How to spot fake job postings, ghost jobs and resume harvesting scams

Not every job listing is a real job. Some are ghost jobs that nobody plans to fill. Some are resume harvesting: a vague posting that exists to collect your resume and personal details. And some are outright fake job scams designed to take your money or your identity. Knowing how to spot fake job postings saves you time at best, and a lot of money at worst.

This guide covers all three, with a red-flag checklist and a five-minute way to tell if a job posting is real before you hand over anything.

Three kinds of fake job postings

What are ghost jobs?

A ghost job is a listing for a role the company isn’t really trying to fill right now. It’s more common than most people assume. In a 2024 Resume Builder survey of 649 hiring managers, about 4 in 10 said their company had posted a fake job listing that year, as reported by CPA Practice Advisor. It’s a self-reported survey, so treat the exact number with care, but the pattern matches what a lot of job seekers experience.

Reasons companies post ghost jobs include:

• Looking like they’re growing, to investors, clients or staff.
• Building a pool of resumes for a role they might open later.
• A posting that legally or by policy has to go up, when an internal candidate is already chosen.
• Nobody remembering to take down a filled or cancelled role.

Ghost jobs aren’t usually scams. The company is real and nothing bad happens to your data. You just never hear back.

Signs a posting might be a ghost job

• It’s been up for months, or it’s reposted every few weeks with a new date.
• The same role appears again and again at a company that isn’t obviously growing.
• The description is generic and doesn’t name a team, a manager or real projects.
• It’s on job boards but missing from the company’s own careers page.
• People who applied report hearing nothing at all, ever.

None of these proves anything on its own. Some roles are genuinely hard to fill and stay open a long time. But if a posting ticks several boxes, spend less effort on it and more on roles that look active.

What is resume harvesting (resume farming)?

Resume harvesting, also called resume farming, is when a posting is mostly there to collect resumes and personal details. Sometimes it’s a recruiting agency building a database with a vague “exciting opportunity” it may never fill. Sometimes it’s worse: the data is sold, used for phishing, or used to pretend to be you.

Signs you’re looking at a resume farm:

• No company name, or just “a leading company in the industry”.
• Vague duties that could describe almost any job.
• An application form that wants your date of birth, home address, ID numbers or banking details before anyone has spoken to you.
• A “send your resume to this email” instruction pointing to a free webmail address.
• You get unrelated spam or calls soon after applying.

A good habit: put only what’s needed on your resume. Your city and province or state is enough; you don’t need your full street address, and you should never include your date of birth or SIN/SSN.

Fake job scams: the red flags

Outright job scams are the dangerous kind. The FTC’s job scams guidance is blunt: “Honest employers, including the federal government, will never ask you to pay to get a job.” Canada’s Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says the same: “Never send deposits or pay fees for a job.”

The most common scams follow a few patterns:

• Fake cheques. They send you a cheque for “equipment” or “training”, then ask you to send part of it back or buy gift cards. The cheque bounces later and you owe the bank. The FTC warns: “Never bank on a ‘cleared’ check.”
• Paying to get the job. Fees for training, certification, equipment, a background check or a “placement”.
• Task and crypto jobs. Easy online tasks pay small amounts at first, then you’re told to deposit money to unlock bigger tasks or to withdraw your balance. The CAFC describes balances that appear in an account but can’t be withdrawn.
• Money mule “payment processor” roles. Money arrives in your bank account and you forward it. The CAFC notes you may be used as a money mule, which can mean criminal charges.
• Reshipping. Receiving and re-mailing packages. The FTC’s words: “Reshipping goods is never a real job.”
• Early SIN or SSN requests. A real employer needs your SIN or SSN for payroll after you accept an offer, not before an interview.
• Chat-only interviews. An “interview” held entirely by text on Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal or a similar app, with no phone or video call, followed by an instant offer.

Red-flag checklist for fake job postings

How to tell if a job posting is real

You don’t need special tools. These checks take a few minutes, and they catch most fakes.

1. Find it on the company’s careers page. Go to the company’s website yourself (search for it, don’t use a link from the message) and look for the same role. Big companies list their jobs on their own site or their applicant tracking system. If it isn’t there, be suspicious.
2. Check the posting age and reposts. Job boards usually show when a listing was posted. A role that’s been “new” every month for half a year is probably a ghost job.
3. Look up the recruiter on LinkedIn. A real recruiter usually has a work history at the company, connections who work there, and a profile that’s more than a few weeks old. LinkedIn also shows a verification badge on some job posts, which means the company has a verified LinkedIn Page and the poster has confirmed they work there. A missing badge doesn’t make a job fake, but a badge is a good sign.
4. Check the email domain. Messages should come from the company’s own domain. Watch for lookalikes, such as an extra word, a hyphen or a different ending (.co instead of .com). The CAFC lists web-based email instead of an official business domain as a warning sign.
5. Call the company on a number you found yourself. If you’re unsure, phone the main number on the company’s official site and ask whether the person and the role are real.
6. Search the company name with “scam”. Others often report the same script.

Real employers use real application systems. If a role sends you to a normal Workday, Greenhouse or Lever form on the company’s own site, that’s a reassuring sign, though scammers do sometimes build fake portals, so the other checks still matter. (Workday makes you create an account per employer, which is normal; I explained why in why every Workday application needs a new account.)

What to do if you’ve been scammed by a fake job

Act quickly. It isn’t your fault, and scammers count on embarrassment to stop people reporting.

1. Stop contact and don’t send anything else. Scammers often come back with “one more fee” or a “recovery” service.
2. Contact whoever moved the money. Call your bank, the gift card issuer, the wire transfer company or the crypto exchange, say it was fraud, and ask them to reverse the payment. The FTC’s What To Do if You Were Scammed page has steps for each payment method. Crypto is especially hard to recover, so move fast.
3. If you shared your SIN or SSN or ID, in the US go to IdentityTheft.gov for a recovery plan. In Canada, contact your bank and the credit bureaus, and report it to the CAFC.
4. Change passwords for any account you used with the scammer, especially your email.
5. Report it.
   • US: the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and your state attorney general.
   • Canada: the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (1-888-495-8501, or online), and your local police.
   • The job board or site where you found the posting.
6. Keep everything: messages, emails, the posting, receipts and the cheque. You’ll need them for your bank and any report.

Spend your effort on real jobs

Spotting fakes early isn’t just about safety. Every hour on a ghost job is an hour you could spend on a real one. Once a posting passes your checks, put your effort into that application: tailor your resume to the job description and apply through the company’s official site.