarkably easy to find, so I am not really doing much by just removing it from my resume. Oddly, I've had a few people actually try to find more PII on me and fail miserably. They claimed to be good at it, and should have known enough to find at least my legal name with ease. Used to be able to find old AIM conversations of mine if you knew what to search for (or got lucky).

Almost all the postings are fake and used for data collection.

Why would they spend their seed or series A cash on people who they have never worked with or they do not know?

For them it is easier for them to hire with in their own network in YC rather than gamble on candidates that they have never worked with before.

Companies post fake jobs to scare their existing employees, discourage them from asking for raises, etc.

They see ROI from the cost.

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