To think most job vacancies being advertised are fake?

[Frequency]

I'm job hunting atm and have noticed a large number of jobs being advertised for 30 days plus. I will apply, send off a CV tailored to their requirements, and get a reply that they went with someone more experienced/a better fit for the role, etc, which is fine. I can see from the advert they have all got hundreds of applicants. I'll then get an email alert a few days later for the exact same role, at the exact same company.

If they've found someone with more experience or a better fit why are they still advertising? And if they haven't managed to find anyone at all remotely suitable out of the hundreds of applicants what exactly is it they are looking for?

These are all entry-level/mid-level roles so nothing too niche or specialist. Most of the jobs are in 2nd/3rd line IT support looking for general skills like remote desktop support, Active Directory, MS Office, etc. All basic IT skills that I and many hundreds of other people possess.

I've just spoken to a recruiter about a role at the local NHS hospital which I am more than qualified for however the recruiter wasn't very tech savvy. He was trying to get me to amend my CV to add Active Directory experience to my recent role in Network Operations. AD has nothing to do with networks and any hiring manager would spot the lie a mile off so I refused. He's sending my CV anyway, or so he says, but I thought I'd have a better chance applying directly.

I looked on the NHS Jobs site and no such job is being advertised. There are no IT vacancies at any of my local hospitals or NHS buildings.

Do these jobs actually exist or are they just fillers to hide the fact there are no fucking jobs available anywhere?

YANBU recruiters want people to send their CVs over and register so that they can tell employers they have hundreds of people on their books. Fake jobs have always existed it's just that there are more of them now because its really easy just to pop a job on indeed.

If I go on indeed, I only ever apply for jobs that have been put up in the last 7 days. Anything else is a waste of time really.

I think applying directly though employers’ websites is a much better approach.

Although, to add, I’ve got notifications set up on Glassdoor and never found anything fake, so maybe that’s an approach.

Why is it legal to advertise fake jobs? Doesn’t it fall under any kind of legislation about false advertising?

I never even thought of the legalities of it, so now you mention it it probably is illegal.

Who on earth is going to be bothered to prosecute though? I don't think anyone would bother to be honest.

I'm looking too, and becoming quite despondent. I suspect Indeed is a con but I don't know where else to look.

I should be a strong candidate for the kinds of jobs I am applying for but you don't hear anything back, even a notification that the role is filled.

I'm in London so it's not a surprise that 100s of people are applying for each role - but how do I make myself stand out?

No clue. It should be illegal, imo. It is so frustrating to spend time tailoring my CV to a role I really want to then realise the job probably never existed in the first place.

I've had a few interviews this week so I know it is not my CV that is the issue. The only problem is the interviews I've had are not the jobs I want. I want the fake jobs 😥

@DoggieMommie all of the interviews I have had have come through LinkedIn, which seems to have less fake jobs than Indeed and TotalJobs.

This is why I've given up on recruitment websites

Door to door chugging
MLM recruiters
CV scraping

They are shamelessly spamming all the boards, even Mumsnet and gov.uk job boards aren't exempt

Oh yes, I've had the MLM schemes too. My reply was along the lines of - No, honey, I don't think you understand how jobs work. I don't pay you for work I do, you pay me. She then explained it wasn't a job it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change my life. I blocked her after that.

The ££££ training courses too who advertise jobs that, upon further investigation, cost £300 a month and only lead to a possible interview after you've paid them excessive amounts to study certifications you could learn for free on the vendor's site or via LinkedIn Learning.

There are definitely some fake job ads either for CV harvesting or for more nefarious purposes. There are also some that hang around long after they're filled for no reason more sinister than sloppy admin. I don't think a job on a job board not being on the organisation's own site is necessarily a reliable indicator as I know of some (including ones I've been hiring for myself) that were legitimately posted by agencies on sites like LinkedIn but never appeared on our corporate vacancies page. Another thing that's not uncommon is for unscrupulous agencies to harvest vacancies from corporate websites and then advertise for them even though they have no formal agency agreement with the hiring organisation. Many recruiters and recruitment agencies are decent but there are too many that have the ethics of old-school double-glazing salesmen.

I'm not job hunting currently but I make sure to keep my LinkedIn profile up to date. I get contacted by recruiters regularly. I always have a look at their profile to see where they work, what their work history is and what vacancies they have posted in the past. If they are clearly legitimate I add them to my contacts so that they're there as and when I might be looking for a new gig. Otherwise I just ignore them.

I have wondered this myself, particularly on ones that sound too good to be true - really great pay, generous benefits, hybrid working, etc because funnily enough I never ever get put forward for any of these roles. There's always some reason (or somtimes no reason at all) that I'm not quite as strong as another candidate. I've not really experienced this with the larger, more established recruiters in my sector, it's more the one man band kind. They'll say they aren't putting me forward but I've got a great CV and they are keen to work with me in the future so can I sign a document. Which I never do, so I'll never know whether or not they could have really helped me.

Yes, loads of fakes through recruitment agencies. As PP says upthread, they take the details of jobs legitimately being advertised by companies and try to gather CVs to approach them with. Even though those companies have no intention of ever using an agency.

I always try and apply for jobs advertised directly by companies now, on LinkedIn or other sites where you can filter out agencies.

This has been going on for decades. I remember in the 1980's, pre-internet, ringing up agencies because they had a tempting engineering job, only to be told that that job had juuuust gone but they had lots of others, no they couldn't give me details of any of them, but I should post my cv to them & they would get back to me. Yeah, right. The worst one wanted me to drive 50 minutes to their office just to fill in a form, instead of posting a cv to them. I never did find a job through an agency. The jobs I got were by knowing someone at the new company, i.e. ex-colleagues who recommended me.

Indeed is just awful. We really need a decent jobs website. The government/job centre one is awful, too.

Thank you thank you thank you I’m so glad to have found this thread.

no where else to look except indeed and it’s a huge huge con.

I’ve been totally desponded and have applied for positions way below my capabilities- tailoring my cv according.

Also, in my field companies advertise, interview then give me one contract, tell me they have work in abundance I then realise that they were only looking for this particular job to be completed and don’t have any further work.

absolutely plummets my self esteem

its not right - so many unfilled positions, people seeking work and no proper way to connect.

I repeatedly see the same technical gases job advertised on a variety of these scammy sites that I KNOW was filled in 2012 before the site the job was advertised for got closed down as the company merged and consolidated

The employer never uses external recruitment agencies and the ad had effectively been copied and pasted dozens of times

13 fucking years later, it's still doing the rounds.

I get my hopes up when my email pings me and my heart sinks when I see the same wording again.

One look on the employer's website and it's easy to confirm the job has gone (for good) to another part of the country entirely

Fucking sick of it

One look on the employer's website and it's easy to confirm the job has gone (for good) to another part of the country entirely

Or overseas.

In the job before the one I have just made redundant from I jumped before I was pushed. They announced "likely" redundancies due to "outsourcing" a lot of the support roles to India where they get cheaper labour That should be illegal. Not just for the sake of the UK job market but also the poor folk who are expected to work for peanuts for Western companies while they can scarcely afford to feed themselves.