A new survey found that almost 40% of companies posted a fake job listing this year — and 85% of those companies interviewed candidates for fake jobs

Companies said they are posting fake jobs for a laundry list of reasons, including to deceive their own employees.

More than 60% of those surveyed said they posted fake jobs “to make employees believe their workload would be alleviated by new workers.”

Sixty-two percent of companies said another reason for the shady practice is to “have employees feel replaceable.”

Two-thirds of companies cited a desire to “appear the company is open to external talent” and 59% said it was an effort to “collect resumes and keep them on file for a later date.”

What’s even more concerning about the results: 85% of companies engaging in the practice said they interviewed candidates for the fake jobs.

  • FlavoredButtHair
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    235 months ago

    Is that why I’m having trouble finding a WFH job on Indeed? It’s so exhausting to not hear back from these companies.

    • @JayleneSlide
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      35 months ago

      It’s sofa king exhausting. Craft a cover letter and tweak the resume for each application. And still get crickets.

      For the entirety of my engineering career (25+ years), I’ve been accustomed to getting an offer for every position to which I applied. This time around, something is way off. I’m at 78 applications, despite being a perfect fit for almost all of those applications. There have been only two responses, and those were for interviews, still in progress. The fake listings makes a lot sense, but I can’t help but feel that the problem is way larger than this article indicates.

      • FlavoredButtHair
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        35 months ago

        Whether the cover letter or resume sucks, it’d just be nice if companies can just give you a chance.