> or they might be legally obligated to post a job publicly, even if they’ve already identified the person they want to hire
Famous/obvious bug in the H1B process, but not sure how this legislation would address it. If they're legally obligated to post the role, won't they just say "we'll fill this job <whenever the H1B process says we can take this down>"?
great news if this moves forward. while we at it lets ban ghosting applicants and make companies give a direct rejection email with a reason, it can be as simple as "not qualified" or "we found a better candidate, try again next time". waiting for answers that never come is always the worst part.
Sitting around waiting is softer than apple sauce. You need to go make it happen.
Yes unemployment sucks, life's tough. If it didn't suck you wouldn't be looking for a job, right?
Going around trying to put bubble wrap on every hard corner of society is the wrong instinct. Wasting time and effort on things that don't move the needle at all.
Kinda funny. When I was looking for my current job I had an early (2019 or so) AI based system to manage my job hunt and I was struggling with "ghost jobs" and obvious fraudulent listings in New York's job bank. (e.g. they say it is a Java job in Syracuse and it is really a Cold Fusion job in Atlanta)
If my job search had gone on any longer I would have given myself (and my bot) a job to search and destroy those listings.
I'd support it at the federal level. It's cruel towards people looking for work, and it costs them real time at a point in their lives when time is such a critical factor.
Don't even start me on what I think is the next big issue, "ghost application harvesting":
I think Wellfound (f/k/a AngelList) is doing this.
The jobs advertised on there are real...
I'd been on the job market four months. Every day I did the rounds: Levels, Wellfound, YC/jobs, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn.
It is what it is, as a crappy jobs market.
Wellfound? I didn't ever hear from anything from their job ads.
And I'm pretty certain that whatever Wellfound/AngelList was, it has become a company that just markets resume writing services, resume review services, all sorts of other services that draw in your money somehow.
Why do I say that?
120+ applications on Wellfound since then. Crickets. Absolutely nothing.
One day I got an email, "Your profile has been viewed!". Weird, never seen an email like that from Wellfound. Indeed, "You have 1 profile view in the last 90 days".
Huh. 120+ applications, 120+ times me answering filling out Wellfound's content questions on "why you would be a good fit for this role", "tell us about x and y and z", no interviews, no contact, only ONE company has ever even viewed my profile (and for what it's worth, it's not a company that has any positions open).
Well, maybe my answers suck, you say. Maybe my resume isn't as impressive as I think it is.
But similar answers and the same resume get me fairly steady hits on every other site I mentioned, I've got to multiple final rounds, I've been explicitly told I was hirable, I was just the number two, I was "in the top three".
And to be clear, many of the companies I see on WF are advertising on other sites too.
My suspicion? WF DOES take job listings, but they also harvest them from other sites - the job is real, but there's no-one from the employer reviewing the applications to their "phantom" job at Wellfound... and meanwhile all people like me are doing are providing content for WF to harvest and train models for their real business model: AI-driven resume writing and review service and other products.
I don't even know what I applied to that's a ghost and what isn't. Maybe I'm completely clueless, but there's no difference: recruiters ghost, sometimes companies ghost and sometimes they reply, sometimes you get an F U letter, you're not good enough, sometimes not.
How did people even find out ghost jobs existed? I feel like the swindle must not be new.
I save all the jobs I apply to, so it's fairly easy to check/compare and I found plenty of cases where job ads get reposted after some time.
In one instance, I applied for a role in December '25, got a (boilerplate) rejection email a couple of days later (although my profile directly matched the job requirements and I had previous experience working in that specific field), job ad goes offline and re-appeared 3 months later - exact same time and job description.
In the same way that credit card companies are required to tell you the exact reasons your score has changed, companies should be required to give at least any sort of notice of rejection. Something as simple as: we have proceeded with another candidate (if and only if the role was actually filled). I know this opens up a lot of questions about enforcement and employer discrimination, but something has to be done.
You’re conflating being ghosted with ghost jobs, which are positions that are posted but are never intended to be filled (usually cited as for data collection purposes). These waste people’s precious time while they apply for jobs.
As a libertarian, I am okay with laws that allow people to sue for fraudulent or intentionally very misleading statements, especially ones made publicly and impose compounding costs on a lot of people. This is public harm. The laws are protections for regular people, in this case people who are looking for jobs. I'm also okay with Pigovian Taxes for the same reason: forcing actors who externalize costs to the public, to internalize those costs.
Laws are frameworks. My brand of libertarianism is "decentralizing concentrations of power" and "giving people the software tools to self-organize". But in the meantime, yeah, if there would be laws for anything, it would be this kind of stuff. It is why I can get behind Intellectual Property for Trademarks, before I get behind Copyrights and Patents. Trademarks are about making sure actors don't misrepresent who they are and appropriate the brand of other actors. I think many libertarians would come to support Trademark enforcement laws if they were presented that way.
I say this with respect for you and genuine intention for constructive discussion. Not here to bash you.
I'm not sure your described viewpoints are libertarian at all. I'm pretty sure Montesquieu-esque separatation of powers and Anti-Federalism gets you where you're at.
I don't really think a single one of these viewpoints is contradictory of the modern Democratic Party.
But anyway, maybe I'm just making this comment because my belief is that the word “libertarian” has become so cloudy that almost nobody should use it as a descriptor for their political beliefs. You can't actually just say "I'm libertarian" and have anyone come close to understanding what you mean, which might be what you are experiencing right now from me.
I'm just about to launch a job posting data api with postings I aggregate and very lightly normalize (https://kaleh.net/trace)
Anyone have an idea how this might impact me? They're not my postings, I just package em up and ship em. Strive to comply with all laws and TOS and not trying to make trouble.
Somewhat related but I remember an old boss telling me that some government departments weren't allowed to specify Australian companies only when tendering for a work, but they were perfectly within their rights to ask for tender applications to be hand-delivered to their head office, thereby making it very onerous and expensive for any non-Australian companies to bother.
New York doesn't even enforce its salary requirement declaration law. It will most definitely not enforce this law either. It will just sit on the books being violated openly.
I also feel like there's a very clear private solution here which is creating a company for both employers and employees to use which requires more transparency from both.
This would essentially become a signal to both sides of the transaction that this is someone you want to do business with, and it's self-regulating.
I'm curious how they would even enforce this law. It seems like they would need to require some record keeping that's made available to the government.
This is a great initiative. But it should apply to job boards and publishers too, asking the posting company to provide evidence. There is another issue which is fake jobs used to harvest CVs. LinkedIn and Google for jobs have a lot of these too.
If you make Ghost Jobs illegal the whole thing will still be happening, it will just be driven underground to unlicenced 'haunted houses' which are less safe for the workers and less safe for the patrons. Its much better to keep this sort of thing legal and have licensed haunted houses where its easier for authorities to keep a check on the unwelfare of the ghosts and make sure organised underworld groups are not moving in and taking protection money or soul dealing.
The counterpoint is: make it a crime to apply for a job using AI, without disclosing your use of AI (so that your application can be thrown in the trash). Would you support that law? Because when job applications are slop, the openings are slop, and it's hard to separate the two.
Obviously the current state of things hurts only legitimate actors, but that's the world we live in today.
Cue the unintended consequences. I don't know what they all might be, but one possibility is more reliance of employers on walled gardens like alumni sources.
IMO they don’t need another law for this. Fraud is already illegal. They need to make a very public example by indicting a few HR ghouls under wire fraud statutes for their fraudulent job listings.
35 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 88.8 ms ] threadRelated:
https://www.hrdive.com/news/new-york-passed-bill-aimed-at-ha...
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12977
Famous/obvious bug in the H1B process, but not sure how this legislation would address it. If they're legally obligated to post the role, won't they just say "we'll fill this job <whenever the H1B process says we can take this down>"?
Yes unemployment sucks, life's tough. If it didn't suck you wouldn't be looking for a job, right?
Going around trying to put bubble wrap on every hard corner of society is the wrong instinct. Wasting time and effort on things that don't move the needle at all.
If my job search had gone on any longer I would have given myself (and my bot) a job to search and destroy those listings.
I think Wellfound (f/k/a AngelList) is doing this. The jobs advertised on there are real...
I'd been on the job market four months. Every day I did the rounds: Levels, Wellfound, YC/jobs, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn.
It is what it is, as a crappy jobs market.
Wellfound? I didn't ever hear from anything from their job ads.
And I'm pretty certain that whatever Wellfound/AngelList was, it has become a company that just markets resume writing services, resume review services, all sorts of other services that draw in your money somehow.
Why do I say that?
120+ applications on Wellfound since then. Crickets. Absolutely nothing.
One day I got an email, "Your profile has been viewed!". Weird, never seen an email like that from Wellfound. Indeed, "You have 1 profile view in the last 90 days".
Huh. 120+ applications, 120+ times me answering filling out Wellfound's content questions on "why you would be a good fit for this role", "tell us about x and y and z", no interviews, no contact, only ONE company has ever even viewed my profile (and for what it's worth, it's not a company that has any positions open).
Well, maybe my answers suck, you say. Maybe my resume isn't as impressive as I think it is.
But similar answers and the same resume get me fairly steady hits on every other site I mentioned, I've got to multiple final rounds, I've been explicitly told I was hirable, I was just the number two, I was "in the top three".
And to be clear, many of the companies I see on WF are advertising on other sites too.
My suspicion? WF DOES take job listings, but they also harvest them from other sites - the job is real, but there's no-one from the employer reviewing the applications to their "phantom" job at Wellfound... and meanwhile all people like me are doing are providing content for WF to harvest and train models for their real business model: AI-driven resume writing and review service and other products.
My AI video interview? Viewed... zero times.
Huh.
I don't even know what I applied to that's a ghost and what isn't. Maybe I'm completely clueless, but there's no difference: recruiters ghost, sometimes companies ghost and sometimes they reply, sometimes you get an F U letter, you're not good enough, sometimes not.
How did people even find out ghost jobs existed? I feel like the swindle must not be new.
I save all the jobs I apply to, so it's fairly easy to check/compare and I found plenty of cases where job ads get reposted after some time.
In one instance, I applied for a role in December '25, got a (boilerplate) rejection email a couple of days later (although my profile directly matched the job requirements and I had previous experience working in that specific field), job ad goes offline and re-appeared 3 months later - exact same time and job description.
Laws are frameworks. My brand of libertarianism is "decentralizing concentrations of power" and "giving people the software tools to self-organize". But in the meantime, yeah, if there would be laws for anything, it would be this kind of stuff. It is why I can get behind Intellectual Property for Trademarks, before I get behind Copyrights and Patents. Trademarks are about making sure actors don't misrepresent who they are and appropriate the brand of other actors. I think many libertarians would come to support Trademark enforcement laws if they were presented that way.
I'm not sure your described viewpoints are libertarian at all. I'm pretty sure Montesquieu-esque separatation of powers and Anti-Federalism gets you where you're at.
I don't really think a single one of these viewpoints is contradictory of the modern Democratic Party.
But anyway, maybe I'm just making this comment because my belief is that the word “libertarian” has become so cloudy that almost nobody should use it as a descriptor for their political beliefs. You can't actually just say "I'm libertarian" and have anyone come close to understanding what you mean, which might be what you are experiencing right now from me.
Anyone have an idea how this might impact me? They're not my postings, I just package em up and ship em. Strive to comply with all laws and TOS and not trying to make trouble.
---
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8877
I also feel like there's a very clear private solution here which is creating a company for both employers and employees to use which requires more transparency from both.
This would essentially become a signal to both sides of the transaction that this is someone you want to do business with, and it's self-regulating.
Good start nevertheless
The counterpoint is: make it a crime to apply for a job using AI, without disclosing your use of AI (so that your application can be thrown in the trash). Would you support that law? Because when job applications are slop, the openings are slop, and it's hard to separate the two.
Obviously the current state of things hurts only legitimate actors, but that's the world we live in today.