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Ghost Busting
- Grim Ginger
- Oct 16, 2024
- 1 min read
Updated: Oct 20, 2024
First of all, let's do some homework. If you don't know anything about ghost jobs, read this article about it.
Now that you're good and mad, let's move on to the next topic. What this post hopes to do.
We can't do anything about companies creating ghost jobs. If they don't think there's anything wrong with the process, no one will be able to convince them otherwise. You can't argue someone into being a good person.
We probably can't shame them into it either. If they could feel shame they wouldn't be doing it.
So what can we do? We can keep track of them. And that's what I'm hoping to do. Life is short, and if a company is taking up parts of my life with ghost jobs, I'd rather know about it and pass on them. The job hunt is hard enough without those kinds of trust issues.
If you run across a ghost job, post it here. If I get enough I'll come up with a better system. But there are rules.
The Rules
List the company and the job
List how you found out it was a ghost job
Tell us if anyone was ever hired for the position, if you know.
No libelous statements. A small amount of snark is ok.
If available, include a link to the job.
Ok, now go to it. This is the Way.
I applied to a UX Director position at Universal. I wasn't selected. It appears no one was selected. But the job is still on the street.
I sent Reddit a resume created just for their job. Ticked all the boxes, true or not. I received a form rejection within 12 hours. The position remains unfilled.
An example of a maybe: I interviewed for a UX Writer job at Happy Fun Time Resorts. I wasn't hired. No one was hired. This probably wasn't a ghost job, although it could have been. I got an interview and then no one was hired, which suggests the position was probably cancelled. At one time it existed, so it isn't a ghost job. Disappointing waste of everyone's job, but not a ghost job.
Not a ghost job, per se, but LinkedIn doesn't help things when it shows jobs that are months old.