Ghost job checker
Paste a job's link to see what DonutApply's daily read of company job boards knows about it: how long it has been up, whether it was reposted, whether the company still lists it, and how likely it is to be a ghost job.
What a ghost job is
A ghost job is a posting for a role that is not really being filled: one left up after the job is gone, reposted on a loop to collect resumes, or kept open to look like a company is growing. Applying to one costs an afternoon and gets no answer.
What the checker looks at
- Age. How long the posting has been up, counting from its first version when it was reposted. A posting up for months is more often evergreen or on hold.
- Reposts. The same title in the same place at the same company, posted again. DonutApply links them by comparing the postings themselves.
- Whether it is still listed. DonutApply reads companies' job boards every day; a posting the board stopped listing is closed, and one it has not confirmed lately is stale.
The ghost score weighs those together from 0 to 100. It is a read of the record, not word from the company, and a high score is a reason to ask before you spend time, not proof. In DonutApply itself, the swipe deck leaves likely ghost jobs out.
Questions
Which job links can it check?
Links to a job's own page on the company's job board: Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday, iCIMS, SmartRecruiters, Oracle, Eightfold, Jobvite, Workable, Teamtailor, BambooHR and other common ones. Links to LinkedIn, Indeed and other job sites can't be checked; use the job's link to the company's site instead.
Is the link I paste kept?
No. It is read for which board it is on and the job's id there, looked up in DonutApply's records, and dropped. The job's page is never opened.
Why does it say it has not seen a posting?
DonutApply reads some 70,000 company job boards, not every one. A posting can also be too new to have been read, or outside the US.
Does a high ghost score mean the job is fake?
No. It means the record looks like a job that is not being filled: up a long time, reposted, or one of several near copies. Some evergreen roles are real and hire all year.
Donut apply so hard.
Go take a nap.
We’ll keep looking.
Fresh jobs keep arriving while you sleep. When you're up, the forms fill in minutes and the tracker keeps itself tidy.
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