“It had specific questions,” she said, but it was nothing like connecting with a potential employer face-to-face.<\/p>\n
“It would sort of pick up on a key word or something that you’ve said, [like] ‘Hey, that’s good experience in project management – tell us more about it’.”<\/p>\n
Answers were timed, Maclean told RNZ, leaving little room to consider a response.<\/p>\n
“You’re not really able to take a second to think mid-sentence because it will just assume that you’re finished and then cut you off and on to the next bit.”<\/p>\n
It was a jarring experience, which became more strange after the initially very eager company ghosted her.<\/p>\n
Maclean is now sounding the alarm about companies that post prolifically on sites such as LinkedIn, advertising remote roles with attractive salaries.<\/p>\n
After some digging online, she fears the company that sent an AI agent to interview her was simply after her personal data to train artificial intelligence – a potential scam or so-called “ghost” job, a scenario where a company advertises for a role it has no intention of filling.<\/p>\n
The experience has prompted Maclean to launch a petition to Parliament explicitly banning such job advertisements.<\/p>\n
![\"Jobseeker](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/charlie-maclean-5ENDT3E7PFFVPL7YMMUN6GTLB4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Jobseeker Charlie Maclean worries about how AI is used for recruiting processes. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n
‘Data is king’<\/p>\n
Senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Victoria University Ben Walker doesn’t have “case-closed” evidence of phantom job listings but feels there is enough online commentary to suggest advertised roles by certain companies were spurious.<\/p>\n
Companies under fire in online message threads for suspected data harvesting have not responded to RNZ’s requests for comment.<\/p>\n
While recruiters RNZ contacted had not come across ghost jobs in New Zealand, they had heard of such practices.<\/p>\n
One recruiter, with almost 20 years experience, said companies posting fake jobs to harvest candidate data was a new con for the industry and had been a topic of discussion among colleagues overseas.<\/p>\n
Chief executive of Tribe Group recruitment agency Bruce Pilbrow found the scenario plausible, and said it would be an effective way to gather core information.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot happening in the AI space and the online space in the sense of harvesting information,” he said. “Data is king.”<\/p>\n
![\"Senior](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/andrew-lensen-AUBBKMEUINBHFCZCZ4ZXD2ZLIA.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Senior lecturer in artificial intelligence at Victoria University, Andrew Lensen. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n
Fake job listing or not, Victoria University senior lecturer in artificial intelligence Andrew Lensen said there was growing concern about where personal information ended up.<\/p>\n
CVs and cover letters contained potentially valuable data, he said, including a person’s name, educational background and even an address.<\/p>\n
“It’s your career history, it’s what you’ve learned, the skills you have, and we often don’t think about it that carefully but that is a lot of information.<\/p>\n
“If it is going into any sort of database or system that could be used for things like AI in the future, then I think people are quite rightfully getting more and more concerned about how the data is being used and where it’s going.”<\/p>\n
Rapid recruitment a red flag<\/p>\n
In her months-long search for work, Maclean said she came across a handful of companies on LinkedIn – a professional networking platform – advertising remote jobs with inflated salaries that seemed to “go nowhere”.<\/p>\n
According to Walker, an intense recruitment drive could be a red flag.<\/p>\n
“Where it’s a company that you’ve never heard of suddenly doing those sorts of things, it potentially raises a few question marks and alarm bells about whether the jobs are legitimate or whether they may be a cover or some means to another end.”<\/p>\n
![\"Experts](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/social-network-connecting-people-icon-3d-rendering-EH36RMQWGFCCHHSNWMJIJYHAS4.jpg\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\n
Experts are concerned about the quantity and authenticity of LinkedIn job opportunities. (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n
As a global platform, LinkedIn differed greatly from job sites such as SEEK and Trade Me, he said, and in his opinion it had undergone a transformation in recent years: “People talk about the slopification of LinkedIn.”<\/p>\n
In response to questions from RNZ, a LinkedIn spokesperson said the company was investing in free verifications for jobs, recruiters and company pages, and that every job must be authentic and accurately represented.<\/p>\n
Neither SEEK nor Trade Me considered ghost jobs to be a material issue on their sites, citing the financial commitment to advertise a role, verification processes, and the ability for job seekers to report suspect listings.<\/p>\n
A petition and a warning<\/p>\n
Maclean has since found work but the process was demoralising to the point that she almost forgot what she was good at.<\/p>\n
“Jobs that I was really keen on I even took to sending people cupcakes with a little QR code in the icing, literally just to cut through the noise to get a phone call.”<\/p>\n
The exhausting process, in addition to her experience with the suspect company, has prompted a petition to Parliament to see ghost jobs explicitly banned, in line with crackdowns overseas.<\/p>\n
“It’s incredibly difficult out there.<\/p>\n
“I can’t fix that for people but this seems like a really easy one … at least the things that you do put the effort in [for] should be real.”<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Willis questions Labour\u2019s commitments, and two people are hospitalised after a West Auckland incident. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sitting across from the AI interview agent, Charlie Maclean tried to put her best foot forward, but it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[363,138,1122,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-620904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-business","tag-employment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}