Employers Advertising Jobs That Don't Exist in Reality

Our "economic recovery" here in the United States is a gigantic joke....one perpetrated on the citizens, who grow more frustrated by the day. The mainstream media continually tells us that we are in a recovery and the job numbers support this. But it is becoming increasingly obvious that the jobs and unemployment numbers from the government are a lie.

The quarterly jobs report, which they release every three months, typically claims that a certain number of jobs in certain sectors were added. Ever think where they get these numbers from? From actual people that were hired, or from the advertising of these jobs?

They get their numbers from the advertising of the jobs, NOT from the actual hiring. Consider the following:

An odd puzzle is taking shape in the labor market: Over the past three years, the number of job openings has risen almost 50 percent, but actual hiring has gone up by less than 5 percent. Companies are advertising a lot more jobs, in other words, but not filling them.

www.bloomberg.com...

Therefore, when they come out crowing about a glowing jobs report, claiming all these jobs were added, it doesn't mean squat to real people and the real economy if they're not going to actually fill these jobs!! So many people are taking the time to apply online for positions (which, if you've done it, you know it takes forever to do correctly), only to find out that the job applied for isn't actually open or available at that time.

Here's their excuse: It's called "recruiting intensity". Recruiting and attracting a bunch of people they have NO intention of hiring. They claim they're simply creating a "talent pool" to be chosen from at a later date....say, 6 months or longer. HOW IS THIS FAIR?? Should they not simply state that they are collecting resumes to choose from in the future, if there actually is an opening?? Is it not false advertising (not to mention creating a great deal of false hope and frustration) to say that there is an opening they are hiring for?

Here's a little anecdotal ditty from a site called Snagajob.com:

“Don’t give up job seekers, apply for everything. I got the job I wanted, 3 months after I applied. My employer says they advertise for jobs, even when they don’t need someone, then SAVE the resumes until they are ready to hire. Before that, I got a call back on a job I had applied for 6 months earlier. (I just wasn’t ready to commit at the time they called back.)

www.snagajob.com...

Now, I don't know about y'all, but I find it dishonest and downright mean to advertise for a job they don't even have available. Most people need a job NOW when they're looking....they don't need to wait 6 months to a year until that particular employer gets around to maybe needing somebody. I think it's actually a very cruel process, and leads many people to feel hopeless and angry. Not to mention a rather stupid waste of time for the HR departments in these companies, who are collecting resumes and applications from people who may or may not be available many months later.

Here is where I feel there is a government conspiracy: It is my personal feeling that many companies are encouraged by the government to do this, because it makes the jobs numbers look high, and perhaps these companies even get a little reward in the form of tax subsidies for what basically amounts to false advertising. To have a 50% increase on jobs being advertised, but only 5% are actually filled, tells me that these companies are playing a game to make it look like we're on the road to recovery, and happy days are here again.

As we all know, money talks and BS walks. As far as I can tell, there is a deafening silence in our economy among the unemployed, and an awful lot of BS walking around in the help wanted sites.

reply to post by FissionSurplus

Well, I guess it is fair play since I send CVs to jobs I don't intend to accept.

I do it to see if their director has been fired so I can sell them real software. Most experienced developers have no intention of warming a chair at mediocre rates.

I don't know what your field is but I had a thread that addressed this from my perspective:

Lack of talent to fill software development jobs? Or lack of willingness to hire veteran developers.

Greetings,

Those fake jobs are the "green shoots of recovery" that "Don't-Drone-Me-Barry" has been talking about.

(Unless you include NSA disinfo jobs...THOSE are real!)

-Amitaba-

reply to post by greencmp


I'm seeing the same things in the systems administration side of things.

"Oh really, you want someone with 3+ years of experience, a MSITP, CCNA, and VCP... yet you're only offering 30k - 50k a year? Please tell me more about how you don't have a redundant infrastructure that is just going to give me nightmares."

Hi fissionsurplus, havent seen you around for a while!

Its the same here in the uk. Over here employment agencies are responsible for about 90% of the advertised jobs, and MOST of them are bogus. When I was out of work and visiting the jobcenter I was asked several times to apply for jobs. I asked them whats the point of applying for a job that doesnt exist? Each time the adviser sat back in their chair speechless. I'd then get them to list up the jobs on their pc and I'd show them the phone numbers were the same for nearly every job advertised, I'd then tell them to search for the last two months and sure enough the same phone numbers came up time and again.
This is a real problem for the unemployed, not just because it wastes their time, but also because it makes everyone believe there's plenty of jobs, so if you havent got one, it must be because your not trying hard enough.

reply to post by FissionSurplus


Companies do run ads with the intention of filling their “future” pipeline of candidates even though they may not have current staffing needs. Sometimes employers run ads for certain positions before they’re available to get a reading on the market. They’re interested in how hard it is to find specific skills or how many applicants respond.

Living in Las Vegas I see this all the time with the Strip jobs. For example, the MGM website has jobs listed but you can only apply for one at a time. I have been doing this for five years and only got one phone call for an interview. I'm quite sure most of the jobs they list on their website are fake.

Of course, not every job posting is fake, but the people I talk to here in Vegas tell me most of them are. One person even told me that she thinks the government is paying Vegas casinos to post fake jobs. I'm not sure how that works, or if it is just a crazy conspiracy theory, but if the evidence were to surface it wouldn't surprise me.

Conspiracy or not that story has good memes and when I tell people about this rumor the response is always the same, people say: "I believe it." The fact is no one trusts the system anymore, there is no such thing as job security and everyone feels they are being lied to and deceived at every turn.

So THAT'S what's going on! I've been getting calls lately to interview for jobs I applied for months ago & have been baffled by it. One of the employers said they intent to hire me but had "no positions available right now." Another one called me today to interview for a position I didn't even apply for, but had submitted my resume way back in May for a completely different position I heard nothing back on.

Well at least now I understand what all this is about. Thanks for posting and clearing that up!

reply to post by greencmp


I read your post, very interesting. My husband is looking for work as a data base administrator, and I do social work. I'm not seeing a problem in social services, but in his field (IT), it appears that a lot of these are phantom jobs which don't exist....or if they do, as you said, the pay is pretty darned low.

reply to post by FissionSurplus


Also, the practice of hiring a pre-qualified hidden candidate, then still advertising the job as required by law, becoming the norm in corporate business, doesn't help.

Beware the Phantom Job Listing

While this "hidden" job market frustrates applicants, companies point out that it is perfectly legal to hire without advertising a job or to advertise one almost certain to be filled by an insider. They say internal hires generally perform better than external ones, at least initially, as research has shown.

Duncan Mathison , an outplacement executive and co-author of the 2009 book "Unlock the Hidden Job Market," concedes that anything hidden is difficult to measure but, by parsing labor statistics and recruiting surveys, he calculates that around 50% of positions are currently filled on an informal basis

online.wsj.com...

Des

reply to post by Eryiedes


HA! Barry's looking like an economic hero with these numbers, until one looks at them closely and sees that they're as fake as he is.

reply to post by Evil_Santa


You've touched on another issue......the ever-lowering wages while they want a superstar who can shoulder twice the workload and survive on a piss-poor salary.

reply to post by VoidHawk


Voidhawk, you hit the nail on the proverbial head, as usual.

If you're not getting these phantom jobs, it's somehow YOUR fault that you're not getting called back for an interview. I see the articles on Yahoo all the time: "Why you're not getting hired"...."Why you never get called for an interview".....they blame it on the person....like, it's because their resume is substandard.....or the outfit you wore to the interview was not good enough, or perhaps you didn't ask the right questions, or you said the wrong thing.....

People are getting depressed and upset about it, not realizing that it isn't them.....it's a big lie and the jobs are FAKE.

I think it should be illegal to falsely advertise for a job which does NOT exist. If they're going to do that, they should plainly state that there is no opening AT THIS TIME, but they're collecting resumes for the future. But then that wouldn't be counted in the govt's jobs numbers for the quarter, now would it??

reply to post by wasaka


I realize that not every job posting is fake, as is evidenced by my OP stating the statistics that job postings have gone up 50% but the actual jobs being filled is only a tad under 5%......that's a HUGE gap!!

If the government were to actually come out and admit that the real numbers of people actually getting hired are so much lower that what we were led to believe, all hell would break loose.

reply to post by Rockerchic4God


Glad I could clear that up for you! I still think that it should be illegal to advertise for something that doesn't exist. One of my family members used to work for the state, and she said they would advertise for the lower level jobs all the time, with no intention of hiring. Although they needed the manpower, they did not hire anybody, they just advertised and pretended, all the while shifting the work load onto people already overloaded.

So there are two games going here: Some who may NEVER intend to hire, they're just fluffing up the numbers so the Obama Administration looks "successful". The others are taking advantage of the desperation of workers and are collecting resumes so they have a huge pool of candidates to choose from whenever they get around to an opening.

reply to post by Destinyone


Yes, Des, thanks for pointing that out. However, if they know they're going to hire internally, why in the world do they get people's hopes up by advertising the job opening to the general public?? Again, padding the numbers, peddling false hope, or does it give the HR department something to do besides termination paperwork.

FissionSurplus
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

Voidhawk, you hit the nail on the proverbial head, as usual.

If you're not getting these phantom jobs, it's somehow YOUR fault that you're not getting called back for an interview. I see the articles on Yahoo all the time: "Why you're not getting hired"...."Why you never get called for an interview".....they blame it on the person....like, it's because their resume is substandard.....or the outfit you wore to the interview was not good enough, or perhaps you didn't ask the right questions, or you said the wrong thing.....

People are getting depressed and upset about it, not realizing that it isn't them.....it's a big lie and the jobs are FAKE.

I think it should be illegal to falsely advertise for a job which does NOT exist. If they're going to do that, they should plainly state that there is no opening AT THIS TIME, but they're collecting resumes for the future. But then that wouldn't be counted in the govt's jobs numbers for the quarter, now would it??

From a thread I posted Aug 2012. See how it matches with what you just said!

...When we walked into the room we found he’d set up a projection screen. On the screen were the words
PSYCHOLOGY – CHANGING AUTOMATIC RESPONSES.
This set alarm bells ringing in my head, I watched and listened very carefully.
The first thing he said was “It’s your own fault your unemployed, you need to set your sights lower and be prepared to work for less”
He went on to say “The corporations are doing everything they can to help us”
Before he arrived the mood had been quite good because we all thought we were there to get various qualifications or as in my case my tickets renewed but this guy killed that mood straight away.
I watched in disbelief at what was taking place. He was using psychological techniques to change peoples opinion on why we go to work. According to him we go to work for the good of our country and that is it. When I pulled him up on this and told him I go to work to pay my way through life AND be able to afford such things as a car, a home, a holiday etc I was met with a blank stare from both him and the others in the room....

Source

reply to post by FissionSurplus



My comment was not direct at you... I was attempting to clarify
what I was saying... namely that MANY of jobs being posted by
the biggest casinos in Las Vegas are fake (but not all).

Even if 1 in 10 job posting at MGM is fake, that is a big deal
when they only allow people to apply for one job at a time.
If this is indeed going on, someone needs to blow the whistle.

Honestly, I've been pissed off about this for a long time.

reply to post by VoidHawk


Wow. They want to demoralize us all and make us feel that we are at fault. The fact that I see so many articles about job hunting and how we're doing things all wrong, and that is why we're getting passed over for employment, only serves to strengthen my suspicion that we're all being played.

How is posting jobs that aren't really open helping anybody?? How much lower and more worthless do they want people to feel?

I suspect it also gives corporations the green light to offer sub-standard wages, because of the large pool of desperate people who need to have some money coming in. Then they act like our saviors, and we should be grateful, kissing their ass because they're offering us barely enough to live on, for a job you know you're going to be overworked in because they don't want to hire enough people to spread the workload out comfortably.

wasaka
If this is indeed going on, someone needs to blow the whistle.

You actually believe anyone not directly effected by it is even listening?
They wanna see what Miley isn't wearing.
They wanna know who Beiber is spitting on.
They wanna know who is the latest guy to dump Tatolph Switler.
They wanna get angry at Feds for jacking senior citizens.
They wanna fume at gays getting married.
They wanna get swept up in bi-partisan rhetoric.
Most people have been dumbed down and abused by the state so much that fake jobs don't even register on their radar.
Just some food for thought.

-Amitaba-

reply to post by wasaka


No sweat, I know it wasn't directly just at me. I'm shocked that this is going on. I've suspected it for a while. I talked to somebody yesterday who's husband works for an oil company, and they are advertising out the wazoo for help online, yet the word comes in from the headquarters in Houston, Texas, saying NO HIRING.

In other words, on paper it looks like places like Oxy Petroleum, Halliburton, and Phillips Conoco are hiring like crazy. In reality, if nobody's getting hired, then it is FRAUD and FALSE ADVERTISING.

There is something deeper here than just that. I believe, in my heart, the gov't rewards these companies for putting out fake jobs. To me, this reeks of a conspiracy. Next time you hear the news and they report just how many jobs were created, and how good the economy is looking, remember what we discussed here!