SHARE:  
in partnership with.png

Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.

CAREERS

How ghost jobs are creating a false sense of hope

Wondering why it’s so tough to land a new gig when economic data says the job market isn’t half bad? Blame the fake jobs

WE’VE WRITTEN IN the past about the problem of “ghost jobs” clogging up job boards ― fake listings for jobs that likely don’t exist, or are being posted with no intention on the part of the company of actually filling them. On this front there’s some bad news: the problem is getting worse.

 

“Those so-called ghost jobs ― the roles that companies advertise but have no intention of filling ― may account for as much as one in five jobs advertised online,” reads a new report from The Wall Street Journal.

 

The data comes from Greenhouse, a hiring platform, that recently performed an analysis of its internal database of its clients’ job postings and hiring activity. They found that in any given quarter, between 18 and 22 per cent of job postings on their platform were fake. “It’s kind of a horror show,” said Greenhouse president Jon Stross. “The job market has become more soul-crushing than ever.”

 

In response, major job boards like Greenhouse and LinkedIn are starting to roll out more verification tools; late last year, for instance, LinkedIn began vetting jobs and applying a “verified” badge to valid listings.

 

They suggest that this fact about the job market helps explain why economic data has been so confusing over the past couple years. Jobs data has generally remained satisfactory in both Canada and the U.S., but white-collar workers report that the hiring market has almost never been worse. What’s more concerning is that companies seem to be fine with this. A survey by Resume Builder last summer found that three in 10 companies had fake job listings at the time of asking, four in 10 had listed a fake job in the past 12 months and seven in 10 hiring managers believe that posting the fake jobs was morally acceptable.

 

One consistent point in all this has been AI. Both sides of the coin argue that AI tools are being deployed in response: applicants say they have no choice but to approach the job market as a volume game, using AI to blanket the market with applications. Companies say they are using AI because they are overloaded with applications submitted with AI. (Greenhouse’s data found that 57 per cent attribute the state of the job market to the introduction of AI.)

 

But if you ask Stross, companies are playing a dangerous game here and should be thinking of the long-term. “They need to realize that the market runs in cycles, and they won’t always have the upper hand,” he said in the Greenhouse report. “Every unanswered email and every vanishing hiring manager isn’t just a minor inconvenience to candidates; it’s costly and can damage a company’s reputation, making it harder to attract top talent in the long term.” 

CULTURE

Cheaters, cheaters everywhere

Recent studies reveal a striking trend among Gen Z and millennial employees many of them find it acceptable to engage in various forms of workplace cheating

giphy image

LOOK, WE KNOW it’s a bit cliché to rag on the workplace attitudes of millennials and Gen Z, lax such as they are. But a new survey from PapersOwl paints a bit of an unflattering picture of us young workers, with 95 per cent of employees under 34 telling surveyors they believe workplace cheating is A-okay.


Sleeping at work, “quiet vacationing,” writing reports with ChatGPT, calling in “sick” or clocking out early are near universal practices among younger millennials and Gen Z, the survey found.

 

“Are these trends indicative of a workforce redefining loyalty and productivity? Or are they signs of disengagement from corporate responsibilities?” the report asked.

 

It’s important to look at the why of it all. The surveyors looked at the motivations of the workplace cheaters and observed that it wasn’t really about slacking. Two-thirds said they were trying to reclaim some flexibility in their workday they felt was being denied to them; four in ten were doing it because they preferred working in a different location; one in five said that the office environment was simply unproductive.

 

One way to look at it is that younger generations have lax ethics in the workplace. Another, arguably more persuasive interpretation, is that the modern office is a box into which young workers simply don’t fit anymore.

 

“People’s work preferences have rapidly evolved over the past five years,” said Workplace Intelligence partner Dan Schawbel in Fortune. “When you couple that with the digital, on-demand lifestyle that Gen Z has known their whole lives, it’s easy to see why the often-rigid nature of working in a physical location like a factory, hospital, school, warehouse or retail shop would leave younger workers craving more choice.”

 

This stuff isn’t going away. “In the long run, these behaviours will shape the future of hiring and work environments, including the potential normalization of hybrid models or flexible PTO policies,” the report concluded. “What employers can do is understand these behaviors by fostering open communication, prioritizing mental health, and offering flexibility to reduce workplace ‘cheating.’”

Terry Talks: Thriving through disruption

In this week’s Terry Talks, Ahria Consulting founder Terry Gillis highlights strategies we can all implement into our daily lives to help navigate topsy-turvy times. From prioritizing wellbeing and nurturing a strong network of support to continuously developing our skillsets, we can position ourselves ― and our organizations ― to adapt and thrive in times of turbulence. 

WATCH HERE

PRODUCTIVITY

No meetings before noon

To get the most out of every day, you need to guard the hours when you are at your most productive

MAYBE SOME OF the temptation to be a workplace cheat starts to seep in towards the end of the day, when your most productive hours of the day are well behind you. Career website Zety released its Productivity Patterns Report, and it found that more than half of workers said their productivity is high in the morning, and low in the afternoon.

 

“Fifty-two per cent of workers report achieving peak performance between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m., while only 15 per cent feel most productive after 2 p.m.,” the report found. A third say they are most productive around lunchtime. When you remove the five per cent of self-proclaimed night owls who are most productive in the evening hours, that leaves only 10 per cent of people who say their best work happens in the afternoon.

 

This poses an obvious problem, in that most in-office workdays are still 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For half of workers, the first of their most productive hours is usually spent commuting, and the second of those is often spent on meetings and check-ins. This also jives with the general scientific evidence that on average, people are sharpest at work in the morning, not the afternoon.

 

So that raises the next question: If you’re a workplace manager (or an employee), how do you use this? One thing you can do is invert the day by backloading the housekeeping type work, like check-ins and meetings, and frontload the kind of work that requires deep focus. But also, as an employee, it is worth structuring your day around your own peak productivity, to the extent that you can.

 

“Many of the tasks you instinctively perform first, like reading emails, browsing social media or attending meetings can derail your focus,” wrote Angie Henson. They are tasks that often feel like they are easing you into the day, but they are often chewing up some of the most valuable real estate on the day planner.

 

“Understanding when employees feel most productive, how they manage tasks and the environments that help them thrive can provide critical insights for employers looking to optimize performance and job satisfaction,” said Jasmine Escalera, Zety’s career expert. “Addressing common productivity barriers such as distracting environments or micromanagement can make a significant difference in retaining top talent.”

LEADERSHIP

WTF is voice veneer?

Seeing concerns addressed by managers helps workers feel valued. That is until the bosses disengage from those expressing the concerns

AND FINALLY, ONE for those of you out there who enjoy reading research papers.

 

The term “voice veneer” started popping up in the last couple months, and its origins stem from a recent academic paper that used as a case study a 2014 unionization drive among Disney puppeteers (specifically those in the Disney Junior – Live on Stage! production). A paper published in the Academy of Management Discoveries journal by three management academics recently looked at how the union drive played out with management, and what happened after a contract was signed.

 

“We discovered a perplexing process we call the adoption of voice veneer, in which an employer appears to address the concerns voiced by workers but simultaneously limits the impact of voice by decreasing its dependence on those voicing concerns,” the authors wrote.

 

It isn’t the particular fight over labour and organizing that interested the authors of the paper, though, but the way that Disney sought to appear as if it was taking concerns on board while effectively forcing out the workers raising the concerns ― first by winding down, then outright cancelling, their production and letting the contract that covered puppeteer work at Disneyland expire.

 

“Understanding the adoption of voice veneer matters because it is a process through which voices can seem to be heard without producing intended changes,” the authors wrote. “Adopting voice veneer might seem like a short-term winning strategy from the corporate perspective. Yet it is not without risks for an organization as well, from image to long-term ability to attract talent.”

 

From an employee perspective, they continued, voice veneer is experienced as an “emotional roller coaster,” and the legitimate concerns never actually get addressed.

 

In the end, the authors suggest voice veneer is a concept that you may start to hear more and more about as workers try to address occupational concerns. The researchers didn’t so much create the concept as give name to something that most employees would probably recognize as commonplace.

 

“In today’s increasingly fractured economy, ever more reliant on temporary contracts and freelance workers, voice veneer may prove increasingly widespread,” they conclude. “A closer look at how worker voices are handled may be key in understanding the perils of voice veneer for all involved.” 

MORE FROM LONDON INC.

X Share This Email
LinkedIn Share This Email

Follow Us

Facebook  Instagram  X  LinkedIn