Study Finds 70% Of Job Postings Are Ghosts; Ghosts Deny Hiring Freeze

THE CAREERS PAGE — A new study by the Institute for Things Everyone Already Suspected has found that roughly seven in ten online job postings are “ghost jobs” with no intention of being filled, prompting a sharp response from the ghosts themselves.

“We are absolutely hiring,” said a spectral recruiter, flickering beside a listing for a Senior Principal Lead Staff Engineer (Junior). “We simply prefer candidates who apply through the website, wait four to six eternities, and then hear nothing. It builds character.”

The ghosts pushed back on claims that applicants should instead contact real people at the company. “That’s cheating,” one said. “If you talk to a human, they might like you. We can’t control what happens after that.”

Asked why the posting had been open since 2019, the recruiter explained that the role is “evergreen,” a term the ghost community uses for listings that, like the ghosts themselves, cannot die. “Some of us were candidates once,” it said quietly. “We applied. We waited. And then one day we realised we had become the posting.”

Asked why the role required ten years of experience in a framework released in March, the recruiter faded slowly through a wall.

The study’s authors have recommended that job seekers bring salt, sage and a referral. The ghosts recommended uploading a résumé and then retyping the résumé into forty separate boxes, “as a ritual.”