Are you sending lots of resumes in online job offers but nobody responds to you? Perhaps you have come across ghost job offers, a type of resource that some companies make use of and that is becoming increasingly popular. Nobody likes to waste time or feel that they are being ignored, so we recommend that you put the advice that we are going to provide you into practice. Surely your job search process ends up being more satisfying!
The “ghost jobs” or ghost jobs are another of the identities of ghosting itself. If you apply for an offer and do not get any kind of response for days or even weeks, it is very likely that you have fallen victim to one of these phantom offers. Possibly it is something that has happened to all of us to a greater or lesser extent, but each time the risk of suffering from these situations increases more. Next, we will tell you about the most common ghost job offers so that you can recognize them.
Offers that do not expire
One of the first things you have to do is check if the offer still exists. But be careful, because the publication period that has elapsed since the publication of the ad is not so decisive (it is, but it is not an infallible science). Surely you already know what LinkedIn is, a social network where there are job offers that continue to circulate or be republished over time without, in reality, those positions being available. The same happens with many other pages that you surely use to try to find a job.
Therefore, what you should do is go to the official website of the company that is offering the job. In general, the official pages of all businesses have a Job or Employment section that includes available vacancies. If an offer seen on LinkedIn seemed suspicious to you and then it is no longer available on the company’s website, it is most likely because it has not been available for a long time. By checking that you will have dodged a ghost job.
Offers that give little information
Surely you have seen these types of offers on more than one occasion. But in many of the cases we put in the effort to fill in the information on the application, enter our details and prepare an introductory letter to try to apply because the position seems to be really good. The problem is that the offer is usually not very precise and all it does is create expectations so that you invest your time in submitting the application. When this happens, in a large part of the cases it is about offers that the company or a recruiter has prepared in a matter of minutes with the intention of probing the market in order to see what the situation is among potential workers.
What that recruiter would do would be to analyze the resumes and investigate them, or even create a database of potential future hires. But it is very likely that, at that moment in which you are conducting the survey, there is no vacancy in which you can get your new job.
Why are they used?
For a large number of companies it is a way to save costs. If they have a job posting for long periods of time and continue to receive applications, they know that they will be able to have that list of potential candidates on hand when they really need it. This will avoid that, if they have an emergency, they have to invest in promoting the job offer or use more aggressive means that mean spending money in the process.
A survey carried out by the firm Clarify Capital among more than 1,000 company administrators revealed that 68% of them have recruitment offers published online for periods of more than 30 days. Although some may possibly fall within an explanation as logical as that they have not yet found the ideal candidate, it is known that a large part correspond to phantom offers. Of course, for those who are looking for a job, it is somewhat annoying and does not help speed up the process of finding a new job.
In addition, there are two other reasons why some managers admit to using this phantom bidding technique. One of them is that it helps the company give a stronger public image, telling the world that they are hiring and, therefore, growing. The other affects internally, since they recognize that it is a technique to keep the workers who are on the staff motivated.
Therefore, if you are looking for a job, remember to be aware of the clues that ghost job offers may be leaving you. Don’t waste time with them! And keep in mind that when you apply for a job, if the recruiter is really interested in you, he may not be long in contacting you. Because companies want to fill their positions as soon as possible.
