[Mountain_Skies]

Ghost jobs doesn't help things any. Posting fake jobs should be considered wage theft. Multiply the number of applications for a fake job by the average time to apply and then by the hourly rate (or salaried rate calculated down to the hour). Charge those responsible for theft of that figure, which easily will push it into felony territory. Bet the ghost job phenomenon disappears overnight.

[vegetablepotpie]

This reminds me of a thread posted on HN last week. Someone used LLMs to write cover letters and post on job sites for them. He was able to spam out hundreds of job apps [1].

To me that sounds like a perfectly rational response to fake job apps. When there exists the possibility of 0% chance of a response for a given application, the only rational move is to minimize the investment of all submissions and maximize the number of submissions.

Recruiters and hiring managers spun it as a problem being inflicted on them because of AI tools and the attitude of people applying, with one commentator writing

> Recent cohorts have been infected with a sense that the job market is nothing more than a game that they need to min-max… The problem is so bad that one company withdrew from partnering in our internal job board, citing rampant LLM-generated applications and obvious LLM cheating in interviews.

On the other side of your argument you have people who see no problem posting ghost jobs, and think it’s a harmless way to boost company morale and increase investor confidence. They see hundreds of “low effort” applications being submitted to them, believe it is a cost being imposed on them, and think it’s 100% a problem caused by the applicants. They see no connection between their behavior and the response they get back from the environment and would see your proposal as absolutely ridiculous.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42531695

[franktankbank]

I don't know I want to spam my personal details with impunity. It's not the freeby it might seem.

[tjpnz]

Without the ghost job they're unable to prove due diligence locally. That's not just thievery but fraud.

[franktankbank]

Due diligence is so fucking dumb though. Here's my understanding of how getting a GC works:

1) Company applies on behalf of employee.

2) Company advertises for employees job.

3) Company interviews local suitors

  3a)  If local suitor aces it do they get the would be immigrants job?  No and also no GC for immigrant.
  
  3b)  No local suitor found then immigrant gets GC.

Finding a local suitor is bad for everyone involved!

H1B should die. Exceptional immigrants can come here and be an American after some determinant amount of time (not in a hundred plus year backlog or some nonsense). My problem is that I can't work with an underclass, their is no joining the cultures because we are pitted against each other.

[j45]

That has some merit.

At the same time falsifying skills or misrepresenting them should be just as bad.

[HighGoldstein]

How do you quantify skill falsification?

[j45]

Exaggeration

A level of competency, recency or familiarity that is not accurate to what’s needed or communicated.

As much as many job posts can be wish lists (no hire is perfect, every hire can be a compromise of how much of each skill a candidate has), understanding what you bring, what is needed, and where you can grow relative to the position and the work ahead can mean a lot.

In some cases, a perfect candidate might mean limited time there or maybe three candidate gets bored.