HN Debrief

'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

  • Regulation
  • Labor
  • Hiring
  • AI
  • Startups

The Fast Company piece covers New York Senate bill S8877, which targets “ghost jobs” by requiring employers to be more explicit about whether a posted role is genuinely open and by when they expect to fill it. The problem is broader than rude recruiting. Fake or stale listings distort the market, waste applicant time, and make both sides behave worse. Candidates spray applications because they cannot tell what is real. Employers then drown in low-signal submissions and lean even harder on automated filters and reposting. Several people also pointed out adjacent abuse cases that look similar from the outside, including legally required postings for preselected hires, visa-related postings designed to fail, and boards that may collect applications for listings no one is actively reviewing.

Treat this as early movement toward tighter hiring-market disclosure rules, not a one-off state quirk. If you hire at scale, assume applicants, job boards, and regulators will increasingly expect audit trails, posting dates, salary data, and proof that an opening is real.

Discussion mood

Mostly supportive and frustrated. People see ghost jobs as a real labor-market failure that wastes time, muddies demand signals, and invites abuse, though many doubt enforcement will be clean and expect companies to respond with more automation and loophole hunting.

Key insights

  1. 01

    The damage is market noise, not hurt feelings

    The core harm is that fake and indefinite listings poison the search channel. Applicants cannot tell what is live, so they resort to shotgun applications. That raises noise for real employers and makes everyone lean harder on automation. The value of even a bland rejection is not courtesy. It closes the loop and tells candidates to stop allocating attention to that role.

    Measure your hiring process like a marketplace, not a branding exercise. Clear state transitions on every posting reduce wasted applicant effort and lower junk inbound on real openings.

      Attribution:
    • 4MOAisgoodenuf #1
    • mullingitover #1
    • zem #1
    • idiotsecant #1
    • optionalsquid #1
  2. 02

    Compliance would likely harden ATS workflows

    A disclosure law would probably push more hiring through applicant tracking systems like Workday, LinkedIn, or Indeed so companies can prove deadlines were met and notices were sent. That sounds bureaucratic, but several people noted that much of hiring already runs this way and that Europe’s GDPR-style retention deadlines have already normalized similar tooling without breaking recruiting.

    If your company still handles hiring through ad hoc email or chat, expect that to become a liability. Build a system that can show when a role opened, who applied, what status they are in, and when they were notified.

      Attribution:
    • Aurornis #1
    • wps #1
    • birdsongs #1
  3. 03

    The hard part is proving bad faith

    A long-open role can be fake, but it can also be a real search delayed by contract uncertainty, headcount changes, or a genuinely thin candidate pool. That is why commenters kept circling back to metadata instead of intent. Unique posting IDs, visible open dates, fill-by dates, and counts of remaining openings create a factual trail. That is far easier to audit than trying to read an employer’s mind months later.

    Design job-posting operations so an outsider can distinguish a delayed search from a sham listing. Persistent IDs and visible history will become defensible evidence when policies tighten.

      Attribution:
    • chaosharmonic #1
    • AnthonyMouse #1
    • thewebguyd #1
    • FireBeyond #1
  4. 04

    Hiring opacity extends beyond the job post

    Several comments tied ghost jobs to a broader hiring-surveillance problem. The Eightfold AI lawsuit was cited as an example of employers allegedly using third-party scoring and data collection in ways that may trigger Fair Credit Reporting Act obligations. Commenters also argued that informal backdoor references and “eligible for rehire” checks let employers use damaging outside information without giving candidates any right to see or contest it.

    Do not treat job-posting compliance as the whole risk surface. Audit background checks, screening vendors, and informal reference practices too, because disclosure rules around hiring are expanding by adjacency.

      Attribution:
    • toomuchtodo #1
    • autoexec #1
    • chaosharmonic #1
    • OkayPhysicist #1
    • FireBeyond #1
  5. 05

    Job boards may be part of the problem

    Some of the strongest suspicion was directed at intermediaries rather than employers. One commenter described applying through Wellfound more than a hundred times with no evidence that employers even viewed the profile, and guessed the platform was harvesting candidate responses for other products. Others said LinkedIn, Google for Jobs, and aggregators also carry fake or stale listings, which means policing only the employer leaves a major hole.

    If you rely on third-party boards, monitor whether applications are actually reaching a reviewed queue and whether stale posts are being recycled. Platform trust is becoming part of employer trust.

      Attribution:
    • FireBeyond #1
    • Oras #1
    • anotheraccount9 #1

Against the grain

  1. 01

    Some ghost jobs are just stale operations

    Not every misleading posting is a deliberate fake. Some companies really do intend to hire and simply fail to clean up listings after the role is filled or deprioritized. That framing shifts part of the problem from fraud to bad process, which means lighter-touch operational rules could fix a meaningful slice of it without proving intent.

    Before assuming malice, check your own posting hygiene. Automated takedowns and expiration reviews may solve more than policy debates do.

      Attribution:
    • SpicyLemonZest #1
  2. 02

    Forced replies may become empty ritual

    A few people argued that mandatory rejection notices would produce only auto-generated non-information and would not actually make hiring more humane. In that view, the law would turn ghosting into a scheduled cron job and add compliance theater without real accountability.

    If regulation lands, do not confuse sending the required email with fixing candidate experience. The useful signal is accurate status data, not just another automated message.

      Attribution:
    • engineer_22 #1
    • godwinson__4-8 #1
  3. 03

    A market solution could outcompete bad boards

    Rather than relying only on law, some argued for trusted intermediaries that verify both employers and candidates, or for high-quality recruiters who already filter out fake searches and unserious applicants. The point is that transparency can also be productized as a stronger marketplace signal.

    There is room for recruiting products that win on verified intent and process visibility. If regulation stays patchy, market trust layers may still create an advantage.

      Attribution:
    • airstrike #1
    • ufmace #1
  4. 04

    Applicant-side AI spam is part of the feedback loop

    One commenter noted that employers are not reacting in a vacuum. When job applications become AI-generated slop, employers respond with low-trust postings, more filters, and weaker candidate communication. That does not excuse ghost jobs, but it explains why the hiring market is decaying on both sides at once.

    Expect future hiring rules and product changes to target both fake openings and fake applications. If you recruit, build for provenance and signal quality on both ends.

      Attribution:
    • airstrike #1

In plain english

ATS ↩
Applicant Tracking System, software companies use to collect applications, move candidates through hiring stages, and send status updates.
Eightfold AI ↩
A hiring software company mentioned in comments because of a lawsuit over alleged secret scoring and reporting of job-seeker information.
GDPR ↩
General Data Protection Regulation, the European Union’s main privacy law that sets rules for collecting and using personal data.

Reference links

Legislation and policy

Hiring surveillance and enforcement

Tools and products mentioned