Like most job seekers, you’ve no doubt applied to job listings on the major career boards like Monster, CareerBuilder and HotJobs. In doing so, you’ve likely seen little or no response to some applications although you keep seeing that same job every time you log in.

It’s frustrating as a job seeker to see the same job over and over, knowing you’ve applied and are qualified for the job but haven’t been contacted. Why does this happen? Are they looking for the “perfect” candidate?

No.

Chances are they aren’t even really looking for a candidate.

Why then, is the job posted? Here is where I let you in on a nasty little secret of the staffing industry. That job posting was paid for when that employer renewed their contract with the major job board. That might have taken place a year ago, a month ago or anywhere in between. Employers are often charged hundreds of dollars per job posting in advance; what this means for the job seeker is that often times “bogus” jobs are posted in an effort to not waste money. How does this make sense? Let me explain.

Since the job ads are already paid for, employers want to make sure they are “getting their money’s worth” even if they have ZERO job openings. If their contract is about to expire or if they hire a certain skill-set on a regular basis, many employers will post general job openings with these skills in order to “build a pipeline”. In other words, they are simply candidate mining. All these employers want is your information for their database, in exchange for the price they paid for that job listing.

Now to you as a job seeker, this seems completely unfair and cruel. Why post a job that isn’t real? From a business perspective it’s easy to understand. It’s like vacation time – use it or lose it. Employers would rather post a fake job to gather potential candidates for later use than to “lose” a job posting they’ve paid hundreds of dollars for. Unfortunately, it’s discouraging to job seekers and makes them wary of using job boards at all, so this is a trend with a backlash for employers.

So how can you tell if a job posting is “real”?  The truth is, you can’t. As a job seeker, as frustrating as it may be to encounter this type of situation, I’m afraid it’s unavoidable if you’re truly “pounding the pavement”. What’s important to remember is that if you don’t receive a response to your application, don’t send another for the same job. Wait until you see a different job opening or until 6 months has passed to apply for the same job. If you’ve applied for the same job twice within a 1 year period, you’re either not what the company is looking for, or you could be responding to a  bogus posting.

The good news is, even if you’ve applied to a bogus job posting it isn’t going to hurt you. It means that company that mined your information may eventually call you about that dream job! It might just be 6 months or a year too late. 😉

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Tags: job ads, Job boards