How common are ghost jobs?
Greenhouse reported in 2025 that between 18 and 22 percent of postings per quarter are never filled. Hunter Ng, analysing 270,000 Glassdoor interview reviews, put the share as high as 21 percent, with the worst rates at employers of 1,001 to 5,000 people and in specialised sectors. Hires per posting have roughly halved since 2019, which is the number that best explains why applying feels worse than it did.
Why would an employer post a job nobody will get?
Most reasons are mundane rather than sinister. Pipeline building, so a future opening starts with a shortlist. Market research on salary and skills. Compliance: many organisations, particularly public bodies, must advertise a role even when an internal candidate is already chosen. A budget frozen after the posting went up. And plain neglect, because taking a posting down is nobody job once the role is filled.
The signals that actually mean something
Age and re-posting are the two strongest signals, and they are the two that job boards obscure most. Presence on the employer own careers board is stronger still, because it is a fact rather than a reading of the wording. Description heuristics are the weakest tier: an employer who wants a posting to look live rewrites it in an afternoon, so wording alone can be gamed by anyone motivated to game it.
What a missing salary tells you, and where
It depends entirely on the country. Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania and Malta transposed the EU Pay Transparency Directive on time in June 2026, and Ontario has required a pay range since January 2026. In those places a missing salary is a compliance failure. In Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands it is still ordinary practice, so it says very little. Treating the two the same is the most common mistake in ghost-job advice.
What you can check in under a minute
Open the employer own careers page and search the title. If the posting is not there, the version you are reading is a copy that outlived its source. Look for a re-posted label. Check whether the closing date has passed. And read the first paragraph for wording that admits it is a pipeline rather than a vacancy: talent community, general application, keeping your CV on file.