Been watching this thread with interest and appreciate everyone sharing their own ideas re: solutions. I wanted to share an update from my own research over the past 100 days tracking LinkedIn job postings across 265 metros in 46 states (note: AI-based evaluation isn’t perfect, but spot checks suggest these numbers are fairly accurate):

64,127 jobs were retrieved in total. Of these, 17,375 (27%) included minimum salary information.

Among postings with salary info, 5,386 (31%, 8.4% of total) included a base salary above the 2024 US median wage of $63,804. However, 2,320 of these required state licensing (e.g. RN, CPA, CDL, etc.).

Of the 3,064 remaining, 2,423 were posted directly by the company (i.e. not a third party recruiter) with 305 job titles reposted within the 100-day period.

Of these 2,118 distinct jobs, only five non-government entities had at least 10 active postings (Leidos, Procore, BNSF, American Heart Association, Google).

Bottom line: It’s tough out there, but it doesn’t need to be THIS tough -- knowing which companies are actually hiring external candidates can help reduce frustration on all sides.

Generative AI is a double-edged sword, allowing for mass customization and filtering by both recruiters and applicants alike. Based on recent conversations with business owners, these tools are getting scary good at summarization but remain much less helpful re: candidate-recruiter matching.

I am working on a multiple sieve approach incorporating AI filtering + human feedback to make ghost jobs a thing of the past. Current filters include:

• Distilling candidate CVs (average length: 587 words) into brief summaries incorporating the most relevant long-tail keywords.
• Distilling job descriptions (average length: 455 words) into comprehensible summaries including priority skills/experience and any available salary info + required certifications.
• Showing candidates the best matching jobs from active, reputable recruiters ranked by user-signaled criteria and priorities.
• Showing recruiters the best matching candidates ranked by their own signaled criteria, including those vouched for by fellow humans (personally and/or through relevant state licensing where applicable).

Happy to set up a working group on this if others are interested -- politics aside, I think we can all agree it’s time to Make Job Postings Real Again :-)

Gaudete!

you know what... i am in tears... literally.. call me extra or whatever but this is real.. i literally am back in my parents home... i have put in 3500+ apps .. used multiple ai tailored generated blah blah blah blah blah... was skipping my way around the monopoly board to collect $200 and slipped on a banana peel . ...... yes i am a hustler at heart, can build it, pmp, execute it, ..... however it. is different when you know that you have a 9 to 5 check hitting that bank account and don't have to worry about choosing between paying the light bill or groceries. and the states should be handled lying about UNEMPLOYMENT IS DOWN...... lets go and skip through Augusta, GA on foot and see how many people are literally living in abandoned buildings, making treehouses.. (this is no lie now) whole families freezing to death right now ... and it's just swept under the rug... ::💔💔::

I personally know someone, that was a COO .... got off work one evening.... stopped and got his wife and kids an "iloveyou" dozen of HOT DOUGHNUTS! just to pull up to his home and see the police waiting outside to tell him he needs to come identify their bodies.. ... took a leave of absence and got SACKED 3 DAYS LATER!!!!! I allowed my former boss to shower at my home when i had one every day ... and use my computer, whatever he needed ... bc he lost EVERYTHING and his mind.. let me tell you this..... he killed himself after 6 months of fake "post" ... mental health went down the drain ... :::::i do apologize for not cleaning this up ... however this is a real thing out here ... and whatever needs to get done. please know that i am all hands and toes on deck...

We Need Real Change in Hiring—Here’s the Truth

AI is great, but let’s be honest: the hiring process is broken. I’ve been on the job hunt too long, and I’ve lost it all—along with a bag of marbles, too. The number of ghost jobs being posted is outrageous. Legally, companies have to post job openings somewhere (thanks, EEOC), but guess what? More often than not, someone’s cousin’s aunt’s baby is already in training for that role while the rest of us are wasting time trying to impress faceless systems.

We need real people with real hearts in hiring. We need platforms like LinkedIn to actually help people—not AI-generated posts or automated responses. We need real communication. Real results. Real change.

People are losing hope. I’m tired of seeing talent wasted while folks live in trees or make desperate decisions just to survive. These aren’t just everyday workers—we’re talking about former executives, seasoned professionals, and skilled specialists who are being left behind. No one is listening to the human stories behind the applications.

Ohhh my goodness, you have really hit on a big and thorny issue. The current ATS systems most companies use now, are failing everyone on all sides of the experience. In house recruiting teams are flooded with inappropriate CV's. The state of CV sorting/qualification automation is really terrible in most ATS systems. So that leaves it to manual labor, in many cases handled by understaffed or undertrained TA teams. It's a space that is literally screaming out for AI to help with honing in on matched profiles. From the candidate side of things, the application experience is also terrible. Customize your profile/CV submit to the 'black hole' and then wait weeks with zero transparency into what happens after that, until you receive your form letter rejection weeks or months later. Job boards are a mess, littered with jobs that are not not viable & why they allow it on their platforms, diluting the reliability of their product I have NO idea. I've led TA teams for more than 10 years, and I would LOVE to work on this problem as a subject matter expert. AI & automation could help with this in variety of ways. It's an area that is DYING for disruption.

also, a job board that is not mostly fake posts for harvesting your private data.

If anyone wants to solve this, A.I. can "make sense" of unordered data in both job posts and applicant resumes -- it can ask "would a job like this? or how about one like this?" and same for the recruiter.

Jobs are "fussy" to computers, traditional computing requires highly ordered data and A.I. in a fundamental way disrupts this, it can order data so traditional computing can act on a CV or Job Post.

This is the future for sure. As for stopping the scam posts? I can help you do that today if you like, please reach out:

https://jtayler.medium.com/the-scourge-of-fake-job-posts-stealing-identities-selling-reputations-3ec0ff7ae3e4

+1000 on this, from the flip side of verified job openings for real candidates. There are so many ghost postings out there it's made the layoff and job search process extremely soul sucking. And in a tight hiring market (regardless of jobs reports the last few years, it's been tough!) a person's individual network may not be able to help.