What Are Ghost Jobs? All You Need To Know About The New Hiring Trend

At a time when economic slowdown and recession fears are leading to hiring freeze and layoffs all around the world, a rising trend of ghost jobs has been gaining significant attention. This ¡®cool¡¯ trend is being adopted by many companies, and a social media user recently shared to highlight about the same. But first, what exactly are ghost jobs? Well, ghost jobs are jobs that are ¡°open¡± on the company website but don't actually exist.

So basically, ghost jobs are the vacancies that a company advertises but has no intention of filling. The reason for this may vary among different companies.

Social Media Post That Warned About Ghost Jobs

Ghost Jobs/nesc

Recently, a user named Maureen W Clough shared a note on Thread, where she revealed that the HR personnel of her company asked her to continue interviewing candidates for a ghost job.

Sharing details, she wrote, ¡°There's a new super cool trend in tech: ghost jobs... I was a hiring manager with a new position to fill. As I went through the process with candidates, a buddy said, 'Hey, do you know there's a hiring freeze?' I went to HR, who confirmed¡­ then told me to keep going with interviews since the req ¡°might¡± be reopened. NOPE. I refused to waste candidates' time & my own.¡±

ghost job trend/threads

Why Do Companies Post Ghost Jobs?

A possible explanation for posting ghost jobs is that a company may be unable to budget for hiring new employees during that specific period, while another reason could be that the job posting was done only to assess the talent pool available in the market.

One more possibility is that these ¡°open jobs¡± had been posted earlier for an upcoming position, which at present is not available or may not even exist in near future at all. Its also common for companies that freeze the hiring process to have job postings listed, which end up making them ghost jobs.

Also Read: 94% Indian Companies Planning To Reskill Employees To Avoid Layoffs

What A Harvard Study Indicates About Ghost Jobs

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According to a Harvard Business School study, there may have been more ghost jobs as a result of the pandemic's rise in employee resignations and associated economic uncertainty. The study also mentioned that it might be because businesses are hiring new employees because they are unsure of the future, as per various media reports. It's important to note that some fictitious job postings only offer a lengthy list of benefits in place of a job description in an attempt to entice applicants.

Also Read: 10 Bizarre But Real Jobs That Exist In The World

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