Ghost Jobs in 2025: The Listings That Lead Nowhere

If you've been job hunting lately, you’ve probably experienced it: you find a role that looks like a perfect match. You research the company, tailor your resume, and write a thoughtful cover letter. You hit "Apply", and then… nothing. Not even a rejection. Just silence.

You just applied for a ghost job, a job posting that was never meant to be filled.

In 2025, ghost jobs will no longer be the exception. They’ve become a frustratingly common part of the job market, and they're wasting the time and energy of millions of serious candidates each month.

Let’s talk about how BIG the problem is………

Recent data paints a sobering picture. A study published in January 2025 by Clarify Capital found that nearly 1 in 3 employers admit to posting job listings even when they have no intention of hiring. These roles are left up for weeks or months, sometimes indefinitely, because companies want to build a pipeline of talent “just in case,” create the perception of growth, or meet internal requirements for job posting activity, especially in large bureaucracies.

Greenhouse, a major recruiting platform, reported that between 18% and 22% of job listings on its site in early 2025 showed no hiring activity at all. In other words, almost a quarter of the roles posted on one of the most widely used (ATS) applicant tracking system platforms had no real plan behind them. When you consider that over 600,000 job listings may go live each month across top platforms, that translates to more than 100,000 ghost jobs posted monthly.

It’s not just anonymous surveys confirming the trend. Recruiters themselves are speaking up. According to a report cited by The Everygirl, an incredible 81% of recruiters have admitted to posting ghost jobs at least once in their careers. Many confess it’s a standard practice to “keep options open” or to “see what talent is out there,” even when no real opening exists.

Why Ghost Jobs Exist

The motivations for ghost postings aren’t always nefarious, but they are problematic. Some companies post jobs to prepare for future hiring needs or to gather resumes for internal benchmarking. Others want to give the impression that business is booming. In large corporations, job postings may be a bureaucratic requirement for internal promotions, jobs are advertised externally, but are already earmarked for an internal hire. Smaller companies sometimes keep listings up out of habit or neglect, without updating their career pages for months.

In an economic environment that remains uncertain, some employers keep job descriptions live as a hedge, ready to act if budgets are approved or headcounts are restored. But to job seekers, none of that context is clear. All they see is a promising opportunity that seems to disappear into thin air.

The Toll on Job Seekers

For candidates, ghost jobs can be emotionally and professionally draining. Applicants invest hours into preparing materials, researching organizations, and going through multiple rounds of interviews, only to find out that the role was never truly open in the first place.

This contributes to a phenomenon that many job seekers are calling “application fatigue.” It also undermines trust in employers and the platforms that host their listings. If too many roles are fake, how do you know which ones are real? It's no surprise that candidates are becoming increasingly skeptical and cautious.

To make matters worse, ghost jobs distort the labor market data that job seekers, economists, and even governments rely on. When thousands of open roles are listed but never filled, it creates a false sense of opportunity and growth.

Can You Spot a Ghost?

So, how can candidates protect themselves? While there’s no foolproof way to identify a ghost job, there are a few telltale signs. Listings that have been posted for more than 30 days without updates, roles that don’t appear on the company’s official website, and job descriptions that seem overly vague or recycled can all be red flags.

Cross-referencing a job post with a company’s LinkedIn page or Glassdoor reviews can also provide valuable insight. Has the company recently announced layoffs or a hiring freeze? Are employees commenting online about how long roles stay open without action? These are clues worth paying attention to.

Another helpful tip is to look for “verified” or “active” job labels on platforms like LinkedIn or Greenhouse, which are beginning to implement transparency tools to flag stale or ghost listings. But until job boards and ATS platforms adopt strict posting standards, job seekers will still be left to fend for themselves.

But here’s the problem with all the research you have to do to “validate” or “Authenticate” a job posting, it’s the same or more time than you would take in preparing for the application.  You will put in a lot of time and effort to personally prove that one specific job is a “Ghost Job”, to what avail?  You can’t exactly report the job. 

A Call for CHANGE, and Smarter Job Searching

Ghost jobs are a symptom of a larger issue: a hiring process that’s broken, inefficient, and increasingly out of step with the needs of both employers and job seekers. Heck, it’s a job market if you include the increase in scams, which is downright predatory.  While companies have their reasons, the practice of posting jobs that don’t exist is eroding trust and adding unnecessary stress to an already broken system.

As a job seeker, your time is too valuable to waste. Focus your energy on roles that are recent, clearly defined, and confirmed on a company’s official career site. When possible, reach out directly to hiring managers or employees to validate the role’s legitimacy. Most of all, be discerning, and don’t take silence as a reflection of your worth.

The best way to beat the ghost job game? Search smarter. Build relationships. And never stop advocating for transparency in the hiring process.