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.
Every employer would send "We have decided not to continue with your application" once your entry in the database reaches the legally-mandated timeout period.
The part you wouldn't like is the unintended consequences: Every company would be forced to use an ATS to manage applicants, and all hiring would have to be pushed through the ATS. The ATS would have some default timeout where candidates who aren't hired get the e-mail to comply with the law. Nothing is gained because you're not getting real information, but now every company must force you to apply through an ATS portal to make sure every e-mail receives that alert.
I know it's frustrating, but stacking laws like this doesn't get useful information out of companies but it does force the application process to revolve around demonstrating compliance with the regulations.
Doubtful you would still feel that way if it became the legally mandated norm. The reason ghosting is offensive is it feels so disrespectful and impersonal. How is some bland automated message triggered by a cron job any better? The automated message doesn't respect or care about you, no person would have put any thought into it. It would be entirely automated.
If that makes you feel better it is suggestive of a deeper problem. Getting ghosted is part of life. At least its an authentic representation that you aren't worth someone's time. It seems more spontaneous, less premeditated. That's life. You just have to learn to get over it.
> The reason ghosting is offensive is it feels so disrespectful and impersonal.
That part is annoying, but the open-ended nature of it is a true problem. Having a deadline on a thumbs up/down decision at least lets you move on with your life.
Getting a rejection message, even an automated one, removes ambiguity. You're no longer wondering if you missed a call or an email went to spam, you have it right there in writing.
In college, I interviewed with two different local companies that had internships that would continue as part-time positions during the year. Both interviews went well and I felt that the interaction was positive overall. I was confident that I would at least have a good shot at each position after the interview. Both companies ghosted me.
For someone just developing their career and who was excited to work with actual professional companies (instead of the minimum-wage jobs offered to most students), that was kind of a big deal. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that's what really instilled a lot of the cynicism toward interviews I carried even after getting an internship and graduating into a full-time sysadmin position. I honestly got lucky getting the position I did, and I think without that success my cynical view would have spiraled downward.
> Getting ghosted is part of life.
The argument is that it shouldn't be. Responses like yours when people express hope that things can change is just digging your feet in because you think that other people have to deal with the same hardships you did. Everyone acknowledges that getting ghosted sucks, so maybe having a bit of empathy and sending something, even an automated message, should be encouraged more.
This seems pretty accurate to me. But like other commenters, the psychological closure of any message at all is better than nothing.
Also, what company nowadays doesn’t use an ATS? I’ve seen a few startups that take applications via email or discord but those are few and far between. Most are using Workday/Indeed/Linkedin or what have you.
> I know it's frustrating, but stacking laws like this doesn't get useful information out of companies but it does force the application process to revolve around demonstrating compliance with the regulations.
Eh, that's like saying taxing them is pointless because they'll just spend more on accountants to find loopholes. It's only true if you have the political will to pass the laws but not enough to fund the teeth needed to enforce them. Gather reports of boilerplate rejections, launch investigations, drag companies to discovery to find their deliberate efforts to end-run the spirit of the law, extract fines sufficient to fund investigations into the next 10 companies.
Exactly. I hate this mentality: "We can't possibly regulate companies, because they are so clever and they'll find loopholes and work around any law we make!" So write better laws! Add provisions for loopholes you anticipate. Add wording to remove ambiguity that the company will try to use to weasel their way out. Analyze the ways companies already get around laws and shore them up with a patch. Do something!
We've tried one thing, and it didn't work so we're all out of ideas! - The USA when it comes to regulating companies.
There are a lot of regulations I would like to get rid of because they are already being evaded, or otherwise have bad second order consequences; and those second-order consequences are themselves an annoying part of the fabric of daily life that I'm familiar with.
This does apply to third party background checks, and backdoor references in particular are just one giant loophole in the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Eightfold AI is getting sued right now for acting as a credit reporting agency -- not just by scoring people, but by gathering data on them in the first place for the sake of reporting to employers.
If you ask a third party business to do run a background check, there are a bunch of responsibilities that triggers -- a right to view what's in the report, a right to know if it's being used against you, a right to dispute what's in it, and even to consent to it being pulled in the first place.
But if some recruiter or hiring manager goes directly to your former or current boss, behind your back, this is somehow not even taken seriously as a problem.
Wait... are you saying that talking about an ex-colleague with anyone (without filing a bunch of paperwork or something) is a "giant loophole in the Fair Credit Reporting Act"?
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.
Calculate the aggregate amount of time candidates spent on applying the ghost job and use the job's purported rate of pay to calculate the amount of money the company stole from the public. Was it enough to be felony theft? The person posting, or whoever instructed it to be posted, gets charged the same as if they stole that amount from a till. Instant end of ghost job postings as most wouldn't even try to find the loopholes and edge cases when prison is a risk for getting a workaround wrong.
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.
At the very least it will have a chilling effect. A few high profile arrests and companies putting out ghost jobs will know what they’re posting is illegal.
Especially the consulting companies are doing this. And, all these ghost job requirement from green card and h1b should be removed. There must be no incentive to post ghost job.
Yeah, on the H1B there seems to be a separate issue. Posting a job listing that is intentionally hidden or otherwise not going to get bites. That way a company can say that they couldn't find a candidate and have to hire someone in need of a visa. From what I understand they do this to undermine wages as well as having a ̶e̶m̶p̶l̶o̶y̶e̶e hostage who won't complain about poor conditions because they don't want to lose their visa.
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.
The policies around blanket ambiguity for rejections is to avoid any kind of messaging that could lead to potential legal retaliation. Frustrating, absolutely, but most employers just aren't willing to flirt with the risk.
I've landed on a similar hot take after one job offer got rescinded by a company that refused to give a reason, to anyone involved, and then wouldn't honor records requests. (But would send me a candidate survey.)
With any job, it would be one thing if it were at the applicant stage, and I hadn't talked to a person at any point. But with this one, there was an offer in front of me and there was no one at all who had both the capacity and the willingness to explain what had just happened.
If I started the job and they pulled this on day three, they would have to give a reason to an unemployment office.
I don't care how little inclination businesses have to tell the truth. Make them commit to the lie, in writing, somewhere that it actually costs something.
Also a lot of companies don't want to close off the option. It is amazing how you occasionally hear back long afterwards after they fail to hire the applicants that they wanted more than you.
Passive aggressive behavior around hiring and HR is a big reason I prefer self employment, I ununderstand some of the CYA reasons but I always find it yucky in the extreme.
> 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>"?
At my Uni I have been both the beneficiary and victim of this sort of thing.
I've been to interviews where I was there just to prove they did interviews and I also spent half a year working the politics to create a job for myself.
I have a friend who is loved by her coworkers (and myself) who we'd all like to see get a promotion but they may be obligated to do a national search. Stuff like that happens all the time.
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.
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.
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.
Have to start somewhere. Update the law as bad actors operate. Observe, iterate, etc. Failure is not trying, or when you stop attempting to improve. Trying is table stakes.
"Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." We are aligning incentives, with policy, to encourage desired outcomes.
Exactly. We shouldn't treat corporate regulation as something you try all at once to get the wording, incentives, and disincentives exactly right and then you're stuck with it for 20 years. It should be a living document. Put something into force today. See what companies do to try to avoid/skirt the regulation--then immediately close those doors and re-run the experiment. See what they try next and close those doors too, repeat until companies have no choice but to obey the spirit of the regulations. We should be doing this, rather than having these Big Upfront Designed laws that get no iteration.
I'm not sure the incentive here is strong enough. For a specific profile they want, at $2500 for every 30 days, I could see businesses just paying that fine as an operational cost.
The incentive also exists, for the kinds of employers who would post ghost jobs, to also force in-person work again. You don't have to pay these fines to multiple states on one ghost job if the job is only available in one location.
I will keep this in mind while working with reps in other states to encourage a more aggressive policy stance with regards to ghost jobs.
> The incentive also exists, for the kinds of employers who would post ghost jobs, to also force in-person work again. You don't have to pay these fines to multiple states on one ghost job if the job is only available in one location.
You're presuming that this is something employers want to circumvent. As the article discusses, many of these postings are likely legitimate jobs which the employer does intend to fill, and they just don't do the work (which has minimal value to them) of ensuring that all the postings get taken down once they've filled it.
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.
Ha, I see the same job popping up over and over, for the last 12+ months. I've applied many times. Got denied every because I don't have all the skills.
Well, guess what, in that timeframe I could've learned the skills and you'd have somebody actually doing the work.
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.
Every employer would send "We have decided not to continue with your application" once your entry in the database reaches the legally-mandated timeout period.
The part you wouldn't like is the unintended consequences: Every company would be forced to use an ATS to manage applicants, and all hiring would have to be pushed through the ATS. The ATS would have some default timeout where candidates who aren't hired get the e-mail to comply with the law. Nothing is gained because you're not getting real information, but now every company must force you to apply through an ATS portal to make sure every e-mail receives that alert.
I know it's frustrating, but stacking laws like this doesn't get useful information out of companies but it does force the application process to revolve around demonstrating compliance with the regulations.
> Every employer would send "We have decided not to continue with your application".
That would still be a big improvement over just getting ghosted
Doubtful you would still feel that way if it became the legally mandated norm. The reason ghosting is offensive is it feels so disrespectful and impersonal. How is some bland automated message triggered by a cron job any better? The automated message doesn't respect or care about you, no person would have put any thought into it. It would be entirely automated.
If that makes you feel better it is suggestive of a deeper problem. Getting ghosted is part of life. At least its an authentic representation that you aren't worth someone's time. It seems more spontaneous, less premeditated. That's life. You just have to learn to get over it.
> The reason ghosting is offensive is it feels so disrespectful and impersonal.
That part is annoying, but the open-ended nature of it is a true problem. Having a deadline on a thumbs up/down decision at least lets you move on with your life.
Getting a rejection message, even an automated one, removes ambiguity. You're no longer wondering if you missed a call or an email went to spam, you have it right there in writing.
In college, I interviewed with two different local companies that had internships that would continue as part-time positions during the year. Both interviews went well and I felt that the interaction was positive overall. I was confident that I would at least have a good shot at each position after the interview. Both companies ghosted me.
For someone just developing their career and who was excited to work with actual professional companies (instead of the minimum-wage jobs offered to most students), that was kind of a big deal. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that's what really instilled a lot of the cynicism toward interviews I carried even after getting an internship and graduating into a full-time sysadmin position. I honestly got lucky getting the position I did, and I think without that success my cynical view would have spiraled downward.
> Getting ghosted is part of life.
The argument is that it shouldn't be. Responses like yours when people express hope that things can change is just digging your feet in because you think that other people have to deal with the same hardships you did. Everyone acknowledges that getting ghosted sucks, so maybe having a bit of empathy and sending something, even an automated message, should be encouraged more.
This seems pretty accurate to me. But like other commenters, the psychological closure of any message at all is better than nothing.
Also, what company nowadays doesn’t use an ATS? I’ve seen a few startups that take applications via email or discord but those are few and far between. Most are using Workday/Indeed/Linkedin or what have you.
> I know it's frustrating, but stacking laws like this doesn't get useful information out of companies but it does force the application process to revolve around demonstrating compliance with the regulations.
Eh, that's like saying taxing them is pointless because they'll just spend more on accountants to find loopholes. It's only true if you have the political will to pass the laws but not enough to fund the teeth needed to enforce them. Gather reports of boilerplate rejections, launch investigations, drag companies to discovery to find their deliberate efforts to end-run the spirit of the law, extract fines sufficient to fund investigations into the next 10 companies.
Exactly. I hate this mentality: "We can't possibly regulate companies, because they are so clever and they'll find loopholes and work around any law we make!" So write better laws! Add provisions for loopholes you anticipate. Add wording to remove ambiguity that the company will try to use to weasel their way out. Analyze the ways companies already get around laws and shore them up with a patch. Do something!
We've tried one thing, and it didn't work so we're all out of ideas! - The USA when it comes to regulating companies.
There are a lot of regulations I would like to get rid of because they are already being evaded, or otherwise have bad second order consequences; and those second-order consequences are themselves an annoying part of the fabric of daily life that I'm familiar with.
This does apply to third party background checks, and backdoor references in particular are just one giant loophole in the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Eightfold AI is getting sued right now for acting as a credit reporting agency -- not just by scoring people, but by gathering data on them in the first place for the sake of reporting to employers.
If you ask a third party business to do run a background check, there are a bunch of responsibilities that triggers -- a right to view what's in the report, a right to know if it's being used against you, a right to dispute what's in it, and even to consent to it being pulled in the first place.
But if some recruiter or hiring manager goes directly to your former or current boss, behind your back, this is somehow not even taken seriously as a problem.
Wait... are you saying that talking about an ex-colleague with anyone (without filing a bunch of paperwork or something) is a "giant loophole in the Fair Credit Reporting Act"?
https://www.hrdive.com/news/eightfold-ai-lawsuit-job-candida...
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/business/ai-hiring-tools-...
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.
Calculate the aggregate amount of time candidates spent on applying the ghost job and use the job's purported rate of pay to calculate the amount of money the company stole from the public. Was it enough to be felony theft? The person posting, or whoever instructed it to be posted, gets charged the same as if they stole that amount from a till. Instant end of ghost job postings as most wouldn't even try to find the loopholes and edge cases when prison is a risk for getting a workaround wrong.
Fraud seems like a more direct issue.
How do you enforce that?
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.
>How did people even find out ghost jobs existed?
For starters you can find it out from the inside...
Yeah. Going to be a lot harder to do this when other people in the company bring up that it is illegal.
At the very least it will have a chilling effect. A few high profile arrests and companies putting out ghost jobs will know what they’re posting is illegal.
Especially the consulting companies are doing this. And, all these ghost job requirement from green card and h1b should be removed. There must be no incentive to post ghost job.
Yeah, on the H1B there seems to be a separate issue. Posting a job listing that is intentionally hidden or otherwise not going to get bites. That way a company can say that they couldn't find a candidate and have to hire someone in need of a visa. From what I understand they do this to undermine wages as well as having a ̶e̶m̶p̶l̶o̶y̶e̶e hostage who won't complain about poor conditions because they don't want to lose their visa.
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.
The policies around blanket ambiguity for rejections is to avoid any kind of messaging that could lead to potential legal retaliation. Frustrating, absolutely, but most employers just aren't willing to flirt with the risk.
I've landed on a similar hot take after one job offer got rescinded by a company that refused to give a reason, to anyone involved, and then wouldn't honor records requests. (But would send me a candidate survey.)
With any job, it would be one thing if it were at the applicant stage, and I hadn't talked to a person at any point. But with this one, there was an offer in front of me and there was no one at all who had both the capacity and the willingness to explain what had just happened.
If I started the job and they pulled this on day three, they would have to give a reason to an unemployment office.
I don't care how little inclination businesses have to tell the truth. Make them commit to the lie, in writing, somewhere that it actually costs something.
Also a lot of companies don't want to close off the option. It is amazing how you occasionally hear back long afterwards after they fail to hire the applicants that they wanted more than you.
Passive aggressive behavior around hiring and HR is a big reason I prefer self employment, I ununderstand some of the CYA reasons but I always find it yucky in the extreme.
> 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>"?
At my Uni I have been both the beneficiary and victim of this sort of thing.
I've been to interviews where I was there just to prove they did interviews and I also spent half a year working the politics to create a job for myself.
I have a friend who is loved by her coworkers (and myself) who we'd all like to see get a promotion but they may be obligated to do a national search. Stuff like that happens all the time.
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.
1) You would be in a good position to find and report violations to the NY department of labor.
2) You might be considered a third party platform.
Good to see. The job market is screwed right now, and this is one big step to fixing things.
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.
What if online job applications were illegal, and you signed up for interviews in person with a resume after seeing the ad online.
Thought this was going to be a Sopranos/mob thing
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.
---
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8877
NY State Senate Bill S8877: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8877
Related:
https://www.hrdive.com/news/new-york-passed-bill-aimed-at-ha...
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12977
Seems like it could be easily circumvented by just continually pushing the “fill by” date back on a posting
I don't know that it counts as a circumvention, having a visible signal of that date continually being pushed back will be very useful.
Have to start somewhere. Update the law as bad actors operate. Observe, iterate, etc. Failure is not trying, or when you stop attempting to improve. Trying is table stakes.
"Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." We are aligning incentives, with policy, to encourage desired outcomes.
Exactly. We shouldn't treat corporate regulation as something you try all at once to get the wording, incentives, and disincentives exactly right and then you're stuck with it for 20 years. It should be a living document. Put something into force today. See what companies do to try to avoid/skirt the regulation--then immediately close those doors and re-run the experiment. See what they try next and close those doors too, repeat until companies have no choice but to obey the spirit of the regulations. We should be doing this, rather than having these Big Upfront Designed laws that get no iteration.
I'm not sure the incentive here is strong enough. For a specific profile they want, at $2500 for every 30 days, I could see businesses just paying that fine as an operational cost.
The incentive also exists, for the kinds of employers who would post ghost jobs, to also force in-person work again. You don't have to pay these fines to multiple states on one ghost job if the job is only available in one location.
I will keep this in mind while working with reps in other states to encourage a more aggressive policy stance with regards to ghost jobs.
> The incentive also exists, for the kinds of employers who would post ghost jobs, to also force in-person work again. You don't have to pay these fines to multiple states on one ghost job if the job is only available in one location.
49 states to go to implement this.
You're presuming that this is something employers want to circumvent. As the article discusses, many of these postings are likely legitimate jobs which the employer does intend to fill, and they just don't do the work (which has minimal value to them) of ensuring that all the postings get taken down once they've filled it.
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.
This is just begging for a class action-ish lawsuit.
Ha, I see the same job popping up over and over, for the last 12+ months. I've applied many times. Got denied every because I don't have all the skills.
Well, guess what, in that timeframe I could've learned the skills and you'd have somebody actually doing the work.