Yes, some job postings stay live with no real intention of filling them this month. That does not mean the posting is fraudulent. Most of the time it means the company’s process moved on without anyone taking the advert down, and there is a real difference between a posting that is stale and a posting that was never honest in the first place.
The frustrating part for anyone applying is that both look identical from outside. The same five paragraph structure, the same requirements list, the same “apply now” button, whether the role is actively being filled or has been effectively dead for weeks. Either way, what follows for you is the same silence, and that silence has its own explanation, separate from what the posting itself was doing.
The reasons a real posting stays up with nobody hiring
Pipeline building. Some roles get advertised on an ongoing basis not because a specific seat is open now, but because the company wants a stack of qualified applicants ready for when one opens. This is common in high-turnover roles and in companies that hire the same profile repeatedly. The posting is not lying about the job existing; it is honest about wanting candidates and vague about timing.
A role signed off, then frozen. Hiring approval and budget approval do not always move together. A posting can go live the day the role is approved and then sit untouched for weeks if a hiring freeze, a reorg, or a budget review lands in between. Nobody updates the advert because the person who would update it is the same person now dealing with the freeze.
An internal candidate already effectively chosen. Some companies require an external posting even when an internal transfer or promotion is the expected outcome, because of policy, because of a union agreement, or because leadership wants to be seen giving external candidates a fair look. The posting is real. The outcome is close to decided before it goes live.
An agency advertising a role it does not hold. This is the one that is not legitimate. Some recruitment agencies post roles they do not have an active client for, to build a candidate database or to gauge market interest, and the posting can sit indefinitely with no real client and no real seat behind it.
The tell that actually helps
Three of the four reasons above involve a role that is real but frozen in time. Only the last one is built to mislead from the start. There is no perfect way to tell them apart from the posting alone, but a few things shift the odds:
Posting age relative to how the company normally hires. A role open for months at a company that normally fills similar roles quickly is more likely stalled or dead than one open for the same length at a company known for a slow process.
Whether the posting is reposted rather than updated. A listing that disappears and reappears every few weeks with the same content, rather than staying live continuously, more often points to pipeline building or an agency database than to an active search.
Who is actually named on the posting. A posting from a named hiring manager or an internal recruiter at the company itself carries more weight than one from a third-party agency with no named client, purely because there is a person on the other end whose job depends on the role existing.
What this does not mean
Applying to a stalled or pipeline posting is not a waste. Companies do fill pipeline roles when the seat opens, and being in that pool when it does is a real advantage over applying cold at that point. The frustration is legitimate, and so is applying anyway.
The short version
A ghost posting usually means a real role that stalled, not a fake one. Pipeline building, a frozen budget, and an internal candidate already in mind are the ordinary reasons. An agency advertising a role it does not have a client for is the one genuinely dishonest version, and it is harder to spot from the posting alone than most advice suggests.
We don’t have any visibility into which postings are active on the other end. What we do build is a way to reshape your real CV against whichever posting you decide is worth the time, without inventing anything to make it fit.