[tagyro]

I'll give you an example I've experienced myself:

I save all the jobs I apply to, so it's fairly easy to check/compare and I found plenty of cases where job ads get reposted after some time.

In one instance, I applied for a role in December '25, got a (boilerplate) rejection email a couple of days later (although my profile directly matched the job requirements and I had previous experience working in that specific field), job ad goes offline and re-appeared 3 months later - exact same time and job description.

[crazygringo]

That's not a ghost job. That sounds like they picked some resumes and rejected the rest and hired someone, and then three months later they either needed another person to also do the same job, or it didn't work out with the original hire so they opened the hiring back up.

[tagyro]

if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you

This is not an isolated case, I have multiple job ads that get reposted every couple of months

[mancerayder]

Some companies don't know what they want and there's internal confusion. I've observed this first-hand. They'll release recs and shut them down a few weeks later, confusing HR (or HR confuses everyone), maybe re-open. It's annoying but more disorganized behavior than fake jobs.

[sib]

Sorry, but why is that a problem? If they didn't find someone, they closed the posting, then reopened it later, what is the issue?

Or, as in some cases, perhaps they did find someone? I've been at companies where we hired many engineers sequentially over time using the same job description. Should we just have arbitrarily changed the JD?

[thewebguyd]

> Should we just have arbitrarily changed the JD?

No, but unique IDs for postings could help in that situation. If you want to hire, say, 10 engineers, you have 10 separate job postings with their own unique ID, they get taken down as each position gets filled.

Gives candidates visibility into how many positions the company is hiring (am I competing against 1,000 for 1 position or for 10 positions?), and clear visibility that hiring is happening and how many roles are left to fill.

> If they didn't find someone, they closed the posting, then reopened it later, what is the issue?

Closing & reopening is the problem, I suspect. Forces a re-application in some cases. I'm not sure how much any kind of legislation can help here though, just sounds like government overreach.

I don't think there's really any good solution. Easy enough to say "you can't post a job to "just collect resumes" you must actually be hiring, and intend to hire someone" but that doesn't account for situations where maybe the company did actually intend to hire, but later on mangement changed their mind...would that be considered a ghost job?

[aakresearch]

In trading (of securities) posting an order without intent to execute is considered market manipulation, which is illegal and harshly prosecuted. There is a consideration that change of mind is possible, but you'll have a hell of a lot to prove in such case before authorities let you off.

I agree with many, pointing that companies will (try) find ways to fleece any regulation imposed. And I am not a fan of regulations myself, at all. But I think it is fair to hold businesses to some standard in many aspects, including hiring. It is already being done in regards to some, like discrimination and equality. Un- and under-employment is a matter, dealt with by society through institutions and funded by taxpayers. The "clearance rate" of job applications (from both "buy" and "sell" sides) is, therefore, a state concern. I do not think extending requirements of "business license" to demonstrate "genuine intent" would place insurmountable burden on HRs or CEOs. But of course, such extension must have some teeth.

To be clear, the current situation with excessive ghosting is not helped by decades-old push to "commoditize" jobs, particularly IT jobs. And the regulations we discuss will be a not very well-veiled recognition of its de-facto success. Which I am also not a fan of. But flip side seems worse, when companies are allowed to pretend they'd only settle for unicorn while not demonstrating a "unicorn-shaped sieve" at all.

[FireBeyond]

Yeah, much as it sucks, there's a gap between "we were never going to hire anyone" and "you must hire someone, if you put up a job ad".