The Future of Phantom Jobs: The Corporate Illusion of Growth

While DEI continues on a descent including the latest news:  Microsoft’s laying off its DEI team, one would be remiss not to heed the recent news on Wells Fargo bank facing a lawsuit “alleging it defrauded shareholders by proclaiming its commitment to hiring diversity, even as it conducted sham job interviews of non-white female applicants it had no plans to hire.”  This came on the heels of a June 2022 Justice Department probe subsequently reported by the New York Times and followed by a -10.2% share price free fall, wiping out +$17 Billion dollars in less than three days.  

The Wells Fargo situation sounds familiar to what I’ve learned from multiple reliable sources that companies were posting jobs they had no intent to fill.  With the COVID-19 free money train derailed and higher interest rates, employers have been less inclined to go on a hiring spree. The difference in these fake job postings is they were general market intended, so they affect a broader cohort.  The premise is companies continue to post jobs whether real or “fake” to send a signal to their shareholders and the Street of their assumed vitality.

What some call “ghost” or “phantom” jobs I like to be more provocative and call “zombie” jobs because these job postings lack a “soul” and are not connected to any real jobs similar to the soulless undead monsters of science fiction.  Merriam-Webster defines a zombie as a human who is reanimated through supernatural means but is without will or speech.  

People spend insurmountable amounts of time and energy applying to what effectively is an empty void.  CBS News reported:  “Forty percent of companies said they have posted a fake job listing this year, according to a survey in May of 650 hiring managers from career site Resume Builder”.

The zombie job posting companies aren’t even processing these job applications, although in some cases I was told the resumes would be saved for future “opportunities”.  The same CBS News article cited above also stated:  “Nearly 60% of companies surveyed said they collected resumes to keep them on file for a later date, with no intention of immediately hiring anyone”.  Zombie jobs can be misleading for job seekers, creating false hope and skewing the true number of available positions.

Could the Wells Fargo lawsuit be the canary in the coal mine reminding us of the tenuous nature of the bold promises made by many corporations since 2020 especially those following George Floyd’s death and the civil unrest that followed?  While the Wells Fargo lawsuit challenges a policy adopted in March 2020, before George Floyd’s death, it could still be a bellwether for things to come including shareholders challenging broader zombie job postings.

"The employee-submitted complaints, the peculiar timing of [the manager's] departure, and defendants' demonstrated focus on diversity issues supports a strong inference of [fraudulent intent] that is cogent and at least as compelling as an opposing inference that defendants remained oblivious," U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson wrote concerning the recent Wells Fargo “sham” job interview lawsuit.

It’s hard to believe less than four years ago we were soldiering through a worldwide pandemic and social upheaval bolstered by issues of police brutality.  Now as we look to the future, the biggest corporate threats may be from the degradation of DEI and the legions of job applicants wasting their time applying to phantom and zombie job postings.  It’s unfortunate that we are a country that has thrived on diversity since its inception.  We are seeing some of that success on full display in the Paris 2024 Olympics.

One more thing mentioned by the CBS News article was how some companies saw posting phantom jobs as a way of putting their own employees on notice.  On “notice” as in they need to continue to work harder and their jobs are not guaranteed given the enterprises' ability to continue to hire someone to replace them.  

Aight, Let’s Stretch…

The biggest existential threat or positive outcome depending on where you stand, could be the legions of phantom job applicants and employees getting wiser and pivoting into something new and better.  Aight, let’s stretch then…For all of our sake, let’s hope the real zombie horde never happens and corporations and individuals can continue to grow in diverse and thriving environments full of life and devoid of negativity.