“With more than 300 applications and no interest, I don’t bother applying to these ‘Ghost jobs’ anymore,” said Will.
“It’s just a waste of time at this point,” says Will, whose real name is withheld.
Due to an undersupply of career opportunities, people with master’s degrees and MBAs from top schools are having a difficult time finding jobs.
According to Will, companies aren’t able with new entrants fast enough. This can also be seen in the number of job openings. However, he is concerned with qualified candidates who can’t actually get interviews or roles.
One difficulty in this tight job market is that qualified candidates are applying to jobs, but they’re not receiving any responses back.
Employers can no longer respond to open positions, and they ghost job applicants. Some people think that employers only post jobs to try and lure in potential employees.
A recent survey reveals that one in five managers have job postings up for over two to three months, and 8% are not eager to fill their current position vacancy.
Kathryn Edwards, an economist with the RAND Corporation, said that “whatever can be true is true for at least one person.” With 150 million people in the US workforce, there are bound to be some stories in conflict.
That, employers still have a strong advantage in the market. They might post ‘Ghost jobs’ and not be so interested in filling them up. This could indicate that because of uncertainty about the economy, they’re afraid to hire anyone.
‘Ghost Postings’ in uncertain environment
Sometimes companies want to show that they’re growing but don’t want the associated expenses. They do this by delaying in filling positions.
Companies often do this because they hope that the perfect candidate will apply. Other times, they might post jobs just to appease their exhausted employees and to show that they are making efforts to hire more help.
There are some jobs that there are so in-demand, like mobile developers and software engineers, employers might leave up openings to hope that someone would apply.
Companies are posting jobs vacancies ready for when they have the budget to hire, meaning they need a “pipeline” ready.
Good candidates are often turned away because they aren’t aware that its typical for companies to post fake job listings. Candidates are turned off when they find out.
With the current level of uncertainty, employers have been unable to predict candidate behavior and flows. This uncertainty has created an air of tentativeness.
Catalant CEO Pat Pettiti said business are struggling to find a way to overcome the changing contours of their business.
Companies are hesitant to hire anyone until they know who or what they need.
Anxiety over a possible recession has made managers question whether or not they should hire someone in an unsure economic environment.
William Stonehouse, the president of Crawford Thomas Recruiting, said that too many employers post fake jobs as a way to filter candidates.
“Recruiters should try to be as human as possible in their hiring process so that applicants feel like they are valued and respected”, he said.
The number of ‘Job Postings’ are higher than ‘Hiring’
“Some employers are using ghost jobs to hire people,” said Andrew Flowers, a labor economist at Appcast. Hiring this way can be a small minority of employers, but it is certainly not unheard of.
The overall job fill rate remains very low and the unemployment rate is very high because there are too few candidates available.
Job opportunities are plentiful, but the major question is whether or not there is enough demand to fill them.
Erica Groshen saw a contradiction in data when employers complained about a labor shortage. However, when she watched wages rise and job switching soar, she believed it was really happening.
A new way of applying for jobs is through the internet.
“With more and more jobs, companies have to process applications from large numbers of people using many crude algorithms”. “They have special alogrithms to sorted the candidates.” Groshen said.
The number of openings and ease of applying may seem comforting for someone in a job hunt, but with statistics that one third of college graduates are underemployed, they’ll soon have to find jobs they don’t even qualify for. Many graduates enter the workforce without understanding their degree’s practicality.
Even though workers are in a red hot labor market, they’re not automatically walking away with the bread. Employers have an upper hand by dictating wages and working conditions. A lack of competition can lead to companies posting positions without intending to fill the position or filtering out qualified candidates on purpose.
“There are too many postings, and some of the websites don’t work and fakes”, he said.
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