Justin T. Johnson recalls scrolling online one night looking for jobs and applying for what appeared to be a plum role in the legal space.

Then … crickets. Suddenly, the job disappeared from the website only to reappear later like an apparition in the night. Johnson didn’t know it at the time, but he'd had a ghost job encounter.

“I eagerly applied,” says Johnson, currently the president and founding partner of the Chicago office of Latitude, an alternative legal services provider that places talent inside law firms and in-house legal departments. “I’ve sat in the shoes of the candidate looking for that next job, applying and finding out it’s not an actual job for whatever reason.”

He can smile about his experience now, but some job-seekers aren’t amused. 

The search for a job is serious business; however, a Resume Builder survey of 1,641 hiring managers found 40% of employers had posted jobs online in 2024 with no intention of filling them. A 2025 study conducted by Clarify Capital examined how inactive jobs are connected to other trends such as artificial intelligence, economic factors and remote work. The study found that one in three employers had job postings active for more than 30 days. Three in five employers were seeking to fill a job; however, one in four didn't plan to fill it for three months or longer, according to the study.

The survey also examined the impact the practice has on those seeking employment who feel misled or frustrated by the tedious process of applying for numerous positions and never hearing back. The survey found that more than 90% of job-seekers believe ghost jobs increase the perception of a stable job market. 

My Perfect Resume career expert Jasmine Escalera has written about ghost jobs and agrees there are a number of reasons companies post roles without any intention of hiring.

Primarily, employers want to maintain an active presence on job boards (38%); use postings to refine job descriptions and gauge how attractive their roles are to candidates (36%); and build a talent pipeline for future use (26%), according to My Perfect Resume's 2024 Recruiting Survey. Sectors affected by the trend include government, finance, tech, construction, education, health and legal services.

“The existence of ghost jobs can absolutely discourage job-seekers,” Escalera says. “Many candidates—depending on their industry, seniority level or specialty—are applying to a large volume of openings due to today’s competitive market. When applications repeatedly go unanswered or roles never seem to be filled, it creates frustration and emotional fatigue for job-seekers already facing a challenging search.” 

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 7.5 million people were unemployed in December 2025 compared with 6.9 million in December 2024. The unemployment rate was 4.4% in 2025 and 4.1% in 2024, according to the agency. 

As the market slows, applicants are posting their dissatisfaction online regarding applications that go nowhere as they scour websites like LinkedIn and Greenhouse; 17% of Greenhouse posts from the second quarter of 2025 were for positions that were not meant to be filled, CNBC reported in August.

Some professions are more prone to ghost job postings, but that does not mean they don’t occur in legal job searches. Wendy Schoen has been in legal recruiting for more than 30 years. The CEO and managing partner of Schoen Legal Search, based in New York City, positions lawyers in roles that are often at the partner level.

“More often, you might see [ghost postings] are at the junior level,” she says. “You might see a senior counsel.”

And not every ghost job is posted maliciously, Johnson says. He adds that the legal landscape often changes. One scenario may involve being in a new project meeting, and the human resources group is told there is going to be a need for a certain number of lawyers to be hired to support it. They work with the team and post the job. Then …

“There’s always a lag,” Johnson says. “You don’t want to have the business teams waiting. You want to have the legal support on various projects. So the posting goes up, the candidates apply. Now, all of a sudden … Wait! Hiring has changed, or funding didn’t get approved, or we need to wait until the next budgetary cycle.”

There are other explanations for ghost postings in the legal space, according to Jamy J. Sullivan, executive director of the legal practice at Robert Half, a talent and consulting firm that in September released its 2026 Salary Guide for legal, which includes hiring and compensation trends.

She agrees ghost jobs are not widespread in legal; however, they can be necessary in some cases—such as when an industry or practice area has high turnover, or when a company is preparing for succession planning.

“That’s a really common area in the legal field for higher-level roles,” says Sullivan, who is based in Dallas. “You could see why a company or a firm could use a ghost job. The best of the best of succession planning is when you know when that person is going out, most likely, if it’s a retirement situation, and they are moving into a of counsel type of role or a board role. If they do that preliminary posting, they are able to pipeline, and that person can give future input.”

Ghost jobs can be unintentional, says Melissa Peters, president of the National Association of Legal Search Consultants.  Firms often want to hire for succession planning, but a partner may delay retirement or not prioritize candidate interviews, she adds. Or there may also be little time for interviews. 

"That can be frustrating because those types of opportunities are very enticing to lawyers at a certain level, as it would provide them with a real path to follow and access to that retiring partner’s clients/workload," Peters says. 

In June, a group of tech workers frustrated with ghost jobs formed a working group to propose the Truth in Job Advertising and Accountability Act, a federal law that would banish ghost jobs and misuse of applicant data.

The act “seeks to establish strict standards and transparency requirements for job advertisements across all platforms in the United States. It addresses deceptive practices such as ghost jobs, mandates public reporting of hiring outcomes and demographics, and safeguards applicant privacy.”

Kentucky tried to do away with posting inactive job listings with a law that had guidelines for outdated posts. In New Jersey, state Sen. Paul Moriarty sponsored a bill proposing more transparency for positions listed online. Last year in California, a bill was proposed that would fine an employer between $100 and $10,000 for fake job posts.

Until the laws catch up with the ghost jobs issue, job hunters need to be vigilant. Career experts say to beware of vague-sounding job listings that have generic language. Notice if the opening is listed on just one social media platform; usually, companies will post to multiple websites. Finally, no post-application communication—not even a verifying email that you have successfully applied—could signal a fictitious job.

Kathy Morris, a former criminal defense attorney, is a legal careers advisor at Under Advisement, which offers planning and counseling for legal professionals. She launched her business in 1988 and has observed “trendy catchphrases” in recruitment, such as job hugging and quiet quitting.

Even if the ghost-job phenomenon is more than just a trend, Morris, who is the featured career counselor at the Chicago Bar Association’s Career Advancement Program, has this advice for the job-seeker: “Postings that have been up for a month or more are less likely to bring results."

Morris also says relying solely on online postings and ads “is not a quality search. It’s the tip of the iceberg.”