Ghost postings: spotting a job ad that leads nowhere

A ghost posting is an ad published while no role is actually open. Converging estimates put them at 20% to 33% of active listings, with higher rates in public administration, healthcare and IT. A survey of recruiters found that 81% admit their employer has posted a role with no opening behind it.

Why a company does this

Three reasons come back, none of them illegal. Building a CV pool to move fast when a role does open. Leaving an ad up because nobody took it down after the hire. Looking like a growing company. On top of that sits a mechanical effect: one-click syndication pushes the same ad to five sites, and most recruiting software keeps a posting active until a human closes it.

The six signs, most reliable first

1. Reposting. The strongest signal, and the only one invisible from the posting page. An ad pulled and republished three times in four months is not a role, it is a net.
2. Talent-pool wording. "Speculative application", "we hire continuously", "talent pool", "future opportunities". The employer says it themselves.
3. Age. Past sixty days online without an edit, the odds that a role is still open drop sharply.
4. The series. Six ads with the same title open in parallel at the same employer, with no stated hiring plan, rarely means six roles.
5. The skeletal description. Under two hundred characters of actual mission: there is nothing to answer, because there is nothing to do.
6. No salary range. Weak on its own, but it adds up with the rest.

What it changes for you

A worked application costs between forty minutes and two hours. Spending one on a ghost posting is not only lost time: it is one application fewer on a real role, the same day. The right move is not to avoid everything, it is to rank: suspicious ads come after, never before.

How we spot them

We do not judge the text of the ad, we judge its history. Every day, the radar records which postings it sees again and on which sources. A posting that disappears and comes back gets flagged. After a few weeks, that memory reveals patterns no single reading can see. It is also why this information cannot be copied: you have to have watched the market for months to produce it.