Fake jobs

Greg Wyatt • November 18, 2024

Picture the scene.

You’ve just gone through the emotional turmoil of losing your job. Or maybe something’s happened at work to galvanise your decision to make a change.

You take a bit of time to figure out what the right next move is - a great idea.

Then you go through the obvious channels to see what jobs are out there.

The most obvious of which are job boards and other websites which promote jobs.

Your first reaction is one of hope and optimism - there seems quite a bit out there, so maybe you’ll secure something quickly.

And if you happen to be reading this, new to a job search, indeed you may.

However, for many people in this market, comes a pretty quick realisation that a significant number of adverts do not represent jobs that exist.

A double whammy in your emotional rollercoaster of recent weeks.

Today’s article looks at what ‘fake jobs’ are and what to be mindful of. There are a few categories to go through, each with different nuance, but ultimately the outcome is the same: an advert that, at best, wastes your time.

This what we’ll go through:

  1. Scraping

  2. Relisting

  3. Laziness

  4. Evergreen vacancies

  5. Fishing

  6. Scams

  7. The disappearing act

First a quick overview from the recruiter perspective.

When you put an advert up, you may allow a bit of time for applications to come in before assessing them and starting the interview process.

Let’s say the volume is manageable, and the outcome not guaranteed, particularly when a candidate you want to offer decides to take a different job instead.

There are no villains in this common scenario, and it’s common enough that risk is a consideration when advertising.

If a recruitment process takes six weeks from advert to offer, and the outcome isn’t guaranteed, it can make sense to leave the advert up, in case you need more candidates in your pipeline.

What about if your process takes three months? Illness, holiday, lack of availability, changes - there are many reasons a process can be delayed.

There are many tools and suppliers which support a hiring process, one of which is the job board, and often features are developed to support ‘what happens if things go wrong’. Or to maximise applications with the apparent intent of enabling wider choice, which can lead to many issues in its own right.

  1. Scraping

Scraping is when one website takes content from another and relists it. This can happen as an affiliate/aggregation/commercial arrangement, or to drive traffic to the scraping website.

The idea is that this increases eyeballs on the content.

In the context of job adverts, you can see this everywhere, although things are changing. For example Indeed and LinkedIn both have relisted adverts from elsewhere.

It’s changing because now some job boards have secured volume of traffic, they want to monetise that traffic and keep control of the adverts.

An indication that this happens is when you click ‘apply now’ it takes you to another website other than the employer’s, such as jobrapido which (I believe) is an aggregator.

This can happen multiple times, and every time a job is scraped there can be parsing errors where data from fields are incorrectly transferred.

While if the original advert is then updated, it’s not necessarily the case for scraped adverts.

So scraped adverts can give inaccurate salary, locational, or even job information. They can also stay listed when the original has closed, without the employer ever knowing about it.

Leading to looking like a fake job.

  1. Relisting

As a feature for advertisers, many job boards allow an automatic relisting of adverts, once a week/month, to ‘bring it to the top of the pile’.

These relists can occur throughout the lifespan of an advert, such as in the example above - six weeks in an advert appears new, but a candidate is about to be offered.

Here, the vacancy may be live, but your application may not be considered, because it is so far in process.

This can also happen manually for many reasons.

I’ve taken down a job after a couple of weeks to rewrite it, based on fine tuning from an interview process. Or when a candidate has declined an offer put forward to them. Or when a vacancy has been put on hiatus.

The reason for a manual relisting might be unknowable if it isn’t stated in the advert, but it isn’t necessarily for bad reason.

If I were to relist an advert, it would only be because I need more candidates, in which case your application would be read.

But in many situations relisting can encourage an application that won’t ever be assessed.

  1. Laziness

Unfortunately it is the case that adverts may remain listed simply because someone forgot to take them down.

This is more likely to happen if there isn’t a cost per advert, such as on an employer website, or if there is an unlimited contract.

  1. Evergreen vacancies

Some vacancies are perpetually advertised to enable a candidate pipeline for a particular specialism.

There may be no vacancy now, but anticipation of vacancies in future, particularly within larger employers, or perhaps an recruitment agency that specialises in that field.

I would hope this is made clear in the advert, but that doesn’t always happen.

  1. Fishing

Sometimes those adverts aren’t evergreen, they’re simply there to harvest applications on the off chance that vacancy comes up.

I remember a Cambridge agency that used to scrape employer adverts, list them as their own, then submit those CVs speculatively to the same employers - without a commercial arrangement in place.

Make of that what you will - I think it’s despicable behaviour.

Is there any way to check for fishing? I’d probe the advertiser for specific information, and what their relationship is with the hiring process.

However, that’s not proof of bad behaviour, because of how the contingency model works. When multiple agencies work on one vacancy, it’s common not to provide company information until later in the process.

Conversely, if an agency is fishing only to build a bank of CVs, it’s unlikely they’ll admit to it.

  1. Scam jobs

It sickens me that advertising and job scams are on the rise.

If it doesn’t feel right, if they are asking for payment, if they do a bait and switch (this job isn’t right but here’s our CV writing service), if they ask for ID that can be used for other purposes:

Beware.

Here’s some information from Indeed on what to look out for.

Here’s an example of a scam I came across early this year.

  1. The disappearing act

This last category may or may not be a fake job.

Here’s the scenario - it looks like a vacancy, it sounds like one in discussion, perhaps you even interview there on site, perhaps you even do a 5 hour presentation at final interview on your 90 day strategy.

But then it disappears. Either permanently, or maybe reappearing but with no further comms from the employer/agency.

I hear this happening a lot, particularly at a senior level, in the UK market.

There are a few reasons it can happen, not all indicative of fakeness:

  • Company had budget to recruit; however changes in the business, or external factors, means the vacancy isn’t viable at least immediately

  • Company didn’t have budget to recruit and only establishes there is no budget later in process

  • Company runs an interview process to get free consultancy in the form of a final interview presentation (scumbags)

  • Company dipping toe in market to see what’s out there, with no intent to hire

  • Company benchmarking internal hire for future planning purposes

  • Agency establishes there may be a need for employer to hire and runs speculative process that doesn’t get approval

I’m sure there are many more reasons this can happen, and there isn’t a huge amount you do, given the appearance is that of a real vacancy.

You can ask if budget has been approved, do your research on the business on glassdoor or by speaking to alumni. But ultimately this kind of vacancy is a Schrodinger’s Cat - you won’t know if it’s live or not until the process is complete.

The purpose of this article is to highlight how this happens, but it’s also to set your expectations.

If you go into a fresh job search understanding this can and will happen, I hope it takes the sting away if you come across it. And enables you to get to the truth of which jobs are actually out there sooner.

This article may help you get better use of job boards , for the vacancies that count.

Thanks for reading.

Greg

Introduction to personal branding

By Greg Wyatt • March 30, 2026
What follows is Chapter 39 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . It's 10 months old, so surely the algorithm has moved on right? Indeed, my own content performance has tanked if you compare 2026 to 2025. Around 12 million views of my content last year, while if I extrapolate my year to date performance, it looks like a little shy of 640,000 views. My LinkedIn feed is quieter, yet real life relevant conversations go from strength to strength, many of which stem from my content. Look, I don't love the term, but I am a fan of putting your message out there, across multiple means, so that your most relevant audience might become aware of you. And perhaps your relevant audience is an audience of one, a person who can put you nearer that job. Which is the only algorithm you need. This is a three part series, with part 2 on " Content strategy and philosophy " and part 3 on " A flair post ". Click on the links for the unedited versions on Substack. 39 - Introduction to personal branding Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a free marketing platform, where you can build a reputation through the words of your posts, comments and messages. Personal branding is a viable tactic as part of a multi-channel approach to your job search and it can bring opportunities to you. I'll start off by saying I'm not a fan of the term personal branding. It can lead to make-work which can even get in the way of what you should be doing. Writing and using content to create experiences that support a job search is a great idea and calling it personal branding - as a discrete activity - isn’t a bad thing. I expect there are many mediums through which you can build a personal brand. I'll focus on LinkedIn because of how entrenched it is in other job search activities. What a personal brand is For businesspeople the idea is that by building awareness of your personality, lifestyle and what you're promoting, you also build trust. So that when people are ready to buy, they'll buy your products. The brand might be personal. The goal is sales. When you see personal branding on LinkedIn it’s often a business that promotes their services through the account of the author. ‘Here’s my puppy, buy my stuff.’ Take note that the target audience for these advice posts is the businesspeople above. And these posts often seek to part them from their money. Your goals are similar. If there’s a commercial outcome you want, it’s likely a single job, not a throughput of leads. You’ll also see that controversial content gets huge engagement and can also repel readers. If you need a job, what’s the danger of writing overly spicy content? Could a reader make a decision against you based on your words? How much you need any job should inform the experience you want to create for your readers. How it sits in your wider job search Publishing content is about raising awareness and starting conversations with the right people. This can be your profile, written posts, newsletters, (bestselling) career breakdown kits, videos, you name it - anything you can become known for. In many ways the hierarchy of relationships your content appeals to is the same as with networking. Content can be publishing posts, commenting on the posts of others, sending direct messages. I’d argue even your applications and interviews are part of your personal brand. I think of LinkedIn posts like a plumber’s van driving around town. Most of the time you’ll disregard the van unless it cuts you up with noxious fumes. When you have a leaky pipe, you’ll surely take note of their number. It can support an application if a hiring manager decides to surreptitiously stalk your profile. And it can work against you if it suggests problem behaviour. A good balance for content is the poster in my daughters’ primary school from a few years back: THINK. Is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind? Achieve those five points and content will rarely work against your job search. Content should be consistent with your wider activity. Which means that everything people (potential employers) experience of you is a complementary and non-contradictory message. Content that contradicts your CV or cover letter may lead to red flags, whether that’s fair or not. Content should be intentional. HOW TO GO viral, and why you shouldn’t Anyone who writes content will enjoy the sweet, sweet flow of dopamine when you see reactions and comments trickle in. Such as that first flair post announcing you are available to help your next employer with examples of your achievements and what you are looking for. Do that and you’ll get loads of engagement. Why haven’t you done it yet? Tag me in and I’ll support you. Or you can do what most people do and say, ‘I’m sorry to announce I’ve lost my job, please help’ and that will get loads too. Because it is relevant and relatable to fellow job seekers, recruiters and sympathisers. Then you feel the soul-crushing defeat of a well-thought-out post, highlighting a problem in your industry, with tumbleweed to follow. Both types of content have a place. That tumbleweed post is relevant and relatable to a niche audience. I try to take a land and expand approach to content - job seeker advice, recruitment advice and stories, ponderings and satire, which I use to tackle topics from different directions. Over the past three years I’ve had between 3m to 11m views of my posts and I’ve gained a bit of business through them too. What I don’t do is try to go viral anymore. Because when I have gone viral with a few 1m impression posts, it’s taken weeks to extricate myself from them and there hasn’t been real benefit. I find my tumbleweed posts start better conversations from lurkers - those that never engage publicly. I promised you I’d show you how to go viral. Here you go. Relevance + relatability + readability + entitlement. Maybe add a selfie. If that seems too simple, search for this sentence on LinkedIn: “An employee asked me if he can WORK from HOME permanently.” You’ll need to use the double speech mark to search on the phrase, and rank by Posts. ‘Does it really work?’ asked Charles. I told him to try it as an experiment. He rarely got more than a few hundred impressions per post. 170,000 impressions, 2,000 reactions. Pretty viral for a first timer. It is the wrong path. What do these posts actually say? Who are they aimed at? And if they don’t appeal to people who can help you reach your objective, what’s the point? 

Nothing but the truth. Innovation from Iteration, pt 4

By Greg Wyatt • March 26, 2026
I was tempted to use another Tom Cruise AI image for this article, but his hands ended up looking like feet, which wasn't a true representation of him. Probably not fair to use AI in this way either, stealing copyrighted material without permission. And so I use this AI 'stock image' instead, which is probably also highly unethical, but feels more suitable and sufficient . Anyway here's an article about why the same principles are crucial for good recruitment: ‘True and Fair’ is an accountancy concept that lies at the heart of reporting, and can be applied effectively in recruitment. Its meaning is that any financial statement made about a company should accurately and completely represent its financial position and performance. The role of auditing is to confirm that documentation meets this definition. Do so and everyone knows what they are dealing with. HMRC, shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees – useful, and in many cases necessary, to have access to a true and fair view of a company’s accounts. Can something be true and not fair? In 2001, Enron went bust, a huge scandal with real-life repercussions that led to new legislation in the US. Their accounts were true, in that they conformed with the required laws and standards. However they had an incredibly complex reporting structure which made it impossible to see the overwhelming debt they had. Poof! Bye-bye a $100bn company when this all came out in the wash. How about fair but not true? This can happen if a situation is described which gives a fair picture but lacks accuracy. An example here could be the UK politician who HMRC deemed behaved fairly but made errors in his tax reporting. Only a few million quid plus penalty. What types of recruitment documentation does this apply to? Three key ones that spring to mind (although there’s no reason it can’t be applied everywhere): The job description. The job advertisement. The CV. If these three documents were always a true and fair representation of either a job or a candidate, you’d interview and hire better candidates who stick around longer. With the caveat that these documents should also be ‘suitable and sufficient’, if you remember last week's edition. Documents are the first step in a recruitment process, relating to a decision to apply and the decision to interview. Is it not the case, that the second most common complaint in recruitment is “not what we expected”? Therefore, if we nipped this complaint in the bud, with true and fair documentation, wouldn’t life be better for everyone in the recruitment process? What does true and fair mean in recruitment documentation? I think it has to cover three points. 1/ factually correct 2/ shows context suitably 3/ describes sufficiently An immediate objection might be that job descriptions are always true and fair, but I’d argue this is actually rarely the case. If you recruit for a new role, do you audit your job description against the current context? If you have a generic job family description does it show the specific day-to-day duties of a role? Have things changed in the current role that makes it different to the last time you recruited? A common scenario in recruitment is that Greg resigns, and the hiring manager says “we’d love someone just like Greg”. Yet if Greg resigned, wouldn’t someone just like Greg be at risk of resigning for the same reasons in future? Would now-Greg have applied for the same role that then-Greg applied for? Which definition of Greg is the true and fair one you’d hire? It feels strange writing my name like this. There are lots of different situations in which a job description that was true and fair a few years ago is no longer so. The only way to ensure it is true and fair, is to audit documentation prior to going live. You may think a fully representative and accurate contextual analysis is too time-consuming for most vacancies, especially where it doesn’t actually matter if there is some inaccuracy. “Oh yeah, that’s not relevant anymore”. But if you have a key hire that can make a difference in your business, ‘true and fair’ should be the starting point, each and every time. If you have a systematic process that finds truth and fairness, you’ll see the benefit of applying the same across any vacancy – for the reason that the time invested at the outset is offset by interviewing fewer unsuitable candidates and wasting less time and resources overall. And what should be the more important reason of better recruitment outcomes. For any project I take on, this is the first step – getting the documentation in order. Get it right and everything flows from there. It’s a key reason behind my nearly 100% fill rate. It’s also one of the reasons my average tenure is over 4 years for key hires. These achievements don’t come down to chance. They come from my process. If you've forgotten why suitability and sufficiency is the other pillar, here's an example that isn't suitable: Nineteen experiential bullet points might be true and fair but will also encourage ideal candidates to run away screaming. See you next time. Regards, Greg p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates, and are curious how I can help, these are my services: - commercial, operational and technical leadership recruitment (available for no more than two vacancies) - manage part or all of your recruitment on an individually designed basis for one client. This can be a large as end-to-end delivery of a programme of vacancies, or as small as writing one job advert for a key hire- recruitment strategy setting - outplacement support