It’s annoyingly common for job hunters to be ghosted.

But have you ever suspected the role you’ve spent all that time and energy applying for might not even exist?

‘Ghost jobs’ – positions that are non-existent or have already been filled – have come under the spotlight recently, with some commentators claiming up to 30 per cent of job ads might be fake.

Others argue the illegal practice is almost impossible to measure, but should not be a huge cause for alarm.

HR consultant Jess Gleeson, of Becoming HR, believes the tactic is becoming outdated thanks to the transparency of social media, and sites such as Glassdoor, where staff can rate their employers.

Common reasons

But she says there are common reasons an employer or recruiter might advertise a fake job.

The first is to gather resumes that they can keep on file when they need to fill genuine positions quickly in the future.

“It also aids in creating the perspective that they are a growing business, particularly if they have another actual role advertised,” Gleeson said.

Employers might also be checking the talent in the market, and benchmarking that against existing employees’ experience and skills, says Gleeson. Or using a questionable approach to gathering resumes to meet their diversity quota.

Then there’s employers who create such ads to give their overworked staff the (false) illusion that help is on the way.

Transparency vital

Gleeson steered one client away from their plans to advertise a ghost job, which she says would have gone against the significant amount of time and money that company had spent on building a culture of trust and transparency.

A spokesperson for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, says under Australian consumer law, businesses are prohibited from misleading consumers about the availability, nature, terms or conditions of employment.

“Publishers are also responsible for identifying, monitoring and removing fake or misleading job advertisements appearing on their platforms.”

Meanwhile, the Fair Work Ombudsman has announced a crackdown on job ads that offer illegally low rates of pay, with employers hit with more than $89,000 in fines since March last year.

The regulator will write to major online job websites asking them to do better in stopping “dodgy” ads before they appear.

Database building

As for ghost jobs, Catherine Harris, the managing director of Project Roar, says while they may be illegal, they are out there.

She has seen recruiters, particularly junior ones, using ghost job ads to build their database after moving into new or smaller agencies.

“There’s no jobs on their books. They’re just trying to create activity,” Harris said.

She’s dubious about estimates on the percentage of ghost jobs.

“The thing is, it’s secret, right? Nobody would ever talk about that. So how would you ever really know?”

Harris says some employers use ghost jobs to gauge the availability of certain skillsets for their workforce planning, causing frustration for job seekers.

Try to ignore

Recruiter Hilary Callaghan believes candidates shouldn’t get too caught up in the idea of ghost jobs.

“The hysteria around it is bigger than the problem itself. You can tie yourself in knots trying to work it out, but is that best for your job search?”

However Callaghan understands why candidates might not believe some jobs are not real.

One is that some of the bigger job boards crawl company websites and repost the jobs, or “orphaned ghost jobs”.

“And that means that the recruiter or the person managing it can’t actually delete that job ad.”

In other cases, an increase of layoffs, including within recruitment teams, might be making the process slower. And many companies haven’t developed a robust process that ensures candidates receive an answer.

Warning signs

Commonly, the advice on spotting a ghost job centres around watching out for ads that are more than 30 days’ old, and which are vague on details such as salary, location, the nature of the work and a contact person.

However, Callaghan says the 30-day rule is an unhelpful generalisation.

Apart from busy recruitment teams, there are other reasons why an ad may have been up for a good while.

“If we look at some of the larger tech organisations, they have evergreen adverts. We know that we’re always hiring a senior software engineer, so we keep this generic one up.”

Back-up option

Likewise, an employer or recruiter might keep up a job ad after someone has been chosen for the position just in case they pull out.

If in doubt, it never hurts to do some quick due diligence, such as cross-referencing the job ad on other platforms, such as the company’s website or its LinkedIn page, experts say.

However Harris believes candidates should not spend too much time worrying whether a job is an apparition.

She suggests assuming that the position you want is real, and pouncing quickly on any role you’re interested in.

“In this market particularly, you’ve got to go for every job that you can because it’s a bit of a numbers game.”