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Ghost jobs haunt candidates amid a spooky job market

Some companies often use such job postings to create a façade of growth or collect resumes for future openings. Here we tell you how to spot these ghosts, and avoid them.

July 24, 2023 / 10:23 IST
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Staffing major Randstad says there were close to 11 million job openings at the beginning of the year, and of these, about 4,00,000 may be ghost jobs. Such jobs are typically open for a month or more. (Illustration by Suneesh Kalarickal)

Yukti Saxena* was approached for a position at a multinational consulting firm in May via an online job portal. She went through the usual HR hoops, and after a month-long process, she was eventually told that she had been selected. However, she never got an official confirmation by email. The communication mostly happened over calls.

She followed up for at least a month, but failed to connect with any of the three HR people she had dealt with. In the second week of July, nearly 50 days since the process began, she was told that she had been shortlisted for another role as the earlier role was already filled.

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“I felt betrayed, but what choice did I have?” Saxena said, adding that she is yet to receive further updates on the alternative position.

In what may be resurrection of an earlier trend, staffing experts say Saxena may be a victim of a ghost job. The term has been resurrected this year, when firms big and small have been on a layoff spree.