Ghost jobs: why applicants doubt your posting, and how to show it's real

A “ghost job” is a posting for a position that doesn’t exist, or that the employer isn’t planning to fill any time soon. Nobody knows how common they are, but applicants now widely suspect them, and that suspicion costs honest employers too: good people apply less, or apply everywhere and commit to nothing. The fix is mostly within your control: say whether the job is real, take it down when it’s filled, and answer the people who applied.

Why ghost jobs exist

A Congressional Research Service brief (2025) lists the reasons employers post jobs they don’t intend to fill right away: collecting resumes for later, signalling that the company is growing, demonstrating that a pool was considered when an internal candidate is already chosen, or fishing for an exceptional person.

Many ghost jobs aren’t deliberate. Plans change after a posting goes up. Job boards copy postings from other sites, and when the employer takes down the original, the copies stay up. Staffing agencies sometimes post roles to show clients they can attract candidates. And some ghost postings are outright scams that impersonate real employers to harvest personal information.

That last group is growing. According to the same brief, reports of job and employment agency scams to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission nearly tripled between 2020 and 2024. A real employer’s name on a fake posting damages the real employer.

How common are they? Nobody knows

You will see figures claiming that a fifth, a third or half of job postings are ghosts. Treat them with caution. The CRS brief states plainly that there are no official statistics on the scale of ghost jobs. The surveys and analyses that produce the headline numbers mostly come from firms that sell hiring services, sometimes including tools to verify postings, and they have released varying amounts of information about their methods, which the brief says makes their estimates hard to assess.

Nor is a gap between job openings and hires proof of ghost postings. Official U.S. job-openings data counts only positions that exist, could start within 30 days, and are being actively recruited for, and the CRS brief concludes that honestly reported openings in that survey are unlikely to be ghosts.

What is clearly real is the suspicion. The brief describes applicants sending many applications without hearing back and becoming wary of postings in general. For an employer, that matters more than the true rate: an applicant who assumes your posting is fake may not apply, or may apply with little effort.

The rules are arriving

• Ontario has required, since 1 January 2026, that most employers with 25 or more employees state in each public posting whether it is for an existing vacancy, and tell interviewed applicants within 45 days whether a hiring decision has been made (Ontario Ministry of Labour). The province also requires job-posting platforms to give users a way to report fraudulent postings.
• New York’s S8877 passed both houses in 2026. It would require employers with 100 or more employees to state whether a posting is for a current vacancy and when they intend to fill it, and to remove postings within two weeks of filling the job. At the time of writing, it had not been signed.
• Bills have also been introduced in other states, including New Jersey, Kentucky and California, according to the CRS brief.

Our article on what a job posting must disclose covers these alongside pay and AI disclosure rules.

Six ways to make a real posting believable

None of these need a law to require them. They are simply what an applicant needs to know to decide whether applying is worth their time.

1. Say whether it’s a current vacancy

One sentence: “This is an existing vacancy, and we aim to make an offer by 15 November.” If you are building a pool for later, say that instead, with roughly when. Applicants who are happy to wait will still apply; the ones who need a job now won’t waste an afternoon.

2. Give the pay range

A posting with a real range reads as a real job. Many places now require it.

3. Close it when it’s filled, everywhere

Keep a list of everywhere the job was posted, including boards that copied it automatically, and remove each one when you make the hire or pause the search. A posting left up for months after the hire is one of the easiest ways for an honest employer to create a ghost job.

4. Tell people what happens next, and when

“We’ll reply to every applicant within two weeks of the closing date” tells applicants the posting is attended to. Then keep the promise.

5. Answer everyone who applied

A short, respectful “we’ve decided not to take your application further” is better than silence. Ontario now requires an answer for anyone you interviewed. Silence after an application is how people conclude a job was never real.

6. Make your postings easy to verify

List the job on your own website as well as on job boards, so applicants can check that it’s genuinely yours, and say on your careers page how you contact applicants (for example, only from your company email domain, and never asking for payment). It helps applicants spot scams that use your name.

The job posting checklist (PDF) covers all six, plus the disclosure rules, on one page. Free, no sign-up.

If you’re “always hiring”

Some businesses genuinely hire continuously: retail, hospitality, home care, seasonal work. That is not a ghost job, as long as you say so. (Our guide to seasonal and hourly hiring covers running that kind of hiring well.) “We hire for this role throughout the year and review applications every two weeks” is honest, and Ontario’s rules exclude general “we’re hiring” signs and campaigns that don’t advertise a specific position. If a posting does advertise a specific position, state whether there is an existing vacancy.

Where SortTheStack fits

SortTheStack gives each job a public careers page under your company’s name, which you can link from your own website. It sends every applicant a receipt when they apply, and when you close a job it sends a neutral “decision made” notice to anyone still in the Interviewing stage. Rejection emails go out only when someone clicks Reject. It doesn’t post to job boards, so removing copies elsewhere is still up to you. See how the screening works.

Sources

All accessed 12 October 2026.

• Handwerker, E. W., & Pepper, A. H. (2025). “Ghost” job postings. Congressional Research Service, IF12977, 25 April 2025.
• Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, Requirements related to publicly advertised job postings.
• New York State Senate, S8877 (2025–2026 session).