Why most companies post fake job offers. Often. Constantly.

There are a lot of jobs out there that aren't real jobs. They're just fake. And I'm not talking about scam jobs where they're trying to get your personal info.

I mean, you go to Indeed, look for a job, find a bunch of matches, send a bunch of resumes, and you get... crickets.

And this can be *extremely* discouraging if you associate your self worth with whether or not companies you apply to "want you". In reality, being completely honest here, often it's likely the company isn't actually hiring, or can't afford you even at your cheapest, anyway. Don't assume you were turned down for a job because they didn't like, want, or need you.

Here's 12 reasons why companies have posted fake job offers in the past, and why so many of them continue to, today.

1. Fishing - Companies can "fish" for potential unicorn employees, looking for someone who has insane qualifications, and is actively looking for work. They know that if you are looking for work, you might be willing to take a lower paying position, even if you're way more qualified for the job than anyone else at the company. This is a cheap way for companies to fish for the best talent.

2. Backup plans. - Companies never know when they're going to be surprised by someone quitting. It's good to have options ready to go, and the best way is to have a pool of potential hires already on file.

3. Looks good to investors and customers - This is especially true for startups and Kickstarter funded companies: People might notice that your company is scouting for top AI talent, even if they aren't. Even if you sell a completely BS product, and it's all a scam, by posting job offers, it makes you look legit, and both customers and investors will just assume you're building up to something. That gives you more time to spend all that sucker money on hookers and blow.

4. Projects strength for a potential buyout - if another company is thinking of acquiring you, it would look better for you to be actively interviewing tons of new hires than if you aren't hiring anyone new, because it shows you have forward looking plans. You're not on your way out. Similar to point 3. It makes potential buyers think your company's worth will only increase.

5. Signals your company's political leanings or work environment so you don't have to explain yourself.

Looking for a receptionist with experience working with MAGA, AFL-CIO, Southern Baptist Convention, or Stripper Pole Workers United, and it's an easy sign to the world what side you're on politically, or on particular topics, without having to say it.

6. Makes it look like your company is on board with the latest trends or political directions. Sure, we don't have a TikTok Brand Marketing Guru yet, nor do we have any experts building electric car manufacturing facilities, but for a few bucks we can tell the whole world we're at leas looking. And we can file for some of that sweet, sweet government grant money.

7. Free marketing. - in this world where every marketing tick can improve your Google ranks, hiring gives the company a chance to let Google and other search engines know exactly what your company does and how it does it. Basically it's free key words that Google will increase your rank with. Surely no one would game THIS system, right? RIGHT? Surely those job offers with extremely wordy descriptions are just poorly written. For example:

"Join the greatest artificial intelligence company using artificial intelligence to build next generation intelligences using machine learning for artificially created intelligence".

See, Google sees that, and adds that to its knowledge base about your product or company. That's SEO Gold, baby!

8. Projects your Leader's Vision without needing to actually do it. Did your CEO just say that in the future, everyone will use your product, and every user will have a hot turkey on their table at dinner time? Well.

"Looking for Hot Turkey Delivery Expert with 10 years experience in AI" is a great way to show the world that your leader's vision is something the company cares deeply about. Without it costing a cent.

9. They've already chosen to hire a non-citizen on an H1-B or similar visa and need to show that they "tried" and failed to hire an American first as part of the process for the visa.

10. Required by contracts to attempt to hire based on x criteria. I've seen, even thought it's totally illegal, requirements to have x number of a specific "disadvantaged group" built into contracts.

11. Maintain requirements for grants. Some government grants (state and federal) are given on the premise that you're going to hire people to do a particular job. Well you are hiring! You're just not going to fill those jobs because you blew through the money already. Erm...I mean... "no one wants to work".

12. Internal hiring - If they have an internal hire or they're starting up a new division, many corporations have rules about just hiring people inside the company. So they create a job offer, then fill the position internally. Technically they did offer the job, it was just already filled by the time it went online.

13. Data Scraping - If you want to sell a product to people who use Unreal, there's a great way to do that. Offer to hire them. Then they send you all of their contact info. Then you can resell that info to other companies who want to sell something to them. Profit for your company without needing to hire anyone. It's shady as hell, but probably easy money.

14. Keeps the existing workers in line. Nothing says "you need to do better" than finding out they're interviewing new hires at a lower wage, for your job. It's a passive aggressive mind game. Easy way to keep people with worker mentality on their toes.

15. Many job offers were posted by previous HR staff, or they just forgot to take them down. And it's easier for a company to reply to emails that the position has been filled, or even just ignore the emails, than it is to go through the process of taking down a job offer, updating the website, etc.


16 (kinda). In addition, some companies will conduct a real interview, but they have no intention of hiring anyone, it's just to give their new HR people and managers some experience with the process, and practice their interviewing skills.

My point is that there are a ton of reasons why jobs you see online might not be real, and honestly there's no way to know if it is or is not. There's no penalty for companies who do this. There's no way to know what their intentions are, either. So my advice is basically this: Good luck, but don't feel bad if they don't hire you. There's a really good chance they weren't going to hire anyone.