Ghost jobs: how to tell if a job posting is real

A ghost job is an online posting for a position that does not currently exist, or that the employer does not intend to fill right away. That is the definition of ghost jobs a Delaware legislative research brief uses, and it adds that such postings "may not be deliberate".^[5] Some are left up by mistake. Some are kept up on purpose.

A ghost job is not the same as a scam. A scam is after your money or your identity. The Federal Trade Commission describes scammers taking outdated ads from real employers, changing them, and reposting them on job sites.^[7] A ghost job comes from the real employer. It costs you an evening and some hope, which is bad enough.

The word gets used loosely. People also say it of jobs that are real but already promised to an internal candidate, and of postings that stay up while a hiring freeze runs its course. From where you sit they look the same: you apply and nothing comes back.

Nobody has a precise figure. Here is what the two most quoted numbers actually measured.

• Greenhouse, a hiring-software company, said that in any given quarter 18–22% of jobs posted on its own platform are classified as ghost jobs. In its survey of 2,500 workers in the US, UK and Germany, three in five candidates suspected they had met one.^[1] That is one vendor's customers and one vendor's classification.
• ResumeBuilder, a resume company, ran an online poll through Pollfish in May 2024. Of 1,641 hiring managers who started, 649 completed it. 40% said their company had posted a fake listing that year, and 3 in 10 said one was live at the time.^[2] It is a poll of people who chose to answer, not a count of postings.

The official job openings number is a different thing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts an opening only when a specific position exists with work available, the job could start within 30 days, and the employer is actively recruiting from outside.^[3] It collects those numbers directly from businesses, not from job boards, and a 2026 BLS review flagged only 0.27 percent of survey reports as potential overcounts.^[4] So the government's count is not padded with ghost ads. The ads you scroll past online are another matter, and some share of them is stale.

In the ResumeBuilder poll, the hiring managers who admitted to it gave these reasons most often: to look open to outside talent (67%), to look like the company is growing (66%), to make employees believe help is coming (63%), and to collect resumes for later (59%).^[2] The Delaware brief lists the same motives and adds building a pool of candidates for future openings.^[5]

The dull explanation is common too. A role gets filled, frozen or cancelled, and nobody takes the posting down.

None of these reasons is about you. That is worth holding on to in a bad week.

You cannot be sure from the outside. These signs are judgment, not statistics, and a real job can fail one of them.

• It is on the employer's own careers page today. Go to the company's site yourself and find the job in its list of openings. This is also the FTC's advice for avoiding fake ads.^[7]
• It has a recent date. A posting that has been up for months, or that keeps reappearing with a new date, deserves less of your time.
• It is specific. A team, a location, the work itself, a pay range where the law requires one. A generic wish list of skills tells you less.
• A person is attached to it. A recruiter or manager at the company who is talking about the role is a good sign.
• The form works. If the application page is closed or will not load, believe it.

One more test takes a little courage. If a named recruiter posted the role, send two lines asking whether it is still open and when they expect to interview. You may get an answer. Silence is not proof either way.

Mostly not, so far. The Delaware brief, dated August 2025, found no federal or state law in the US that explicitly prohibits posting a job without an existing vacancy. It noted bills introduced in California, Kentucky and New Jersey that would make employers say whether a posting is for an existing vacancy.^[5] We have not tracked what became of those bills.

Ontario has gone further. Since 1 January 2026, employers there with 25 or more employees must state in a public job posting whether it is for an existing vacancy, and must tell applicants they interviewed the outcome within 45 days of the last interview.^[6] If you apply to Ontario jobs, look for that statement.

This is general information, not legal advice.

1. Run the two-minute check before every application: employer's own page, date, working form.
2. Apply to the newest postings first. Sort by date wherever you can.
3. Set a time limit for doubtful ones. If a posting fails two of the signs above, give it ten minutes or skip it.
4. Keep a log of what you applied to and when, and follow up once.
5. Do not read silence as a verdict on you. In Greenhouse's survey, 61% of job seekers said they had been ghosted after an interview.^[1] Sometimes there was never a job to get.