# What are ghost jobs, and how do you spot one? Source: https://glide.work/guides/what-are-ghost-jobs Published: 2026-11-13 Updated: 2026-11-13 [Guides](https://glide.work/guides) # What are ghost jobs, and how do you spot one? By [Shubhankar Kahali](https://glide.work/company) Reviewed 13 November 2026 4 min read The short answer A ghost job is a posting an employer is not actively hiring for: a role already filled, frozen, kept open to collect resumes, or posted for compliance. There is no reliable measure of how many exist. The best evidence says about 1 in 7 US postings stays up longer than 30 days and roughly 1 in 10 open roles is paused, pulled or never filled. The viral claim that 18 to 30% of postings are fake does not hold up. You find a role that fits, spend an evening on the application and hear nothing. Weeks later the posting is still up. Often the cause is ordinary: a slow process, a crowded pile. Sometimes there was never a live vacancy behind the listing at all. That is a ghost job. ## What counts as a ghost job “Ghost job” covers several different things, and most are not fraud: - **Evergreen postings.** Roles a company always wants candidates for, kept open permanently to build a pipeline. - **Filled but not removed.** The hire was made and nobody took the listing down. - **Frozen or cancelled roles.** Budget was pulled after the posting went live. - **Duplicates.** One vacancy, reposted across boards and scraped by aggregators. - **Compliance postings.** A role posted publicly because a policy requires it, with a candidate already chosen. - **Data collection.** Listings that exist to gather resumes or gauge the market. All of them inflate the number of openings beyond real recruiting activity. ## How common ghost jobs really are Less common than the headlines say, and more common than you would like. Our [2026 labour market study](https://glide.work/research/the-2026-labour-market) reviewed the evidence: - About **1 in 7 US postings (14%)** stays active for more than 30 days, in a study of 175,000 listings. That is an upper bound on stale postings, not a count of fake ones. - About **82% of open roles led to a real hire** in 2024, and about 10% were paused, pulled or never filled, in an analysis of one hiring platform’s customers. - The **St. Louis Fed** concluded in November 2025 that a large and rising share of postings target people who already have jobs, or are inactive. - The widely shared figure that **18 to 30% of postings are fake** comes from surveys nobody has replicated. We do not use it. The defensible summary: posting counts overstate real hiring, most of all for white-collar, remote and entry-level roles. Treat a job board as a signal of interest, not a list of vacancies. ## Seven signs a posting may be a ghost job No single sign is proof. Two or three together are a reason to move on. - **It has been up for more than a month,** or keeps being reposted with a fresh date. - **The same role appears in many cities at once** with identical text. - **The description is generic:** no team, no manager, no specifics about the work. - **It is not on the company’s own careers page.** Third-party listings outlive the real ones. - **The company has announced layoffs or a hiring freeze** since the posting went up. - **Nobody at the company is talking about the role.** Real openings usually have a recruiter or manager attached. - **The posting says “always accepting applications”** or names no start date. ## What to do about it Apply early. A posting that is days old is far more likely to be live than one that is weeks old, and early applicants are read first. Check the source. Find the role on the employer’s own site before you spend time on it. If it is not there, it is probably gone. Look at the company, not only the posting. Is headcount growing? Has it hired for this team lately? How long do its roles usually stay open? This is the research an [AI career agent](https://glide.work/guides/what-is-an-ai-career-agent) does for every role before you commit: [Glide](https://glide.work/) pulls a company’s hiring speed, growth and pay alongside each match, so a stale listing at a shrinking company shows up as exactly that. And write to a person. A short note to the recruiter or hiring manager tells you in a day what a silent application portal never will. ## Common questions ### Are ghost jobs illegal? Mostly no. Leaving a filled role online or keeping an evergreen posting is not unlawful in most places. Some jurisdictions have begun to require more disclosure in job adverts, and a posting used to deceive or to collect data under false pretences can break consumer or privacy law. ### Why do companies post jobs they are not hiring for? The usual reasons are mundane: building a pipeline for future roles, forgetting to close a listing, a budget freeze after posting, or a policy that requires a public advert. Few companies set out to mislead, but the effect on candidates is the same. ### How many job postings are fake? Nobody knows precisely. The strongest evidence suggests around 1 in 7 postings is stale and about 1 in 10 open roles never results in a hire. Claims of 18 to 30% come from unreplicated surveys. ### Can I tell how long a job has been posted? Often, yes. Many boards show a posting date, and the employer’s own careers page is the most reliable record. A date that keeps refreshing on a board while the text never changes is itself a warning sign. ## Keep reading [Why am I not hearing back from job applications? Most applications never get a reply. Here are the six usual reasons, from application volume to ghost jobs, and what to change so more of yours are answered. 4 min read](https://glide.work/guides/why-no-reply-to-job-applications)[How many job applications does it take to get a job? Employers now process roughly 300 applications per hire, about triple 2021. What that means for one candidate, and how to need fewer applications. 4 min read](https://glide.work/guides/how-many-job-applications-to-get-a-job)[Does an ATS reject resumes automatically? Applicant tracking systems parse, rank and route resumes. What an ATS really does, where candidates get filtered out, and how to write for one. 4 min read](https://glide.work/guides/does-ats-reject-resumes) Glide is the agent on your side of hiring. See [what it does](https://glide.work/), [how it compares](https://glide.work/compare) and [the research behind it](https://glide.work/research/the-2026-labour-market). Join in ## Your invitation is waiting to be written. An invitation Glide, by invitation only You are invited. To whoever is looking for work, Every piece of hiring software was built for the company doing the hiring. Glide is the other side: an agent that works for you, from finding the role to handling what comes back. We let people in a few hundred at a time, every Friday. Leave your email and we will write the moment your spot opens. Your agent starts the same day. Shubhankar Kahali Founder of Glide Admits One person You, and the agent that works for you. Opens On a Friday New spots open every week. Begins The same day Your agent starts as soon as you are in. Costs you One email To get in line. No card, no form. RSVP Already on the list? [Sign in](https://glide.work/login)