Ghost ads destroying the reputation of Aussie organisations

According to recent research by Gartner, one-third of job postings can be identified as ghost ads, which are harmful short-term fixes to the skills shortage that could have extremely detrimental effects on businesses that use them.

HR Leader recently spoke to Jasleen Kaur, senior principal of HR advisory at Gartner, about the sweeping trend that is ghost ads. Kaur gave us a brief explanation as to what ghost ads are and how they show a corrosive practice that organisations should steer clear of at all costs.

“Ghost job ads are job advertisements that have been posted on different platforms, but there’s no intent of hiring behind them. These job ads could be open for a month, two months, sometimes six months. But there’s no intent from the organisation to actually fill those job roles,” said Kaur.

The reputational damage that the use of ghost job ads can have on an organisation is profound, as candidates who are deceived by this process will no doubt hold disdain towards that business, which can have extremely negative effects in the long term – both recruitment-wise and sales-wise.

“First of all, it just damages the candidate’s experience altogether. It damages the trust that the candidate market, the labour market, would have in the organisation. So, when you do open for roles in the future that you genuinely need to fill, candidates would be a little bit more hesitant to apply.

“There would be more distrust in applying for the roles for the organisation. And then there is the risk around candidates who are also your customers. What happens is, based on our research, we understand that a lot of the candidates who have bad experience as a candidate are highly likely to turn away from your products as a customer as well.

“So, when you serve customers directly, a dissatisfied candidate can quite easily turn into a dissatisfied customer. And that has a direct implication on our profit, on our sales, our revenue as a business, as an organisation as well,” said Kaur.

Kaur believes that organisations embark on this foolish endeavour because they often become so fixated on their short-term goals, dismissing the impact that a stunt like this can have in the long term.

“Organisations have a short-term goal in mind that they’re trying to achieve, but they’re not taking into account these longer-term consequences. And that’s what’s essentially triggering this entire situation. The short-term goals or the benefits that they’re trying to get out of a practice, firstly, they’re trying to build a steady pipeline for roles that they’re always going to be hired for,” said Kaur.

“The other goal could be around testing the market for the attractiveness of the role itself. So, is the role attractive? Would we find the skills that we’re looking for in the market if we were to open this role up? They’re essentially testing the talent supply for the skills that they’re looking for.”

“The third outcome potentially could be around testing their EVP itself. Their brand itself. So, if they were to advertise, would we find the talent that we’re looking for? Are we attractive enough? Are we relevant enough in the labour market?”

Practices like this create a lack of transparency in the recruitment space and can cause widespread distrust between potential candidates and employers across industries.

“The lack of transparency, the lack of trust, the lack of honesty in a practice like this can really damage that [overall] trust. And then because this generation (Gen Z) is so vocal about their experiences and their thoughts, [it’s] highly likely that those messages are going to be up on panels like Glassdoor for everyone else to see,” said Kaur.

“Nearly one-third of job postings were ghost ads. So, it’s not a small trend. It’s not something that is happening for 1 per cent of the organisations. Many organisations are engaging in this behaviour, and it can be quite damaging for the ones that are engaging in it.”