Ghost Jobs: A Deep Dive into the World of Fake Job Openings

WHAT ARE GHOST JOBS?
Ghost jobs are job postings that are not real, meaning they were posted with the intention of NOT filling an opening. In some cases, they may represent positions already filled long ago or openings that never were supposed to have been filled in the first place. This is frustrating for those candidates who invest so much time and effort applying for positions that are not current.

Ghost jobs manifest themselves in different ways:

Expired postings: Jobs that have already been filled or closed but still appear online due to poor posting management.
Placeholder Listings: Jobs posted to measure market interest or talent availability, as opposed to filling an immediate need. The company is feeling out potential candidates to see who might be applying.
Opening Ploys: Used to make it appear that a company is in growth mode and needs to bulk up its staff.
Compliance Listings: Some companies are required by law to post job openings, even when the outcome of such posting is largely an inside deal. They already have someone in mind… and they already work at the company.

WHY DO COMPANIES LIST FAKE JOB OPENINGS?

The motivations for ghost jobs are varied, and not all of them are malicious in nature.

Some key reasons as to why companies create such postings are:

1. Talent Pipeline Building
Companies often post jobs to build a pipeline of qualified candidates should something open. They might be able to move candidates quickly when a real need does arise. While this practice benefits the company in highly competitive industries or difficult-to-fill unfamiliar positions, it can be misleading to candidates who may actually believe the role is immediately available.

2. Testing The Market
Some employers post just to understand the talent pool in the market that possesses certain skills or experience. True for niche or technical roles primarily, this allows companies, through pool analysis, to make strategic compensation decisions, timelines of hire, or even decisions on expansions into new areas of business. They want to see who is out there.

3. Maintaining a Perception of Growth
In the case of startups or firms in question, posting numerous job openings may give an impression of success and growth to the investors, customers, or the best talent who would want to be part of a successful company. But the moment the truth comes out, trust will wear off.

4. Employment Law Compliance
For instance, some regions or industries require companies to post a job opening publicly, even when an internal candidate has already been identified. Technically, this is a real posting, but it is very misleading to external applicants.

5. Ineffective Recruitment Methods
Poor hiring processes are to blame in some ghost jobs. Recruiters or hiring managers forget to close the posting for roles already filled, allowing postings to stay up indefinitely.

EFFECTS OF GHOST JOBS ON APPLICANTS
The impact of ghost jobs on job seekers can be profound and demoralizing:

1. Wasting Time and Resources
The entire process of applying for a job is time-consuming and stressful. A candidate applying for a ghost job wastes time and resources that could be used on real opportunities.

2. Emotional and Mental Stress
What happens is that continuous applications without responses create feelings of rejection, frustration, and self-doubt; ghost jobs just compound this problem since we may never know if the job was valid in the first place.

3. Distrust in Companies
When applicants find out they have applied for ghost jobs, the company does not look good to them. This kind of distrust keeps talented people away from applying to the company at some point in their lives.

4. Distorted Job Market Figures
Ghost jobs give a false signal to job seekers about the demand for certain roles, which is why some of them invest time in upskilling in positions that may, in reality, not exist.

IMPACT ON COMPANIES

While ghost jobs might appear harmless or even strategic to companies, they usually boomerang in several ways.

1. Reputation Damage
Workers and candidates share experiences through Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and even sites like Reddit. The reputation of posting ghost jobs will affect the employer’s brand, making it difficult to attract top talent later on.

2. Lower Candidate Engagement
Candidates will be less likely to apply with companies that have a history of ghost postings, meaning it reduces the talent pool for actual openings and increases recruitment costs.

3. Resource Mismanagement
Application management of fake jobs burdens the company’s HR and recruitment teams. The time to review these irrelevant applications could be used to fill actual vacancies.

4. Legal and Ethical Risks
Ghost jobs in some jurisdictions may result in legal considerations, especially when postings mislead candidates or violate equal employment opportunities laws.

BROADER IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CAREER INDUSTRY

1. Data on Labor Market is Skewed.

Ghost jobs distort labor market statistics and make the actual demand for a job difficult to trace by policymakers, researchers, or economists. This misrepresentation leads to inappropriate labor policies or funding relating to workforce development programs.

2. Mistrust in Employment Platforms

The credence of such job boards or recruitment websites could be lost grudgingly in terms of both the job seekers and the employers if ghost jobs are on them, which may undermine the effectiveness of those services in linking potential job seekers with job opportunities.

3. Career Services Challenges

Career coaches and services depend on valid job market data as a basis for coaching their clients. Ghost jobs make this difficult since the picture is distorted on the number of jobs available. It makes it hard for us to offer accurate information since we really don’t know how many jobs are real and how many are fake.

4. Frustration of Recruiters

Working with such companies, some recruiters and staffing agencies may be inadvertently damaging their reputation. Candidates who feel lied to are less likely to engage with the agency in question again.

How to Mitigate the Effects of Ghost Jobs

For Job Seekers…

Research Companies: Go through reviews and forums for patterns of ghost postings.
Network Strategically: Connect with employees or recruiters at your target companies to confirm the validity of roles.
Set Realistic Expectations: Not all job postings may be immediate opportunities.

For Companies…

Be transparent about your role: State if it’s an immediate opening or if it is part of future hiring plans.
Audit Postings on a Regular Basis: Remove outdated or filled roles to maintain credibility.
Engage Applicants: Respond to applicants in a timely manner with feedback and updates.

Ghost jobs reflect the complexity and inefficiency of contemporary methods of recruitment. While these jobs might serve short-term objectives for companies, their effect is, above all, negative on job seekers, corporate reputations, and the career industry.

Four Tips for Tending to Your Family AND Your Job Search

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Going through a job search affects your family indirectly more than you think. As much as the search takes a toll on your own mental and physical state, you still have to find a balance with your family. You may have gone from working 8-12 hour days and never being at home to always being at home searching for a job. The best professional resume writers see this happen all the time with executives and different professionals, so there are some things you can do to help ease the transition. Here are some ways you can tend to your family and your job search without either one suffering.

1. Establish a New Routine

Sometimes you don’t realize how routine your life is until the routine gets disrupted. When you go from being employed to unemployed, you have to adjust your routine accordingly. You may now be the one to drop off and pick up the kids from school, cook dinners or do other household chores. The best way to start establishing a new routine is accepting that you have to change.

2. Set Goals

Set both family goals and job search goals at some point. One goal could be writing a couple resumes and cover letters each night after dinner. Another goal could be determining when the best time is for you to land a new job. There’s a chance you don’t have to rush as much as you thought when you consider the family duties you have to take care of.

3. Get Your Family Involved in Your Job Search

Be transparent with your family, including kids who are old enough to understand what’s going on. Let them know as much as you can what all goes into personal branding for senior level managers. It will require some time away from the home to network, meet with potential employers or even take classes. When your family is on the same page with your goals, it will be easier for you to go about your job search.

4. Split Up Family Responsibilities

Instead of stressing about doing all the family responsibilities yourself, get the rest of the family involved in them. This will give you some time to dedicate to writing resumes and cover letters, but you can also have some family time as well.
Professional Resume Services has the best professional resume writers to help you craft the perfect resume so you don’t have to spend as much time on your own. Having a family while searching for a job is stressful, so feel free to contact us if we can help in any way with your resume.

These Words Will Drive Executive Recruiters Away From Your Resume!

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Are you about to begin your executive job search? Have you been searching for a job recently with no luck? Either way, you need to be careful with the wording in your resume. The best professional resume writers can tell you an extensive list of commonly used words that will make recruiters stop reading.
You may think those words apply to you perfectly, but so do hundreds of other people who send in their resumes to the same place. Here are some of the words you may think are harmless, but can actually drive recruiters away from your resume.

1. Enthusiastic

Every cover letter writing service sees this word come across their desk, and so do recruiters. If you aren’t enthusiastic about the job possibility, why would you be applying? This is just an unnecessary word that should be implied in your writing.

2. Motivated

Sending your resume is a sign of motivation—unless, of course, you choose to submit a terrible resume rather than seek the help of the best professional resume writers. There’s no need to explain why you’re motivated.

3. Creative

Creativity is something everyone thinks they have, but in reality, very few people do. Furthermore, those people likely aren’t searching for jobs. The word “creative” will get overlooked quickly because most people can’t back it up with proof.

4. Experienced

You’re showing your experience on the resume, so you don’t need to reiterate it. The best executive resume format will display your experience in a separate section, which needs no further explanation.

5. Team Player

It’s great to be a team player, but you don’t have to talk about it on your resume. The best professional resume writers will tell you to explain a situation in which you were a team player, but they will never actually write out the words. Everyone writes them, but you shouldn’t.

6. Results-Oriented

This may have looked good on a resume in the past, but not today. Any company hiring an executive expects them to be results-oriented. On the other hand, if you truly are results-oriented, your resume should show it.

7. Determined

This is another word that’s implied just because you submitted the resume. If you’re truly determined to get a job, go to a cover letter writing service to brush up your cover letter and resume. Don’t tell a recruiter you’re determined, because they probably won’t read anymore.
Professional Resume Services has some of the best professional resume writers in the industry to help you eliminate the common, yet unnecessary, words from your resume. Feel free to contact us if you need help tweaking your executive resume to make it more effective.

Everything You Should Know About LinkedIn Endorsements

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If you’re new to LinkedIn, or just noticed the endorsements feature, there are some things you need to know. Recruiters and hiring managers take all endorsements with a grain of salt, but they still usually won’t hurt your chances of landing an interview. These endorsements can come from former or current co-workers, friends or even family members.
The point is to highlight your skills and post them on your LinkedIn profile for everyone to see. Many LinkedIn profile development services will help you manage your endorsements so you can highlight the important ones and make your profile stand out more. Here are some things to keep in mind about LinkedIn endorsements.

Manage and Edit Your Endorsements

Sometimes your family members or friends will endorse you for a skill without even knowing if you’re good at it. Recruiters may view that negatively since it’s possible you’re using them to boost your endorsements. The key to good LinkedIn profile writing is to highlight the professional endorsements from people you’ve actually worked with in the past.

Return the Favor with Endorsements

If a colleague endorsed you for a skill, be sure and return the favor and endorse them with one of their skills as well. LinkedIn profile development services suggest staying as active as you can on LinkedIn to show you are well connected. Endorsing others will help give you a better professional reputation.

Endorsements Show What Professionals Think of You

LinkedIn endorsements should be thought of as completely separate honors than recommendations. A recommendation is generally a few sentences stating what a person is good at and how they can bring value to a company. An endorsement is just a quick acknowledgement of a skill without any explanation. Still, other professionals will take notice if you have several endorsements and may contact you if you are endorsed in a skill they require.

Don’t Take Endorsements Too Seriously

The main thing the best professional resume writers will tell you is to not take LinkedIn endorsements too seriously. With the social media world today, everything seems like a popularity contest with how many “likes” you can get on a post or a picture. LinkedIn doesn’t work that way. They are nice to have, but don’t get too down on yourself if you don’t have multiple endorsements coming in every day.
LinkedIn profile writing can be tricky. We understand the struggle some executives have, so feel free to contact us if you are ever uncomfortable with how your LinkedIn profile looks.

What to Look for in a Resume Writing Company

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Make sure you hire the best professional resume writers.

Learn how to find the best professional resume writers.

If you do a quick search on Google, you’re likely to come up with plenty of resume writing companies. However, it’s not as simple as it seems. Your resume is your introduction to a hiring agent and it’s important to hire the best professional resume writers. Anyone can say they write resumes, but if they don’t know what they are doing you can end up with a poor resume you cannot use for obtaining employment. How do you know which professional resume writing service is legitimate and which ones are scams trying to trick you out of your money? Here are a few things to look for when seeking an executive resume writing service.

What Does Their Website Exude?

When you first access a website advertising a professional resume writing service, take a few minutes to look around. Is it organized and professional looking? If they cannot organize a website, do you think they can organize data on a resume? Are there any grammatical errors or poorly structured sentences? This is a glaring red flag warning you they are not qualified to write resumes.

Do They Have Credentials?

An executive resume writing service should have some credentials displayed on their site. The most common test demonstrating a writer has a degree of competency is CPRW, or Certified Professional Resume Writer. In addition, the best professional resume writers have some accomplishments to share. You’ll also want to ask about their former experience in resume writing, education level, business background and any other skills they may have acquired.

Do They Have Sample Resumes?

When considering a resume writer, ask about any samples they may have to share. If you do not like their samples, you aren’t going to be pleased with their work on yours. If you aren’t sure what to look for in a sample, look past the aesthetic qualities and see if they included more than a list of job duties. Do they do anything special to make a resume stand out from all the others? Be wary if they don’t have any samples to share.

Do They Have a Solid Writing Process?

The best professional resume writers will have a clearly defined process for writing resumes. They should offer more than just a questionnaire for you to fill out. You should actually get to speak with a person who will ask you key questions so they can highlight the skills you have that are likely to impress a potential employer.

Do They Have a Guarantee?

A professional writer should be able to quote a price and offer a satisfaction guarantee. They should be willing to stand behind their work and make any revisions necessary.
These are a few of the considerations you should make before hiring an executive resume writing service. They are easy to find, but it can be difficult to find those who are reputable. Take your time and make a careful selection since your resume is how you introduce yourself to the professional world and secure employment.