Analysis result (sample ghost-pattern listing)
95%High

High risk-signal density

This listing matches many known ghost-job patterns. Verify independently before spending 45 minutes applying.

🚩 Red flags found (10)

No salary range listed 18 pts
Only a dodge phrase: “Competitive salary” — no actual numbers.
Ghost listings are rarely budgeted roles, so there is no real number to publish. A growing list of pay-transparency laws (Colorado 2021, NYC 2022, California and Washington 2023) requires ranges for covered employers — a covered employer that still hides pay is either non-compliant or not really hiring.
Posting older than 30 days 16 pts
Listing text indicates age: “Posted 30+ days”.
Most genuinely open roles move to interviews within weeks. A listing that sits past 30 days is increasingly likely to be unbudgeted, already filled internally, or kept up to harvest resumes. Past 60-90 days the odds it is a live, fillable role drop sharply.
Reposted again and again 14 pts
Repost language found: “Reposted”.
Reposting resets the visible posting date, which makes a stale listing look fresh. A role reposted monthly for half a year either has an impossible bar, a retention problem, or was never meant to be filled — all bad outcomes for an applicant's time.
Boilerplate, buzzword-heavy description 12 pts
Stock phrases found: “fast-paced environment”, “self-starter”, “wear many hats”, “passionate individuals”.
When a manager actually needs someone, the description names the team, the stack, the problems. Ghost listings are written by nobody for nobody, so they fall back on filler: 'fast-paced environment', 'wear many hats', 'self-starter'. High cliche density with no specifics is the textual fingerprint of a posting no one expects to fill.
Vague or stacked job title 10 pts
Vague/stacked-title pattern: “Rockstar”.
Real reqs are written for one approved seat with one title. 'Rockstar engineer', 'Various positions', or a title stacking three roles into one signals a resume-collection net cast as wide as possible, not a budgeted opening.
'Always hiring' / talent-pipeline language 10 pts
Pipeline language: “always looking”.
Phrases like 'always looking for great talent', 'join our talent pool', or 'future opportunities' are honest in a way applicants miss: they describe resume collection, not an open seat. Your application feeds a database, not an interview loop.
No named hiring manager or contact 8 pts
No named hiring manager, recruiter, or contact email anywhere.
A funded role has an owner — someone whose quarter depends on filling it. Listings with no named manager, no 'reports to', and no human contact route into an applicant tracking system that may have no human on the other end.
No concrete details anywhere 8 pts
Only 54 words with almost no concrete figures — too thin to describe a real, budgeted role.
Specifics are expensive to fake. Team size, the product you'd work on, the tools in use, years of the company's history — real managers include them without thinking. A listing with not a single concrete fact was most likely generated to exist, not to hire.
Urgent hiring, zero specifics 6 pts
“Urgently hiring” in a listing of only 54 words.
'Immediate start! Apply today!' paired with a description that names no team, no project, and no start date is a volume play. Real urgency comes with logistics: a date, an interview process, a reason. Manufactured urgency comes with nothing — it just wants your click.
Hidden or masked employer 6 pts
Employer is masked: “our client”.
Staffing agencies sometimes post for real clients — but 'confidential client' postings are also the classic shape of fishing listings: collect candidates first, find (or never find) a client second. You cannot verify a company that won't be named.

✓ Good signs (1)

Implausibly wide salary range
No implausibly wide range detected.
Honest limits: This score measures how many known ghost-job risk patterns a listing matches. It is probabilistic, not proof — a real role can score high and a ghost role can score low. It is never an accusation against any named company.
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