Catherine started to look for a job a day after she graduated from nursing school in April 2023. Her first online job search was a bastion of hope. Multiple jobs popped up on her search engine from various job listing platforms. “There were more than ten jobs listed for the Enrolled Nurse position that I was searching for,” she says.
Her hopes were dashed when she opened the links. “I opened one after the other. I met all the qualifications, but there was a big problem; the jobs had expired. They had been posted more than 30 days ago,” she says. Catherine felt dejected and mocked. “It looked like a mockery to job-seekers. It felt like false hopes. Why leave unavailable jobs lingering for so long when you know there are desperate job seekers out here looking for work?” she poses.
Her frustrations are shared by Kelvin. The 33-year-old has been seeking a position as a procurement officer for the past four months. “I have filled multiple applications online and presented multiple application letters by hand,” he says. “But I am either told that the employer is not currently hiring or that the hiring period was concluded.” Ironically, Kelvin says many employers he has sent his applications to are still advertising for positions they told him were no longer available. “I keep seeing their adverts, yet when you approach them, they deny that they are hiring. I guess they just leave adverts open as a buffer, but it is detrimental for job seekers.”
Why massive looting of county funds is killing the dream of devolution
Catherine and Kelvin’s experiences are not isolated cases. A spot check on some of Kenya’s online job listing pages revealed that work positions that were at face value were still open to applicants, even though their fine print showed that the application dates had expired several months ago.
When we asked human resource and recruitment practitioner Evans Kosgei why this is, he told us that such listings form part of the phenomenon known as Ghost Jobs, which has become common practice in the job market. “Some of these jobs are unintentional listings that appear to be still available but only because the employer or the individual who placed the advert failed to take them down,” he says. “There are, nonetheless, listings that some employers place for positions they have no immediate intention of hiring.”
This phenomenon is becoming prevalent not only in Kenya but also elsewhere.
Take the United States. Statistics by the US Job Openings and Labor Market Turnover Survey (JOLTS) by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that as of September 2023, there were 9.6 million available jobs in the US. However, the absorption rate was very low at less than 2% in October
2023, indicating that the number of people getting hired was not in tandem with the number of postings being recorded.
At the same time, up to 43% of employers in the United States have been found to use ghost jobs to create what has been termed the illusion of growth. In the United Kingdom in 2023, nearly a third of all job postings were classified as ghost jobs. According to a survey by the career resources firm StandOut CV, these job postings remained on advertisement boards for over 30 days.
The impact of these ghost jobs is profound on both the general economy and job seekers. They betray the opaqueness of most hiring processes and breach the trust for a fair hiring process with which job-seekers file their applications. According to Diana Nevzoreanu, Talent Acquisition Lead at ExpressVPN, the rise of ghost jobs points to a deeper emerging issue of trust in the job market. “For the job seekers, there is wasted time and the erosion of confidence in the system. Job seekers might start questioning the legitimacy of all job postings, wondering if applying is even worth the effort,” she says.
This resonates with the experience of Danielle. She was declared redundant by a local media company two months ago. Her employer stated that they were cutting down on the number of employees as they could no longer sustain a high payroll. The reasons given for the redundancies were valid. After all, the company had posted a net loss for the December 31, 2023 financial year. “I was shocked in early May when I saw an advert by the same company seeking workers for the same positions that were declared redundant. I don’t know if they want to hire or if they are playing poker with job-seekers,” she says.
In many cases, ghost jobs are twinned with scam jobs.
In fact, with so many ghost jobs and the eroding trust between the employer and the job seeker, it can be hard for job seekers to differentiate between an actual job, a ghost job, and a scam job. Recruitment practitioner Evans, nonetheless, says that some critical telltale signs can help job-seekers sift through legitimate and illegitimate jobs. “The elimination method can narrow down the correct job openings. This method involves checking how persistent a listing is, whether the stated salaries and benefits are reasonable, the estimated rate of employer or recruiter’s feedback, and the job and company description and designation,” he says.
Evans further adds that it is safer for a job-seeker to use secure internet when surfing through jobs to avoid scam jobs and hacking booby traps disguised as job offers. “Technology has eased the way job scams are dressed to look like legitimate openings. Most often, you will come across these when using public or unsecured Wi-Fi networks, which leaves your personal information vulnerable,” he says.
