Comment by xrd
13 hours ago
Two reasons. One, they have already filled it internally but legally have to post the job. Two, they are gathering data on market trends and what salaries people will take, which is useful if they are considering firing people and rehiring with lower salaries.
I've applied for many jobs where I was perfectly qualified and got rejection notices immediately. I applied on a Sunday and got rejected on Sunday an hour later. No human reviewed that application I made, it was auto rejected, and if that's the case, what other explanation is there than "ghost jobs."
> and if that's the case, what other explanation is there than "ghost jobs."
You didn't pass some arbitrary ruleset given to an AI or machine learning algorithm.
Companies can be very selective now, and usually implement this selectivity fairly stupidly. There also is the problem of being genuinely swamped with bullshit applicants for positions, so the false positive rate is likely quite high at the moment.
I've found it extremely difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff right now. Finding competent people is more difficult than ever, but the sheer number of applicants is at least an order of magnitude higher. Botting has made applying to jobs exceedingly low friction, so there is very little downside to someone entirely not qualified to apply to 600 jobs a day and hope they get lucky.
We have positions that have been open for months that go unfilled simply due to lack of time to sort through applicants, and the few we do have time to interview usually are obviously unqualified within the first 5 minutes of talking to them.
I can't imagine applying to a job where I didn't already have some sort of personal connection. That was already true, and that's even more true now. Likewise, these days as a hiring manager I'd be unlikely to hire someone that came in via random application for the same reason
This is undeniably happening as well. Totally agree.
I just have had lots rejections, and some where I did have a good fit, that I don't think "AI auto rejection" is the only story. I have good credentials, several F500 experiences, no big career gaps.
The only real success I have had in the last few years is targeted emails (from who is hiring on HN) or through my network.
It's very different than at any other time and I believe it is a combination of a terrible market, AI rejections, and ghost jobs. And I'm sure there are more than a few ghost jobs.
If you don't have the time to sort them through, there's not much urgency to actually find someone, is there?
It also might point to a filtering mismatch of your get a high false positive rate.
Oh definitely. And our hiring practices are not exactly state of the art. I'll be the first to admit they need a giant amount of improvement.
Most of the good folks have come in via word of mouth and networks, as they typically do.
For those outstanding positions they are "very nice to haves" but obviously not critical. When the right candidate gets matched we'll jump on the opportunity, but it's not an existential problem for the moment.
> Two reasons. One, they have already filled it internally but legally have to post the job.
This scenario isn't a "fake job," which are more akin to ghost/scam/non-existent openings.