3 Reasons Companies Post Fake Jobs

Why would a company post fake jobs online if they are not hiring? Is this something that even happens, or is this a rumor that circulates on Reddit and other forums.

Well, the sad fact is that it’s all too common. Many companies are posting fake jobs on job boards, on their own company websites, and all over social media.

It’s becoming even more common with the advent AI—companies have outsourced large sections of their workforce both overseas and now to automated tech.  And one casualty of that process is that companies have become more and more reliant on automated postings (more on that later). When you see large companies –even in the job search field, such as Indeed– dealing with layoffs, then you can understand the magnitude of the situation.

So, now that we’ve established that companies do in fact post fake jobs, let’s look at the top reasons they do it.

Cheap Advertising – Blame Their PR and Marketing Departments

One common reason why companies post fake jobs online is to advertise. It is a cheap way of getting the company name out there into the public eye.

Think of how often you’ve seen local news items about “who’s hiring this month”, or even a blurb in a newspaper covering a sector—they will often list companies that are hiring.

All of this is free advertising. They don’t have to go through the expensive and difficult process of planting PR stories—or spending huge sums on advertising and marketing campaigns.

Posting jobs is a cheap way to get name exposure. Many businesses do this because they hope that this advertising is a way to get more exposure and business.

If a company posts a job online—it can be completely free, or else a nominal cost if they use a job posting site. Many job posting sites are simply aggregators and will recycle and feature old jobs over and over, so the initial posting serves to advertise for months on end.

When people see that a company is hiring, they assume that the business is strong. While this is normally not a correct indicator, it is nevertheless something that is used by the news and the public to determine what companies are doing strong well—at least well enough to require hiring more employees.

So, when you see a company posting advertisements for work—it might very well be a cheap way for them to get public exposure for their business. This is more common in industries where the business model is B2C (business to customer) as opposed to B2B( business to business).

The Job Is Real—But You’ll Never Get It: The Insider

Sometimes the job posting is for a real job, but the role is already filled. This occurs when someone within the company wants to give the job to a friend of theirs, or a family member. It might even be a case where someone in the company wants the job, but technically according to the official company policy they are supposed to hire from outside the firm.

What will happen in these cases is that a real job is posted online, and sometimes people are even called in to interview, but the candidate has already been preselected.

Non of this is official, but it’s very common.

People who want to hire their friends, family, or simply give the job to someone else in the company and break the company.

In order to avoid the charges of nepotism and cronyism, it’s important for companies and hiring managers to pretend to look outside of their inner circle when hiring.

Sadly, many people who go on interviews are not aware of these practices. Even recruiting agencies fall prey to companies and hiring teams who simply won’t hire outside their preselected friends and family circle.

A recruiter might send over five exceptional candidates, only to have each passed on by the hiring team. Normally there is no feedback, only vague statements.

This is why one of the most common ways for people to find work is though the “friends and family” route: nepotism.

Even in government jobs and union jobs in hospitals, you see people holding spots for friends and family.

While it’s commonly said that Hollywood is full of nepotism, there’s even a coined term for this called nepo-baby. But it’s something that goes on in other workplaces such

Scare Tactics- Fake Jobs To Scare Current Employees

Finally, one of the nastier reasons for a company to post a fake job is to scare the company employees.

How so, you ask? Well, quite simple. If the boss wants to motivate people to work harder, or if they are dealing with employees who are seeking more pay, more time off, or are overworked, then a boss might want to scare them.

Imagine a company where the employees feel that they are overworked and underpaid. Perhaps the boss even wants them to work after hours without being paid overtime, and come in and work on weekends, or do work on their weekends?

Well, in situations like that, the employer might be faced with employees who look elsewhere for work or threaten to quit if they don’t get a raise.

In these cases, what many businesses do is that they start posting fake job ads online. These job ads are not genuine.

The employer has no desire to hire more people, but what they are trying to do is scare their employers. They might even advertise that they will hire people without experience, which tends to be a fake job red flag.

The psychology behind this is quite clear. They want to scare their employees into not seeking a raise, and not complaining about working extra hours without extra pay.

The truth is that most people are frightened to lose their jobs, and it’s not that easy to find work in the current economic climate. And most employers know this, so they take advantage of this and they know that they can scare people not to object.

It can be very hard to find a job, even an entry level job as an administrative assistant is hard to get.

In the same way that corporations would strike break and outsource work if they can—including the use of AI to replace workers—the same holds true for companies who want to keep salaries at the same level.

So, often times there are jobs being posted where there are no real jobs. The boss might have a team who feels that they are overworked and underpaid. The solution, in the bosses eyes is to scare people into keeping their jobs.

Other Reasons For Fake Jobs

There are other reasons why you will see fake jobs, but some of these are well known.

• Scams- This is an obvious one. Be careful for fake job scams. We have an entire write up about how to spot them and how to safeguard yourself against them.

• Staffing Agencies Looking For Staff- This one’s a bit more nuanced. It involves a professional staffing company seeking a pool of staff that they can send out on assignments. It’s deceptive and normally does not involve using a real job, but rather job that doesn’t exist. If a staffing firm works with Accountants, then they might post a generic ad for accountats in order to always have resumes available.