A fake job, ghost job, or phantom job is a
job posting for a non-existent or already filled position.
The employer may post fake job opening listings for many reasons, such as inflating statistics about their industries, protecting the company from discrimination lawsuits, fulfilling requirements by human-resources departments, identifying potentially promising recruits for future hiring, pacifying existing employees that the company is looking for extra help, or retaining desirable employees.
They may also use this strategy to gather information regarding their competitors'
wages.
There is a rising trend in employers promising
remote work as "bait," and it underscores the relative power of the employers in the
job market.
According to the
career coaching service SamNova, a fake job listing can often be spotted as one that is either continuously open or repeatedly posted. These listings may have catchy titles, vague descriptions, a lack of detail, or contain reposts of previous listings.
A survey conducted by Clarify Capital has concluded that many companies and government entities have tricked job seekers with fake ads without the intent of hiring.
In 2025 a Greenhouse study showed at least one in five job postings is fake or never filled.
See also
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Employment fraud
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Featherbedding
Featherbedding is the practice of hiring more workers than are needed to perform a given job, or to adopt work procedures which appear pointless, complex and time-consuming merely to employ additional workers. The term " make-work" is sometimes us ...
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Recruitment advertising
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Sinecure
A sinecure ( or ; from the Latin , 'without', and , 'care') is a position with a salary or otherwise generating income that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service. The term originated in the medieval church, ...
References
Employment classifications
Work
Deception
Recruitment
E-recruitment
Confidence tricks
Psychological manipulation
Fraud
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