What are ghost jobs (and how can you avoid them)?

When looking for work, any current or former job seeker will tell you that they’ve been ghosted at least once during the recruitment process.

Job seeking itself is never a fun task, and not hearing back from employers about a role you’re interested in makes it all the more frustrating. 

But getting ignored might not necessarily mean something’s wrong with your CV. Rather, the job just never existed in the first place. 

This practice is known as “ghost hiring”, and has been nothing short of grim for job seekers looking for their next opportunity in the UK’s current job market.

What is ghost hiring?

Put simply, ghost hiring (or a ghost job) is when a company posts a job listing but doesn’t have any intention of hiring anyone.

Amid mass layoffs in the UK – with around 82,000 redundancies being made as of July 2024 – many employees have been left to look for new roles and navigate an extremely uncertain market.

The UK has 8% fewer job openings than before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unemployment rate is also expected to rise to 4.4% in 2025.

With these figures in mind, according to research by StandOut CV, over a third (34.4%) of job listings studied were found to be ghost jobs. Veterinary nurse positions were found to have the most ghost job listings (59%.1%), followed by software engineering (46.5%) and cybersecurity analysts (45.7%).

Additionally, a survey by Clarify Capital revealed that while 68% of hiring managers had job postings active for over 30 days, 43% aren’t actively trying to fill the positions.

Why do employers post ghost jobs?

Despite how disheartening ghost jobs are to candidates, there are actually a few reasons why a company may carry out this practice. For example:

• Building its talent pool: Even if a company isn’t actively hiring, it may post a job advertisement to collect CVs and build up a list of potential candidates for future openings. So while the position isn’t open yet, it could become available later down the line.
• Conducting market research: Just like conducting marketing research to attract customers, ghost hiring is a form of candidate research. Businesses can gather information to determine what skills are available on the market or determine salary expectations.
• Showing economic optimism: Some companies like to give the idea that they’re growing to present a positive image to customers, clients and investors.
• Testing job ad effectiveness: Just like when companies run and analyse ad campaigns, they can also post ghost jobs to determine how well they attract potential candidates. This could include experimenting with different job descriptions, titles and formats to see which one will attract the best candidate when vacancies become available.
• Not removing an expired ad: Sometimes, there aren’t any ulterior motives. A company could have already hired someone, but just haven’t taken the advertisement down yet. Either the hiring team forgot, or the company wants to keep the ad live in case it doesn’t work out with the new hire.
  

How to avoid ghost jobs

While companies have reasons to engage in ghost hiring, job seekers don’t want to waste their time applying for a job they’ll never hear back from. Peter Duris, co-founder and CEO of Kickresume shared some red flags to look out for:

“If a listing doesn’t have a clear timestamp or was posted months ago, it’s worth being cautious. Most roles get filled much faster than that,” he said. “Usually, the hiring manager might’ve just forgotten to remove it. However, sometimes it’s left up intentionally. You might also see the job on Indeed or another search site, but not on the company’s own website.”

Other signs of a ghost job include vague job descriptions or lack of salary information.

How do I know if the job is real or not?

“If you’re unsure about a listing, it’s always a good idea to reach out to the company directly by email or phone to ask if the role is still open,” Duris added. “Talking to someone at the company can help you find out how serious they are about hiring right now.”

Right now, there aren’t any laws that ban ghost jobs in the UK and the lack of regulation means they’re likely to persist in today’s job market, However, it isn’t a recommended practice for businesses, as it can potentially harm a company’s reputation if savvy jobseekers spot the signs and steer clear.