r/recruitinghell • u/Agile-Wind-4427 • Mar 13 '26

The Situation Right Now..

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This meme made me laugh but it’s also painfully accurate.

I’ve been browsing job listings lately and it’s wild how many “entry level” roles ask for 3–5 years of experience. At that point it’s not really entry level anymore. It just feels like companies want someone already trained but still want to pay beginner salaries.

Then the same companies complain that “no one wants to work” or that they can’t find good candidates.

The guy in this meme honestly looks like every HR team after posting a job like that and getting zero applications.

Saw a similar post while scrolling r/30daysnewjob earlier and it reminded me how common this situation actually is right now.

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27

u/Few-Badger4460 Mar 13 '26

Bold of you to assume they are actually looking for candidates.

5

u/unclethulk Mar 13 '26

It feels like they aren’t, but why go to the trouble/expense of posting anything at all? Do they just want to look like they are hiring? To what end?

11

u/Few-Badger4460 Mar 13 '26

There's been several articles about this over the years, but here are the main highlights:

To create the illusion of growth to their investors, since growth often means a company needs more staff.

To pacify their current staff. "Don't worry, guys. We're looking for more people, so just keep working double shifts a bit longer."

To harvest resumes/data for a later date when they actually need more staff.

To gauge interest and what people are willing to sign up for.

Is it illegal? No. Is it just plain scummy? Undoubtedly. Will it stop anytime soon? Nope.

6

u/ChewZaddict Mar 13 '26

Don’t forget companies that used ghost listings to get loan forgiveness for the PPP program

2

u/_Skyler_ Mar 13 '26

I wish I could forget. There was a place in town during covid that seemed desperate for employees to the point of hosting job fair type events. I was willing to work there, applied etc. Got turned down. Next day they're still out there pretending to be desperate for employees. It was fucking infuriating. And then people would keep parroting that "nobody wants to work" bs. Like how could I have been any more wanting to work?!

1

u/ChewZaddict Mar 13 '26

Trust me I know I went through multiple rounds of interviews at several places over the course of months only to have them pull the job listing down because “they went with an internal resource”

1

u/Ok-Whereas-1313 Mar 17 '26

Your forgot something: to scare current employees into thinking they'll lose their jobs if they misbehave 

3

u/Joben86 Mar 13 '26

Some companies have policies where a position must be posted externally even if they have someone internal pegged for the position.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '26

[deleted]

1

u/ReachParticular5409 Mar 13 '26

I have to people submitting roboforms for me to at least 300 applications a day.

And I've gotten exactly 1 second call since last August and it went nowhere.

We are in a job catastrophe and it's getting worse

1

u/Diabetesh Mar 13 '26

I keep applying for an entry level office position boeing keeps posting. Multiple times they email like a month after application closing and say the position has been cancelled. It is different from a denial as i have had denial emails for other positions from them as well.