By hashan 
You find a job ad that looks like it was written for you. The role fits, the company is well known, and the requirements match your experience. You spend an evening tailoring your CV, write a careful cover letter, and hit send.
Then nothing. No reply, no rejection, not even an automated email.
Most of us have been there, and most of us blamed ourselves. Maybe the CV wasn’t strong enough. Maybe someone else was simply better. But sometimes the problem has nothing to do with you. Sometimes the job was never really open in the first place.
These are called ghost jobs, and they are worth understanding before you spend another evening on an application.
What exactly is a ghost job?
A ghost job is a vacancy that is advertised without any real plan to fill it right now. The listing looks genuine. The company name is real, the description sounds convincing, and the apply button works. Behind the scenes, though, nobody is actively hiring.
It helps to separate this from a second, nastier problem: job scams. A ghost job comes from a real company that isn’t really hiring. A scam comes from someone who wants your money or your personal details. The two often look alike from the outside, so the habits that protect you from one usually protect you from the other. We will cover both below.
How common are ghost jobs?
The best numbers we have come from outside Sri Lanka, and they are striking. Hiring platform Greenhouse analysed postings and found that roughly 18% to 22% of them were ghost jobs, with some industries much higher than that. A separate Resume Builder survey of more than 1,600 hiring managers found that around four in ten said their company had posted a fake job listing in the past year.
What about Sri Lanka? Honestly, nobody has measured it yet. ITPro.lk, a local tech job platform, points out that there is no reliable published data here. Their founder suggests it is reasonable to assume the practice exists locally too, possibly at similar levels, especially in tech where hiring often follows client demand and companies like to keep a pipeline of CVs ready.
So treat the global figures as a warning sign, not a Sri Lankan statistic. But it is a warning sign worth taking seriously.
Why would a company post a job it doesn’t plan to fill?
The answer is rarely as dramatic as you might expect, and it is not always malicious. When hiring managers in the Resume Builder survey were asked why, the most common answers were:
- To make the company look like it is growing
- To collect CVs for future openings
- To make current employees feel replaceable, so they work harder
Other reasons mentioned by recruiters and career writers include testing the talent market, checking how many people would apply for a certain role, keeping up an “always hiring” image on social media, or satisfying a rule that requires a role to be advertised even when the company already knows who it wants.
Whatever the reason, the person who pays the price is the same: the job seeker who spent time, energy and hope on it.
Warning signs of a ghost job
No single sign proves a job is fake. But when several appear together, slow down and do some checking before you apply.
- A vague, very short description. Real vacancies usually explain the team, the responsibilities and the tools involved.
- The same role posted again and again. If a position keeps reappearing for months with no visible change, that is a red flag, especially for roles that attract hundreds of applicants.
- “Comment if interested” posts. Hiring through Facebook comments and anonymous group posts is a common pattern with fake or unserious openings.
- No process or timeline. A real hiring process usually mentions how to apply, who to contact and what happens next.
- A sudden flood of generic openings from one source.
- An old posting. Career advisers often suggest focusing on listings that are only a few weeks old, rather than ones that have been sitting online for months.
How to check a job before you apply
A quick five-minute check can save you hours.
- Look for the job on the company’s official website. If it is listed on a job board but nowhere on the company’s own careers page, ask yourself why.
- Search for the same role on other trusted platforms.
- Check the poster’s profile. On social media, is this a real recruiter with a history, or a brand-new account?
- Use LinkedIn to research the company. Look at the team size, recent hires, and whether people in similar roles already work there. Does the company even have the leadership and structure to support the role it is advertising?
- Email or message the recruiter politely. A genuine recruiter will usually answer a simple question about the role.
- Prefer corporate email addresses. If an application goes to a generic email address or through a third party, confirm who will actually receive your CV.
When it is more than a ghost job: scams and data theft
Some fake ads are not about company image at all. They are about getting your money or your identity.
The Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) has repeatedly warned that fraud linked to overseas job offers on social media is on the rise, and that most of these adverts have not been approved by the Bureau. In January 2026 it warned about a scheme offering work in Moldova through social media videos, with several people already cheated out of money. In September 2026 it flagged a fake website that copied its name and logo to advertise jobs in Israel and collect details like NIC numbers and phone numbers through an online form.
Local jobs are not safe from this either. Sri Lanka’s national cyber emergency team, SLCERT, has warned about fake job ads using the logos of institutions like the Central Bank and SriLankan Airlines, with the aim of collecting copies of ID cards, passports and birth certificates.
A few rules are worth treating as non-negotiable:
- Never pay money at any stage of a recruitment process. A genuine employer does not charge you to apply, interview or join.
- Be careful with documents. Do not share your NIC copy, passport or birth certificate with someone you have not verified. On your CV, a city is enough; you don’t need your full address or NIC number.
- For overseas jobs, check with the SLBFE. Confirm that the agency holds a valid licence and that the specific vacancy has been approved. If you suspect fraud, the SLBFE has asked the public to report it, and has listed 1989 as its hotline.
- Don’t trust a logo. Anyone can copy a company’s logo. Always verify through the official website.
A note for employers and founders
If you run a business, it can be tempting to keep job ads up “just in case.” It feels harmless, but candidates notice, and they remember. Over time it chips away at the one thing a young company needs most: trust.
There are honest alternatives:
- Open a clearly labelled talent pool. Say plainly that it is not an active vacancy, and that you will get in touch when something opens up.
- Take speculative applications openly. A simple form or email address, with a note that replies are not guaranteed, works fine.
- Show you are growing in other ways. Share team stories, projects and learning, instead of posting jobs you can’t back up.
You lose nothing by being honest about your hiring plans. You gain a reputation as a company that respects people’s time.
How a strong online profile helps you beat the odds
Here is the uncomfortable truth: you cannot control whether a company posts a ghost job. What you can control is how easy you are to find, check and trust.
When your CV, your portfolio, your skills and your contact details live on one clean, professional page, you stop depending only on job ads. A recruiter who is genuinely hiring can find you, look you up in seconds, and see proof of your work. And you can share that same link in your applications, on your CV and at networking events, so the right opportunities come to you, not just the ones that happen to be advertised.
That is exactly why we built mypage.lk: a free digital profile under a trusted .lk identity, designed for Sri Lankan professionals who want to be discovered for the right reasons.
The takeaway
A job ad is not a guarantee that a job exists. Before you apply, check the company’s own website, look at how fresh the posting is, research the poster, and never pay or hand over sensitive documents to someone you haven’t verified.
And if you apply and hear nothing back, don’t assume it was you. Sometimes the silence says more about the posting than about your CV.
Research is your best protection. Build a profile people can verify, and let the right opportunities find you.
Sources and further reading
- Ghost Job Posts in Sri Lanka, ITPro.lk, February 2026
- 1 of every 5 job postings is actually fake, study says, Quartz (Greenhouse analysis)
- Corporate Gaslighting: 70% of Hiring Managers Think Lying to Job Seekers Is Morally Acceptable, The Interview Guys (Resume Builder survey, 2024)
- Fake jobs becoming growing problem for real job seekers, FOX 26 Houston
- Increase in foreign job scams via social media, Hiru News (SLBFE), 2026
- SLBFE warns of overseas-based job scam promising employment in Moldova, Ada Derana, January 2026
- Public warned over fake website misusing SLBFE name, The Morning, September 2026
- Fake govt. job ads target personal data theft, experts warn, Ada Derana (SLCERT), February 2025
