Job seekers scrolling LinkedIn and other boards are running into “ghost jobs”. These are roles that appear legitimate on the surface, but in reality may not exist, may have already been filled, or may never have been intended for hiring at all. So how do you avoid them?
According to a 2025 study by resume-building service MyPerfectResume, in June 30% of job openings in the US never resulted in a hire, more than 2.2 million roles that did not materialise. That means there were a significant number of people who handed over their full work experience, contact details, full name, even demographic information to nobody’s benefit but the company’s.
A 2024 study showed that companies would put up ghost jobs to build a talent pool (keep information about prospective hires for future use), benchmark salaries, or maintain a “presence” in the market (make the company look like it’s growing by letting people think recruiters are “keeping busy”). A Greenhouse survey in December 2024 backed this up, showing that as many as 22% of online job ads may be fake, remaining active only to capture resumes for future reference.
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While job boards like LinkedIn have not taken explicit action to combat ghost jobs, other than explaining how users can avoid these listings, they do take down jobs that go against their policies.
Unfortunately, it still comes down to the applicant to stay vigilant when job hunting. So here are a list of questions to ask yourself before applying.
How long has the post stayed up?
According to a study in 2023, jobs were taking longer to fill, with companies filling positions over an average of 44 days. If a job posting is still live for more than 45 days, you can assume that it is a ghost job.
