19% of Job Postings Were Ghost Jobs Last Quarter as Recruiters Hit 291 Applications Per Hire

According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, around 19% of jobs advertised on digital job boards in the second quarter were ghost jobs, based on an analysis by the hiring platform Greenhouse of its clients' job postings. In as many as one in five cases, the company has no real intention of filling the supposed opening. At Metaintro, we think the more useful part of that finding is the definition behind it, because it tells you exactly what to look for before you spend an evening on a cover letter.

What counts as a ghost job in this measurement?

Something specific rather than something suspected. The Greenhouse analysis counted any posting that received at least one application but led to no hiring activity such as job-test submissions or scheduled interviews. That is a behavioural test applied to the employer's own system, not a judgment about intent, which is what makes the 19% figure more solid than the usual estimates circulating about fake listings.

It also means the number is measuring something slightly different from what most job seekers picture. A ghost job in this data is not necessarily an advert for a role that never existed. It is an advert that drew applicants and then produced nothing on the employer's side. That includes roles quietly frozen after posting, roles filled internally without the ad being taken down, and roles kept live to collect candidates. The common thread is that the applicant's time was spent and nothing happened.

Employers post these for reasons that are mostly mundane. Some post less-than-real ads to build a pipeline for jobs that might open up someday, or in case they attract a candidate too good to pass up. Job seekers theorise about worse motives, including posting fake roles to convince investors and employees that a company is healthy and growing, or to harvest data. The practice is growing as it becomes faster, cheaper and easier for employers to post jobs online.

Why does a slow response not prove a job is fake?

Because the volume has changed underneath the process. Axios reports that recruiters now process roughly 291 applications per hire, compared with roughly 100 in early 2021. That is close to a tripling of the pile for every single role filled, and it is the simplest explanation for most silences. A team receiving 291 applications for one opening will fail to respond to almost all of them regardless of intent.

That distinction matters for your own morale and your own strategy. A Harvard career advisor told Axios that burnout is absolutely happening, and described a shift from ordinary job search burnout into "systemic cynicism" where candidates assume that every posting is fake and every rejection is automated, producing what he called a collapse of trust in the labor market. If four in five postings are real, treating all of them as fake costs you the four. The accurate response to a 19% rate is to screen listings, not to stop applying.

It is also worth separating the two problems, because they need different responses. Ghost listings are an employer conduct problem, and the fix for those is regulatory and reputational. Application volume is a market problem, and the fix for that is strategic, meaning fewer and better-targeted applications plus routes that avoid the queue. Treating both as one undifferentiated wall of silence is what produces the paralysis, and it also leads people to blame themselves for a response rate that was never within their control. Metaintro looked at how candidates are adapting to automated screening in what hidden resume prompt injection reveals about AI screeners.

How do you tell a real listing from a ghost one?

Look for signals of process rather than signals of intent, since intent is invisible and process is not. Reposting is the clearest one. One job seeker profiled in the reporting described applying, receiving no response, and then noticing the ad soon reposted, which is the visible fingerprint of a listing that is collecting rather than hiring.

Three checks are worth making before you invest real time. First, look at how long the ad has been live and whether the same role has appeared repeatedly over months, since a genuine opening usually resolves. Second, look for evidence that the employer is actually running a process, such as a stated hiring timeline, a named hiring manager or a described interview sequence. Legislators in New York and Pennsylvania have proposed bills this year that would require employers to list hiring timelines and remove job ads after roles are filled, which tells you that the absence of a timeline is a recognised warning sign. Third, prioritise roles where you can reach a person, because a ghost listing rarely survives contact with someone who owns the role.

Metaintro has covered the wider problem of a job search where the signals have stopped working in how to spot a real job posting and in how employers are rebuilding interviews after flagging AI use.

What is the real cost to job seekers?

Measured in months and savings rather than in irritation. The reporting profiles a 44-year-old marketing professional in the Austin area who has been looking for work since her last contract role ended in May 2025. She has applied for more than 3,000 jobs while slowly draining the nearly 40,000 dollars in savings she once had, has cut down on meals, and is moving in with her father to stretch her money further.

Her question about the process is the one that should be put to employers directly. "If you've posted a job and you have 500 applicants, are you telling me not one or two or three are qualified? Are you looking for a unicorn? Or is it not a real job?" That is not cynicism. It is a reasonable inference from a system that takes applications and returns nothing, and it is exactly the inference the Greenhouse definition was built to test.

The cost compounds because of how the search now works. With 291 applications per hire, the rational individual response is to apply to more roles, which increases the pile, which lowers the response rate further. Ghost listings sit inside that loop and make it worse, because they absorb applications and return nothing by design.

Why are lawmakers getting involved?

Because the frustration has become political, and the remedies proposed are administrative rather than punitive. That anger is now spilling over into state legislatures, where lawmakers around the country are trying to stop the practice. Bills in New York and Pennsylvania would require employers to list hiring timelines and remove job ads after roles are filled.

The New York bill has been approved by both houses of the legislature and calls for employers to disclose when they expect an advertised role to be filled, with fines for violations. A spokeswoman for the state governor said she will review the legislation when it reaches her desk. In Pennsylvania, the bill moved to the state House's Labor and Industry Committee in the spring. A member of Pennsylvania's House of Representatives whose bill would require accurate hiring intentions and timelines put the principle simply, saying that when people are putting the time and effort into applying, there is a reasonable expectation that there is a job out there. Metaintro covered the New York effort in detail in what job seekers gain from New York's new ghost jobs law.

Do ghost jobs distort the job market numbers?

Not the official ones, and that is worth knowing if you follow labour data. Ghost jobs generally do not show up in government labor statistics, which are based on surveys that ask employers to include only jobs that could start within 30 days and for which they are actively recruiting outside candidates. In June, US job openings slipped to 7.4 million according to the Labor Department.

What that means in practice is that the official openings figure and the experience of scrolling a job board are measuring different things. The government number is closer to real demand. The board is closer to marketing. If your sense of the market comes from how many listings you can see, you are reading an inflated signal, and the gap between the two is roughly the phenomenon this research measured.

Even genuine openings often fail to convert. The head of market strategy for the Americas at a talent management firm noted that there is a lot of economic uncertainty, which has employers sometimes pausing jobs, holding them, or rethinking them, with a job that was approved suddenly not approved, or being filled internally rather than externally. That is a real opening becoming a dead end without anyone intending to deceive.

What should you actually do about it?

Change where your effort goes rather than how much of it you spend. If roughly one in five listings will return nothing and each real role carries 291 applicants, then volume is the weakest available strategy. The stronger one is to spend the same hours on fewer, better-verified applications and on routes that bypass the queue entirely.

Concretely, that means three shifts. Reduce the number of cold applications and raise the quality of each, since a tailored application to a verified opening beats ten to unverified ones. Spend a meaningful share of your search time on direct contact with people who own hiring for the role, because a ghost listing cannot survive that conversation and a real one gets accelerated by it. And keep a simple log of where you applied, when, and whether the ad reappeared, which turns a demoralising blur into data about which employers are worth your time. That log is also the fastest way to spot a repeat offender, since the same employer reposting the same role across several months is the pattern the Greenhouse definition is built to catch. Reading the posting itself carefully helps too, as Metaintro sets out in how to read a wide salary range in a job posting, where vagueness in one part of an ad often signals vagueness in the rest of it. Metaintro's guides to what you can negotiate when the salary will not move and jobs that do not follow the nine to five are useful once you reach a real conversation.

What does this mean for your career?

The most important correction here is against despair rather than against employers. A 19% ghost rate is a serious problem and it is also a minority of listings. The collapse of trust described by the career advisor quoted in Axios, where candidates assume every posting is fake and every rejection automated, is a rational reaction to the experience and a poor guide to behaviour, because it leads people to stop applying to the majority of roles that are genuine.

The second point is for anyone who hires. If your organisation leaves filled roles posted, keeps pipeline ads live, or lets approved roles sit frozen without removing the listing, you are contributing to this measurement and to the erosion of trust behind it. With legislation advancing in more than one state, the administrative cost of fixing that is about to become smaller than the cost of not fixing it. Publishing an expected timeline and removing ads promptly is a low-effort change that makes an employer immediately more credible to the candidates it actually wants.

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People Also Asked

Q: What percentage of job postings are ghost jobs?

A: Around 19% of jobs advertised on digital job boards in the second quarter, according to Greenhouse's analysis of its clients' postings. The measure counts any posting that received at least one application but produced no hiring activity, meaning no job-test submissions and no scheduled interviews. That is roughly one in five listings.

Q: Why do companies post jobs they do not intend to fill?

A: Some post to build a pipeline for roles that might open later, or in case an exceptional candidate applies. Job seekers also suspect employers of signalling growth to investors and staff, or of harvesting data. Separately, genuine roles get paused, frozen or filled internally without the advert being removed, which produces the same result for applicants.

Q: Is it worth applying if so many listings are fake?

A: Yes, because roughly four in five are real. The bigger obstacle is competition rather than deception, with recruiters processing around 291 applications per hire against roughly 100 in early 2021. The better response is to apply to fewer roles with more care and to seek direct contact with whoever owns the hiring.

Applying into a queue of 291 is a poor use of your evening, and a fake listing is a worse one. Metaintro surfaces verified openings from employers who are actively hiring, so your applications land where a real process exists. Create a free profile and spend your search time on roles that are actually being filled.