Ghost Jobs

This is my June 7, 2026 update to this web page and the corresponding video. There is no danger of this topic becoming irrelevant any time soon, so there will be many updates to come!

Introduction

During the Covid-19 lockdown, I listened to old Art Bell content to entertain myself. Employment postings share at least one important characteristic with content from the late Art Bell:
Much of the content of both is fiction.
Whether you are listening to an Art Bell podcast or reading an employment posting, you will be well served by trying to understand which of the following categories it falls into:

With respect to employment posts, many posts fall into one of the 3 categories below:

Ghost jobs and scam jobs are similar in that neither will lead to actual legitimate employment.
This web page will focus ghost jobs.
I have other web pages and videos that address scams.
As you read through the sections below, you will come to better understand the concept of ghost jobs.

Definition

My definition of ghost jobs is:
Advertisements from actual organizations which do employ people, but which do not intend to hire anyone from the resumes collected from a given advertisement.
Ghost jobs are far more frightening than any of the paranormal themes discussed by Art Bell.
You may have been with a friend or relative who observed a ghost job ad and he or she thought that the advertiser was sincerely searching for employees.

Ghost Job Versus No-Show Jobs

"Ghost job" is short for "ghost job advertisement".
There may or may not be several rounds of interviews for a given ghost job.
For a ghost job, you should neither expect to become employed, nor receive a paycheck.
This is in contrast to a "no-show job".
With a no-show job, you are not expected to have to show up for work, but you do receive a paycheck.

Internal Candidate

The reality is that even if an advertisement is posted to a website that the general public can view, a company may have already identified the person to be hired before the ad was posted.

Newspaper And Radio Advertisements

Before the internet, newspaper advertisements were an important source of leads for employment.
While less likely to be used for individual jobs, job fairs were advertised on radio.
In 2026, do not necessarily outright dismiss the idea of finding employment leads from newspapers and radio.
However, be aware that the goal of a newspaper or radio advertisement may not be to find candidates, but rather to demonstrate that there are no suitable candidates.
Even on your local "America First" themed A.M. radio station, especially during non-peak hours, you may hear advertisements which were placed in support of helping people get green cards.
In such cases, the advertisements will usually be short, and direct listeners to a post office box.
The goal of such advertisements is to demonstrate that no qualified candidates could be found.
If a member of the general public does apply to such an advertisement, the goal of the organization that paid for the advertisement will be to disqualify him or her.

Ghost Jobs Versus Ghosting

My definition of ghosting is that someone had a legitimate expectation to receive feedback in some situation, but he or she did not receive feedback.
If a man messages a woman on a dating website and she does not message him back, that is not ghosting.
The man had no basis for expecting a reply.
With a ghost job, ideally you will not be invited to an interview.
A properly prepared applicant should be aware that any one job advertisement may prove to be a ghost job until presented with evidence that it is not.
Unfortunately, with some ghost jobs there may be one or more interviews.
If you go on one or more interviews, you are told that you will receive an answer by such and such date, but on such and such date there is no communication, then you have been ghosted.
In the above scenario, YOU were ghosted, but we do not have enough information to know whether the job was a ghost job.

Conclusion

I have several friends who told me that into the 1990's, they would work a contract software development job for 6 months, travel for several months after the contract job ended, then find a new contract job.
Postings for ghost jobs might suggest an unrealistic glimmer of hope that doing that is still possible.
Even if the total number of ghost job does not increase, as the number of legitimate job opportunities continues to fall, ghost jobs will be a growing percentage of the total number of job postings.
People who refuse to acknowledge the large number of ghost jobs may turn down job offers due to a fantasy that they might get hired for other jobs.