{"id":350764,"date":"2026-03-21T11:59:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T11:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/350764\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T11:59:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T11:59:36","slug":"job-seekers-arent-imagining-things-the-number-of-candidates-ghosted-by-employers-just-reached-a-three-year-high-thanks-to-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/350764\/","title":{"rendered":"Job seekers aren\u2019t imagining things: the number of candidates ghosted by employers just reached a three-year high thanks to AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Job seekers are up against a brutal labor market, sending thousands of applications<\/a> out to no avail, and resorting to in-person stunts to<\/a> get an employer\u2019s attention. And a new report is confirming their suspicions: hiring managers are ghosting their candidates, and it\u2019s getting worse for talent every year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than half, 53%, of job seekers experienced ghosting within the last year, according to a new report<\/a> from pre-employment testing company Criteria. And that number just reached a three-year peak, as 48% of applicants were ignored by employers in 2025, and 38% were ghosted in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Job seekers may point the finger at lethargic hiring managers, but in actuality, the worrying trend might chalk up to an overwhelming hiring process \u201cincreasingly ineffective\u201d at finding the right match.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a surge in application volume, largely fueled by AI tools that make it easier than ever to apply and tailor r\u00e9sum\u00e9s at scale,\u201d Josh Millet, the cofounder and CEO of Criteria, tells Fortune. \u201cThe result is that hiring teams are spending more time reviewing applications, but getting less meaningful signals from each one.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as job seekers and hiring managers both increasingly use<\/a> advanced technology, it\u2019s muddying the best way<\/a> to pick talent. Millet explained that the r\u00e9sum\u00e9, once the benchmark of a job application, is now becoming a<\/a> \u201cweaker signal\u201d because it can be easily generated by AI. As more people highly tailor their r\u00e9sum\u00e9 with AI tools, it then becomes harder to differentiate the frontrunner in a pool of polished applications. As a result, employers aren\u2019t always answering back to the thousands of candidates who applied to an open role within the span of just hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRecruiters are inundated, screening methods are less reliable, and communication suffers,\u201d Millet continued. \u201cIn many ways, ghosting is less about intent and more about a hiring process that hasn\u2019t caught up to how candidates are applying today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Ghost jobs\u2019 are also flooding the market, and job-seekers are losing faith\u00a0<\/p>\n

AI has undoubtedly upended the hiring process and turned it into a numbers game; job-seekers send out a deluge of applications until something sticks, while managers are stuck sifting through thousands of candidates for every open role. The trend has been intensifying for years, leaving many job-hunters out in the cold\u2014and sometimes, employers are intentionally ghosting.<\/p>\n

About 81% of recruiters said that their employer posts \u201cghost jobs,\u201d or roles that either don\u2019t exist or have already been filled, according to a 2024 report<\/a> from MyPerfectResume.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unlike conventional ghosting, these fake postings are created for a purposeful reason: about 38% of recruiters reported that they post fake positions to maintain a presence on job boards when they aren\u2019t hiring, 36% did so to assess the effectiveness of their job postings, and 26% hoped gain insight into the job market and competitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jasmine Escalera, a career expert for MyPerfectResume, told Fortune<\/a> in 2024\u00a0 that another big reason is wanting to improve their employers\u2019 image; nearly a quarter said that fake jobs help their company look like they\u2019re not freezing hiring, and one fifth fessed up to posting ghost jobs to improve the reputation of their business.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompanies are trying to project \u2018We\u2019re okay, we\u2019re still maintaining hiring, that we\u2019re still moving in a growth-oriented trend. In this market, our organization is doing well.\u2019 That ties into why these fake jobs might be appearing more from a comforting perspective,\u201d Escalera explained<\/a>. \u201cIt really is about the business, the bottom line, showing growth, showing trends, and how that can connect to maintaining profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the trend is discouraging for candidates vying to land a new role.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe often hear job-seekers saying, \u2018I\u2019m tired, I\u2019m depressed, I\u2019m desperate,\u2019 using these very harsh words when it comes to the job market,\u201d the career expert continued<\/a>. \u201cThis is one of the reasons why they are losing faith in organizations and companies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Job seekers are up against a brutal labor market, sending thousands of applications out to no avail, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,4023,343,344,21081,6373,9197,2116,4200,85,46,10327,7858,265,505,25727,37737,37738,1667,26835,26834,125,2958],"class_list":["post-350764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-applications","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-candidate","tag-careers","tag-emotions","tag-employment","tag-hiring","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-job-hunting","tag-job-seekers","tag-jobs","tag-management","tag-managers","tag-recruiters","tag-recruiting","tag-resumes","tag-retention","tag-talent-acquisition","tag-technology","tag-unemployment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}