Recruiters Buried by Fake AI Applications
Recruiters across various industries are facing a significant challenge: a flood of applications, many of which appear to be fake or from unqualified individuals. This is impacting their ability to fill roles, reducing response rates, and forcing them to spend excessive time vetting candidates, leading to frustration and inefficiency.
SOURCES (60)
“I'm based in Ontario, Canada. I just woke up today to messages on Linkedin + emails to my personal email from 4 separate recruiters. Two of them included the Job ID, which is exactly the same. Reading the JD of the other two, it's clear…”
“I had the same reaction, but managed to force myself to upvote "for visibility." This is a large number of real "remote" job postings I find.”
“Oh ok. I have kept my profile up to date but have zero connections or followers. Not sure if it is because of that or something. Thanks for the reply btw.”
“I don't do anything to get reached out too, besides keep my linkedin updated and respond to the inquiries that are meaningful.”
“I think you underestimate the extent of ghost jobs. Data mostly collected from surveys from 3rd parties, suggest between 20-75% of jobs, including "legitimate" companies post ghost jobs.”
“Evergreen are honest jobs to fill; ghost jobs may not have any role to fill; they may be data collecting, or an HR tactic to threaten current employee's replaceability, suggest more help is coming *(when the employer has no intention of hiring), thus "ghost jobs" are deceptive, dishonest, essentially dark triad traits of employers. Evergreen jobs are roles that are perpetually really hiring.”
“Sure, I’ve seen many posts and comments about the phenomenon but those are generally focused on everyone’s frustrations with it. I want to know why it is happening. What is the benefit to companies posting jobs just for show? Sorry if I sound naive I just don’t understand why they’d go through the whole rigamarole for nothing.”
“This is a real pain point. Most Ai generated LinkedIn posts have the same voice :)”
“Mind you, 5+ years of experience implies that they want you to have been in this field since at least 2020-21, and have they all forgotten what THAT period was like in the job market????”
“I remember being warned about this, and I've just been paranoid that maybe for some reason, the things I post is just one more thing that makes jobs not want to hire me. Maybe some automated online background check. But how would they even know they're my accounts with their own limited information? And why would they care? It's just a low paying job! It's ridiculous, isn't it? submitted by /u/photoedfade [link] [comments]”
“Exactly, it's insane how crazy and unrealistic these tech job requirements have become. These useless recruiters and hiring managers want unicorns while offering an intern-level salary.”
“I'd check Upwork or Reddit Communities for this. You can search for "influencer outreach" or "talent acquisition" specifically. A lot of agencies also hang out on Twitter (X) if you search for "outreach agency" or "appointment setting," you'll find plenty of people doing this for creators. Just make sure they actually understand the creator economy and aren't just sending generic cold emails.”
“Both of the jobs were reposted in LinkedIn literally the same day or previous day and I somehow missed the original posting. What gives? Were these automatically reposted or is there another explanation? A week after I was told the job had already been filled, the job is still up on LinkedIn. submitted by /u/PerfectionEludesMe [link] [comments]”
“i just saw someone share a story that they opened 2 AI engineer roles this week. In a bit more than a day, 600+ applications came in. That's generally at least 4x more than they get for the other Engineering roles. On top of that, 30+ pitches on LinkedIn, 5 via work email, 3 via personal and 4 agencies reached out to them, and they're not even the hiring manager there are so many obvious Ai written posts on the linkedin frontpage everyday where it is announcing a new project they made, s”
“Honestly just applied on LinkedIn. Technical background, some shitty call center experience way back helped I assume too. Simplified my resume so it wasn't like SWE focused.”
“Our salesteam has been is all-in on LinkedIn lately. And by all-in I mean just the sloppiest, most generic ' what watching the world cup has tought me about employer branding ' ChatGPT-written posts, to the degree where I've had to forbid them from posting anything that our content specialist hasn't made or OK'd. Their ambition is to somehow attract B2B clients using their generic AI content. Meanwhile, my team and I are pushing actual campaigns (organic and paid) to generate”
“I have noticed more candidates asking the same question lately: Is this role actually being filled? When the same job keeps getting reposted with no updates, it's easy to understand why people start losing confidence in the hiring process. Has anyone else been noticing this? submitted by /u/Oliaseddiqui [link] [comments]”
“We've been hiring for a junior role for like 3 weeks now and i dont know how to screen anymore honestly. nine candidates so far, and every single portfolio is insane. deployed fullstack apps, clean github, nice UIs. half the resumes have cursor and claude code and coderabbit on them like its a tech stack. 5 years ago any one of these kids is a top candidate; now i genuinely cannot tell them apart so last week i was interviewing the guy with the best portfolio of the whole batch and i asked h”
No, but it helps, also depends what sector you are applying to
“For any recruiters here who can provide insight: when a role is posted, receives dozens of applications, is removed and then no candidate is selected (or something else happens), why is the job reposted instead of HR just returning to the large pool of candidate profiles they collected from the beginning?? Of course not every resume gets reviewed the first time, so why not simply go back to review the original set of applicants vs. subjecting the requisition to a gazillion new ones? submit”
“Most marketing hires write for search engines or dopamine-chasing algorithms, not real decision-makers. Having spent 15+ years in financial journalism and global content strategy, I’ve learned that mature business buyers are completely immune to marketing fluff. They only convert on high information density and direct, answer-first logical structures. AI shouldn't be used to 'create' ideas, but to hyper-scale the distribution of your authentic, fact-based founder insights.”
“I see so many posts here from people saying they applied to 500 jobs and got zero bites. If you are feeding the job description into ChatGPT and copy-pasting the result, recruiters can spot it instantly. It always uses the exact same structure and the same buzzwords ('delve,' 'spearheaded,' 'dynamic'). You think you're saving time, but you are automatically filtering yourself into the rejection pile for looking lazy. submitted by /u/GuaranteePlayful9596 [l”
“"Hey everyone, I’ve been auditing a client’s account that was suffering from deep impressions but an incredibly low CTR (well under 1.5%). When digging into the search terms, a major culprit was generic broad-match terms triggering for job seekers and people looking for free guides rather than transactional intent. Moving the account to a structure of roughly 60% Phrase Match and 40% Exact Match instantly cleaned up the traffic. Curious—what's your go-to match type ratio when saving a f”
“you want all three? quick hire, good pay, AND benefits in entry level remote marketing brother that's the dream for everyone right now. i been looking for something similar since january and no luck yet remote customer service might be your best bet for getting hired fast but the pay is usually trash. maybe try staffing agencies? they sometimes have temp to hire positions that move quick i do some freelance graphic design on the side while applying, it helps with the bills at least”
“What field? What roles are you looking for? How much experience do you have in those roles?”
“Hope everybody is doing well! I applied for a position at a company using Workday. After submitting my application, I connected with an employee who offered to refer me for the same position and sent me a referral application link. The issue is that I already completed and submitted the application before receiving the referral link. I don’t want to submit a duplicate application and potentially create confusion in the system. For those familiar with Workday recruiting: Should I withdraw my curr”
“Can't find the recruiter or interviewer on LinkedIn. The website exists, but it doesn't have the job listing. I'm tired of scams, and a text-based interview via Teams is a HUGE red flag. Should I trust my gut? submitted by /u/k_but_why_tho [link] [comments]”
“Maybe someone has a job to help addicts and keeps searching that word. This ai may auto reject them.”
“Hey I was a controller at multiple companies too. Older or more experience does not always mean someone was actually better”
“Asking this more for sanity sake, but I've been having this feeling of "I've already seen this application / job posting" several times over. Companies I've seen multiple times show up now are ones like Sarnova (Digitech Computers) and Crate and Barrel. This starts getting bad since I can't imagine it looks good applying to the exact same job, but even with an excel sheet out it can be hard at times to identify if this is a listing for a new job or if they are just reli”
“Unfortunately, I cannot comment on this. I wasn't a "recruiter", we essentially just did the "dirty work" for other corporations (gathered all the factual info about a person we could, then passed the factual data onto the HR departments of those corporations, who then made the hiring decisions). For what it's worth, though, we did use a Red/Amber/Green system on our reports to indicate potential issues (these varied by client, depending on what they considered troubl”
“I’ve been applying for jobs for a while, so I posted this on LinkedIn: “Job hunt milestone unlocked. Officially mastering the art of refreshing my inbox, updating my resume for the 27th time, and convincing myself that ‘We’ll get back to you’ is a love language.” I thought it would get ignored, but the comments turned into job seekers bonding over recruiter ghosting. One person commented, “US,” and another said, “Ghosting is the ultimate anti-love language.” It was a nice reminder that a little”
“The second question I can answer. They post and conduct interviews for roles they know they are filling internally to legitimize that hire and make it look like they aren’t playing favorites when they are.”
“Hi everyone, Curious to know how did you find your job? Did you get recruited? Networking? Applied on their website or indeed? submitted by /u/Jazzlike_Being1 [link] [comments]”
“I sincerely think it’s because they figure someone else already approved you and thinks you’re worthy of keeping around. Whereas is you’re unemployed they view you as tainted and rejected. It’s programmed thinking with zero logic or basis underpinning. There is nothing intelligent or profound about why they do this. It’s pure stupidity just like the hate for job hoppers and the fear mongering of “burning bridges.” It is to keep you fearing ever coming off the hamster wheel voluntarily. Same is t”
“I don't know why you would, but I'm certain you've not done much hiring given the opinions you hold. If "Sr. Director, SWE" is inflated or a lie.”
“LinkedIn is okay but most industry roles never get posted there, the company websites are way better for searching directly.”
“I get LinkedIn updates about them more recently. Also if you’ve applied/got an offer/interview, how did it go? submitted by /u/museoflilith [link] [comments]”
“But he isn't saying that it's SP500 company or nothing for him. He just wants a job. Any job. Applied to 450 of them apparently. Edit to add, my oldest graduated in Dec 2013 from a state school that is currently ranked 232 in national universities and 129 in top public schools. His first job out of school was at a SV startup, he started there in April 2014 with a starting pay higher than my senior SWE salary was at the time. Admittedly his degree was in CS and not in business. I'm no”
“I think they've alway had them. McDonald's is a very desirable employer, its not just "flipping burgers," they have corporate, IT, human resources, everything”
“It may have been a different one, but I remember reading the creator applying to a job out of curiosity that created the actual framework, which was clearly listed in his resume. He was turned down with feedback that he should really beef up his experience with said framework as they were looking for someone with a stronger knowlege of it.”
“Just curious. Did they start by bringing in a scrum master from his home country and using data from that to justify the PIPs ?”
“Hello Laid Off PM, who has been applying for months. In the last couple of months I have started reaching out to recruiters and hiring managers via LinkedIn. I even applied back to my old company. A coworker helped me get info on recruiters and I emailed them. Am I acting too desperate ? But how do I get to an interview ? I even asked some former coworkers for referrals- some just said “add my name in referral box” or let me know if you see something - no one offered to sincerely connect me with”
“Having to take the extra time to add my LinkedIn profile URL and where I heard about them (umm.. LinkedIn) while applying ON LINKEDIN. Why can't these be auto-filled, please make it stop. submitted by /u/Leading_Slice_7799 [link] [comments]”
“Whenever I go on linked in I see people with different role types jumping into various positions. I have various experience but I’m having a hard time getting into the roles I want even though I believe I have transferable skills. What’s everyone’s secret? submitted by /u/Horror_Raisin_3898 [link] [comments]”
“Most people are on linkedin. You can check who has that role title. Not hard.”
“Hello everyone, Rohit here. I have been actively looking for a job in the tech industry, but have been struggling to get interviews. I've tried applying on LinkedIn, reaching out to recruiters and sometimes founders, and also using platforms like Naukri. However, I often receive automated emails or vague responses stating that they will get back to me, but nothing more. I have been on two entrepreneurial journeys, and I'm wondering if that might be part of the problem. I've also look”
“I get one every month or two and they send me requests to set up a meeting through my work email or phone number. Like, how in the hell did you get it first of all? My linked in email is not my work email address. But what makes you think it’s a good idea to do so? submitted by /u/FlatRolloutsOnly [link] [comments]”
“I have been applying on LinkedIn, ziprecruiter, Glassdoor, etc and I haven't received anything. I have changed my resume and applied to so many jobs in my field for something but all I run into are ghost jobs or outdated job postings that are irrelevant now. Are there any job boards that you guys use? What are some good ones that you guys still use and apply on? submitted by /u/ReplacementFlashy622 [link] [comments]”
“Hi there! Has anyone gotten recruitment emails for jobs from Amelia Vance at a company called Hires Bloom recruiting? I can’t find her or the company on LinkedIn and I find that a little fishy and I’m not sure how she even found me. She has reached out to me twice via email and one job had a veryyy high salary and you know the saying: if it’s too good to be true it probably is! Anyone else get emails from her? submitted by /u/coyote042993 [link] [comments]”
“Hey, I'm also actively searching for remote and India-based IT fresher roles, and honestly LinkedIn feels oversaturated. I've heard Internshala, Hirist, Apna, Freshersworld, and Wellfound work better. Has anyone here had actual success with these or found other hidden gems? Would love to hear what's worked for you." Better? submitted by /u/Ok_Worldliness9136 [link] [comments]”
“Its almost always #1. Even more in government roles (or companies that work with the government) as they must "open" the job for external candidates. Its all a circus. From the government side it helps them with the numbers of "job creation", "open opportunities" etc etc.”