Ghost job

A fake job, ghost job, or phantom job is a job posting for a position that is non-existent or has already been filled. The employer may post fake job opening listings for many reasons, such as inflating statistics about their industries, protecting the company from discrimination lawsuits, fulfilling requirements by human-resources departments, identifying potentially promising recruits for future hiring, pacifying existing employees that the company is looking for extra help, or retaining desirable employees. Many companies actually prefer to hire by word of mouth or internally in order to save time and cut cost. They may also use this strategy to gather information regarding their competitors' wages. This type of false advertisement has occurred in many countries, including the United States. Fake advertisements have been discovered using the promise of remote work as "bait". This is considered a rising trend and it underscores the relative power of the employers in the job market. These type of job ads may have catchy titles, vague descriptions, or a lack of detail; or may be full reposts of previous job ads.

According to the career coaching service SamNova, a fake job listing can often be spotted as one that is either continuously open or repeatedly posted.

A survey conducted by Clarify Capital has concluded that many companies have tricked job seekers with fake ads without the intent of hiring.