Ghost jobs are postings from real employers for roles they are not actively filling or never meant to fill, such as old ads left online, roles reposted again and again, or listings that only collect resumes.
If you have sent out dozens of applications and heard nothing back, some of those jobs may never have been open in the first place. This guide explains what ghost jobs are, why companies post them, how they differ from job scams, how common they are, and four checks you can run before you spend an evening on a cover letter.
What are ghost jobs
A ghost job is a real posting from a real company, but nobody is hiring for it right now. The Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for the US Congress, describes ghost job postings as “online job postings for positions that do not exist, or that employers are not planning to fill immediately” (CRS, 2025). Greenhouse, a hiring software company, uses a shorter definition in its 2024 State of Job Hunting report, calling them “positions advertised with no intent to hire”.
In practice, ghost jobs tend to look like one of these:
- An old post nobody took down. The role was filled or cancelled months ago, but the ad is still up on a job board.
- A role that keeps coming back. The same title is reposted every few weeks, and nobody seems to get hired.
- A resume collector. The company wants a pile of applications for later, not a hire this month.
- A role that was put on hold. The job was real when it went up, then the budget froze, and the posting stayed.
In each case the company exists and the listing looks normal. Nobody asks you for money. There just isn’t a job to get.
Why companies post them
A ghost job isn’t always posted to trick anyone. Some are simply forgotten, and others serve a goal that has little to do with hiring this quarter.
The Congressional Research Service lists several reasons employers may post ghost jobs (CRS, 2025):
- To “evaluate the potential pool of candidates for future job postings”, that is, to see who is out there before a role opens.
- To “suggest they are growing”, which can matter to investors, clients and current staff.
- To “demonstrate they have recruited a diverse pool of applicants”, even when they plan to hire an internal candidate.
- To “look for extraordinary potential employees”, keeping a door open in case an unusually strong candidate applies.
Add to that the plain admin reasons: a recruiter leaves, a hiring plan changes, or a posting is copied to several job boards and only taken down from one. None of this helps you, but it explains why a company with nothing to hide can still have ghost jobs on the web.
Ghost jobs vs job scams
Ghost jobs and job scams are often lumped together, but they are different problems with different risks.
| Ghost job | Job scam | |
|---|---|---|
| Who posts it | The real employer | Someone who is not the employer, often using a real company’s name |
| What they want | Applications they may never act on | Your money, your personal data or access to your accounts |
| What it costs you | Time and hope | Money, identity theft or both |
| How it usually ends | Silence, or a rejection months later | A request to pay, deposit a check or share bank details |
A ghost job wastes your time. A fake job can empty your bank account. That is why the checks for each are a little different. With a ghost job, you are trying to find out whether the company is actually hiring. With a scam, you are trying to find out whether you are dealing with the company at all.
If something about an offer feels off, read our guide to fraud job offers and how to spot them, which covers the most common scam patterns in detail.
How common are ghost jobs
We couldn’t find an official count of ghost jobs, which makes sense: no one can see inside every company’s hiring plans. The clearest numbers come from hiring platforms that can see what happens to the jobs posted on them.
Greenhouse says that in any given quarter, 18% to 22% of the jobs posted on its platform are classified as ghost jobs (Greenhouse, 2024). In the same report, based on a survey of 2,500 workers across the US, UK and Germany, three in five candidates said they suspect they’ve come across a ghost job. These figures describe one platform and its own classification, so treat them as a sign of scale rather than a figure for the whole job market.
Job scams are counted separately, and the US numbers have grown fast. According to the Federal Trade Commission, reports of job and employment agency scams tripled from 2020 to 2024, and the amount people reported losing to these scams went from $90 million to $501 million in that time (FTC, March 2025). Those are scams, not ghost jobs, but they are a good reason to run the same checks on every listing.
Red flags
No single sign proves a job is a ghost job. Look for two or three of these together.
Signs of a ghost job:
- The role has been open for months, with no change to the description.
- The same title comes back every few weeks, sometimes with a new posting date and the same text.
- The job is gone from the company’s own careers page but is still up on a job board.
- The description is vague about the team, the manager or when the person would start.
- The company has many similar openings but no sign of growth, such as new hires or new products.
Signs of a job scam:
- You are asked to pay for training, a starter kit, software or a background check. The FTC says “honest employers, including the federal government, will never ask you to pay to get a job” (FTC, Job Scams).
- You get a check to deposit, then are told to send part of the money on or buy equipment from a vendor they pick.
- Everything happens in a chat app such as Telegram or WhatsApp, and there is no live interview.
- The pay sounds like a promise, such as “earn $500 a day from your phone”, rather than a salary range.
- You are asked for your bank details, Social Security number or ID before you have a written offer.
One thing that is not a red flag on its own is a missing salary. Plenty of real employers still don’t publish pay, especially outside places that require it. For more checks on remote offers in particular, see our guide to legitimate work from home jobs.
How to check if a job is real
Each of these four checks takes a few minutes. Run them before you write a cover letter or share any personal details.
1. Find the job on the company’s own careers page
This is the most important check. Find the company yourself, through a search engine, not through the link you were sent. Open its official website, go to the careers or jobs page, and look for the same title.
- If the job is there, it is at least listed by the employer.
- If the company is real but the job is not on its careers page, it may be closed, and the listing you saw is likely a leftover.
- If you can’t find a company website at all, or the only trace of the job is a text message or a chat, stop.
This is also how Remote First Jobs works. We take our listings from more than 21,000 company career pages and the applicant tracking systems behind them, and we never import jobs from other job boards. We check those career pages at least once a day, and the Apply button takes you to the employer’s own application page, so you can see where the job comes from. Because jobs come straight from employers, roles often appear before they reach the big boards. You can browse remote jobs for free, without an account. No job board can see whether a company really plans to hire, though, so the other three checks still apply.
2. Check when it was first posted
Look at the posting date on the careers page and on any job board where you saw the role. A role posted last week is a better bet than one that has sat there for four months. If the same title shows up again and again with fresh dates, ask about it before you put in hours of work.
3. Talk to a real person before any offer
Real employers interview by video or phone, and you can look up the people you talk to on the company website or LinkedIn. Early in the process, ask a few direct questions:
- Is this role open now, or are you collecting applications for later?
- When do you hope to have someone start?
- Who would I report to?
A recruiter for a real opening can usually answer all three. Vague answers don’t prove a ghost job, but they tell you how much effort to put in. A job offer after a text-only chat, with no live conversation, is a classic sign of a scam.
4. Make sure messages come from the company
A real recruiter writes from an address at the company’s own domain, through a hiring system such as Greenhouse, Lever or Workday, or through LinkedIn. Be careful with messages from a free email address, Telegram or WhatsApp, and never pay anything to get or start a job.
Are ghost jobs illegal?
The short answer is that it depends on where you are, and the rules are still being written. We are not lawyers, so here is only what official sources and legal publishers have said.
In the US, the Congressional Research Service wrote in April 2025 that deceptive job ads may violate Section 5 of the FTC Act, but that using this against ghost jobs “would likely present legal challenges” because “an employer’s intent to hire for a given position is not easily discoverable and may be subjective”. At that time, it said no bills explicitly about ghost job postings had been introduced in Congress, and it noted proposals in New Jersey, Kentucky and California (CRS, 2025).
In New York, the State Assembly joined the Senate on 2 June 2026 in passing bill S8877. It would cover employers with 100 or more employees and third-party job posting sites, and require a job ad to say whether the employer intends to fill the role in 90 days or less, in more than 90 days, or does not expect to fill it and is collecting resumes for future openings. Filled roles would have to come down within two weeks. As of 10 November 2026, the bill was still waiting for the governor to act on it (Epstein Becker Green, 2026).
In Ontario, Canada, rules are already in force. For public job postings posted on or after 1 January 2026, employers with 25 or more employees must state whether the posting is for an existing vacancy. They must also tell applicants they interviewed whether a hiring decision has been made, within 45 days of the last interview (Ontario Employment Standards Act guide).
Job scams are a separate matter. If you have been targeted by a fake job in the US, report it to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and report the listing to the site where you found it.
Where to start your search
You can’t avoid every ghost job, but you can waste less time on them. Start as close to the employer as you can, check the careers page before you apply, and don’t pour hours into a role that has been reposted for months. If a recruiter can’t tell you whether the job is open now, take that as your answer.
When you are ready to look, browse remote jobs on Remote First Jobs, taken from employers’ own career pages, and run the four checks on any job you plan to apply for.
