You are actively looking for a job, so send your resumes to suitable openings at various job portals. In this search, you might come across some ghost jobs. They are demotivating and definitely waste your time, meaning you truly want to stay away from those. The first step is to find them immediately.
Well, if you are not familiar with ghost jobs, the simplest definition is that they are openings that show that there’s an opening, but the company has no actual vacancies. In some cases, they are already filled. Whatever the case is, ghost jobs are manipulative and can hurt candidates’ confidence and time.
How To Spot & Avoid Ghost Jobs?
Your time is valuable, especially when you are actively seeking the right opportunities. In this section, we will discuss how to spot and avoid ghost jobs so you can move on to the job that is right for you.
1. Research about the job opening and the company
After finding a job vacancy on the job portal, the first thing you can do is check the hiring company’s site. Go through the ‘career’ section and see if there are vacancies for the same role. If you don’t see any details, this might be a ghost job. To confirm it further, you can approach a hiring department, mail them, and inquire about this particular vacancy.
2. Be careful with the job description – read it again!
It won’t take much time to identify ghost jobs if you carefully check the job description and details in those posts in the first place. Most ghost jobs have no structured job description, qualifications, or anything else. Their description and details look too standard, as if they weren’t prepared genuinely or formally. In some cases, the ghost job posters don’t even share the company details or the employee benefits and don’t specify the work details.
Also read: Trending Jobs for Immigrants in Canada
3. You should avoid jobs that ask for money to get jobs
Ghost jobs are not only jobs that are already filled or are no longer active. But some jobs are fake or scams. After sending your application or inquiring about the role, if you are asked to transfer some money to get the job, you feel it right that it’s a ghost job. You must avoid recruitment companies that ask for money in exchange for a job.
4. Contact the hiring company or recruitment agency directly
If you have doubts or feel suspicious, contact the company and ask about the opening. That’s it. If you want to apply for the job and find that the posts have been live for a very long time, mail them and check if the opening is going on. If there is an opening, the HR will share the details about the application process and so on when it’s not a ghost job.
5. If you get no response after frequent follow-up, it’s a ghost job
You were so excited while applying for the job, but then you got no response from the hiring company or the recruiter who posted it. You call or mail them, but there’s nothing from the other end. Even if you try to contact them via LinkedIn, there’s no response at all. So far, you know that you’ve found yourself a ghost job. Instead of wasting more time, move on to the next opportunity.
6 Those job postings that are always active
Do you ever get updates on the job opening in your messages or emails that keep repeating every few months? Well, that’s the ghost job right there. Twenty-seven percent of ghost jobs stay active for more than four months. You can easily spot a ghost job by looking at the time they are active and showing up too frequently. The longer they are active, say for months or more, the more likely it is a ghost job.
Final Thoughts
You might come across a few ghost jobs that you were or are hoping to get a response from. But instead of complaining about the ghost jobs and feeling negative anyway, the better approach is to learn how to spot and avoid the ghost jobs in the first place.
You must find your dream job patiently and smartly as a job seeker. With the helpful ways we shared in this post, we are sure that you understand how to stay away from ghost jobs that are there to waste your time and nothing else. Keep your job search going actively and positively because there are some good jobs for you.
