Summary: Fake job listings, or real jobs backed by a selection process that filters out everyone, can earn your firm adversaries and detractors. They need to be identified for what they are -- a cheap, transparent gimmick.

A Typical Model

Following a fairly typical business model in this niche, yafla is a small consulting and contract development shop in a mid-sized market, using that business income to support the development of derivative products and businesses (such as the soon-to-come www.360notes.com), along with licensed ISV technologies.

We love the consulting/development market. We're extremely good at it, we enjoy the diversity and challenge, and we have no plans of ever abandoning it (at least until the world's software and IT needs have been completely satisfied once and for all). Yet of course we'd also love to build the next great shrinkwrap or web app hit, and are working towards that goal as well.

One thing we haven't done, however, is to pretend that we're bigger, more important, or more exclusive than we really are through the cheap but common technique of bogus or never-ending job listings -- We haven't built a pompous careers section bulked up with imaginary roles. We haven't provided descriptions of how extraordinary yafla talent is that only walk-on-water technical magicians with PhDs should consider joining the ranks of Extraordinary Gentlepeople.

The Lofty Requirements and Imaginary Jobs

What I'm talking about, of course, is the sadly prevalent practice of many organizations, from tiny to huge, to endlessly list artificial positions that don't actually exist, or to advertise theoretical positions that no one short of a deity could actually fill. This is a technique utilized by a diverse range of companies, from the tiny start-up that immediately has a prominent "careers" section comprising one third of their web property, to the huge organization like Microsoft's Canada division that lists the same positions for a year on end.

In this case I was spurred to write after seeing yet another micro-web firm -- one which I know has less than half a dozen employees and hasn't grown in years -- with a comprehensive job listing section including endless exhortations for only the most extraordinarily gifted and rare to join this exclusive crew. I imagine the endless ranks of prospects wasting their time jockeying for positions that will never be filled and it saddens me a bit.

Advertising false or theoretical positions is a cheap way of conveying the illusion that the perpetrator is an elite company on the go, so in demand that human resources needs outweigh the need to acquire clients (sort of a social proof), providing lofty requirements in hopes that you'll believe that all of the existing staff achieves the same. It attempts to cow competitors into thinking that they're so successful that they're chomping at the bit for new employees, but are thwarted by a workforce that is incapable of meeting their amazing skill requirements.

In response to these ads, countless prospective applicants carefully craft cover letters and customized resumes. They eagerly apply, imagining their future with this fabulous organization.

Many times their application either times out and yield an automated rejection letter, or immediately gets rejected by a human resources department that is filtering applications by a wide range of criteria unstated in the job posting (the classic being the secret compensation cutoff -- ask for less and you'll get through and underpaid, but waste your time submitting for a job that doesn't fulfill your financial requirements and you'll get instantly rejected).

Not named Smith. Not named Singh. Too much corporate experience. Too little corporate experience. Too presumptuous in its use of the greeting "A very good day to you". The arbitrary and often ridiculous filtering criteria can effectively eliminate anyone.

Cheap and easy for HR, so everyone wins. Right?

The Negative Repercussions

Of course they don't.

On the other end of the equation is a real person that wasted their time and effort creating a submission for jobs that often don't even exist, or which they don't meet due to hidden requirements -- people who often already have jobs and are sacrificing their limited free time -- only for their efforts to sit stagnating in an inbox or database for years. If they're lucky they might get rashly rejected despite fulfilling all of the requirements, and then some, when some arbitrary time-out mechanism fires off a form rejection letter, or a haphazard HR rep blanket rejects all pending resumes.

The resentment builds. The goodwill of the organization suffers.

These rejectees often have decision making authority in their organization, and over the years they grow into more powerful roles. For years they nurse the wound that their perfect application for the big XZZ corp position was rejected out of hand, without as much as a phone call or personal contact allowing them to demonstrate their worth. Often it subconsciously colours their choices, be it as simple as supporting and advocating open source products in defiance of the careless Microsoft rep that canned their submission, or second guessing whether the firm should automatically move to .NET, or whether there should be a competitive showdown between it and J2EE. Even a minor antagonism can substantially change internal advocacy.

Of course choices should be made based upon empirical facts and unbiased analysis, but as human beings we are consciously and subconsciously affected by emotions and biasSmaller firms of course have less ramifications for partaking in this abuse.

Smaller firms often have no downside to printing such fake ads -- apart from killing a bit of your soul abusing people like that -- given that spurned suitors often have no business relationship with them outside of vying for a job. These firms use such ads in the theory that "no publicity is bad publicity". Compare this to Microsoft that relies upon the decisions of millions of people, and suffers from a million tiny wounds when an HR department gets sloppy.

My Personal Experience

I can personally relate to this problem to a degree.

Many years back, when I first moved to the greater Toronto area, I applied to a Microsoft Canada position that was pretty much a perfect match for my skills -- the ad seemed like it was written specifically with me in mind: I had what seemed to be a perfect mix of skills, experience, education and certification.

I had watched this job listing sit on the job site for many months, and figured I'd finally give it a try, so I wasted an hour of my time putting together a perfect resume, and then reformatting it for their absolutely terrible, archaic online resume building tool. I looked forward to the inevitable telephone interview when I would wow them more with my incredible communication skills and demonstrated intelligence.

A week later I got a form rejection letter informing me that I wasn't suitable for the position.

No phone call. No email questions. No follow-ups at all. Just a blanket, uncontestable (from a no-return bogus email address, which is a classy touch) rejection by the machine of HR at Microsoft.

The job listing stayed up for as long as I bothered watching. Every day that it sat there unfilled I stewed over the fact that I wasn't given even the courtesy of a brief phone interview.

I've never been a Microsoft zealot, and nor did that organization represent my dream job, but it admittingly did burn getting rejected in such a fashion (I'd much rather have bombed an interview and had myself to blame). My choices of Microsoft technology have always been driven by facts and pragmatism, so it wasn't like I was going to stomp my feet and embrace Linux to spite the Microsoft machine, but it did make me give alternatives a second look.

In all honesty it's probably made me a little more antagonistic towards Microsoft Canada employees, making me question "so what's so special about this guy? I don't get a phone call yet this idiot works there?"

For someone more emotionally invested, though, it probably could have made them an enemy. I have to wonder how many avowed Microsoft enemies, spreading the anti-Microsoft word far and wide, were molded when the human resources machine rashly stomped on their dreams.

The same question could be raised for other organizations with the same hiring practices, and for startups that build a facade of size by listing numerous positions that don't actually exist.

Not Everyone Is Employee Material

Of course many applicants aren't appropriate or optimal for the position they're seeking, so job seekers have to accept the fact that even getting past the initial filter is a remote possibility (especially given the one-click applications possible at many of the job sites: A single listing can yield tens of thousands of mechanically submitted applications, so even the best prospect can get lost in the noise, not to mention that listed positions are often internally filled, and listed only as a matter of process), and as always getting considered is often best achieved by network contacts and organizational insiders rather than cold resume submissions.

Nonetheless, fake job listings are quickly transparent to all, and unfilled roles that waste the applicant's time can earn an organization lifetime enemies.

On top of that, the practice of keeping some requirements secret wastes everyone's time. Apart from often unstated diversity staffing requirements, organizations often fail to publish the compensation band for a job. For prospects with financial needs beyond the position, it is an enormous waste of time and effort, and it fills HR inboxes with prospects that will never accept the position.