Either you’ve lived it, or you’ve heard about it from friends: the endless job search, featuring hundreds of applications sent. Maybe one or two companies reply . . . that end up being bots. It can feel like your résumé has been sucked into a black hole.

And in a way, it has.

It’s perhaps been consumed by a “ghost job”—a job listing that looks legitimate, with a full description for a role, maybe even a starting date and a LinkedIn link.

There’s a twist, though. The job isn’t real. It’s either an essentially fake listing for a job that doesn’t really exist, or the role isn’t really open. And they make up roughly 40% of job listings, according to a 2024 Resume Builder survey.

“There may be no hiring manager on the back end, or it’s not really a position that exists,” says Brandi Britton

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