[mxuribe]

If i post a bunch of ghost/fake jobs, then investros *could potentially* see that as a signal that i am growing, and they should invest NOW before its too late...as one example. Another example, could be that my competition sees "enough/so many open jobs", that they might assume their market position is less than it might be - think of it as a sort of distant intimidation...but also, could be an approach for that competition to get distracted and spin their wheels trying to hire unnecessarily (to try to block up the pool of relevant candidates), thus burning budget in process, etc.

[coredog64]

You need to think outside the box. Once you've determined that a particular technological avenue is a dead end, gin up a bunch of job postings that would suggest that you're doubling down on it and watch your competitors set money on fire trying to catch up.

(There's a classic story from the Windows 3.x era regarding pen computing, where Microsoft spent money on it and advertised that solely to force competitors to expend efforts where Microsoft knew there was no payoff)

[mxuribe]

For sure, you're right that there are vastly more creative and devious ways to leverage jobs against one's competition. :-)