Ghost jobs by job board: share of ghost-like postings on LinkedIn, Indeed, Workday, Greenhouse and six more
One table, ten boards: the share of active postings scoring 25 or higher on the ghost score, the share open more than 45 days, the share reposted, and the share with no salary. Board by board commentary on why the numbers land where they do, and the query to reproduce the cut.
Dvir Atias
Founder, JobsPipe
Ghost jobs are not evenly distributed. The share of ghost-like postings varies by more than an order of magnitude between the ten boards JobsPipe collects, and the variation is explained almost entirely by two things: whether the board expires listings on a timer, and whether it is dominated by employers with hundreds of open roles at once. This is the full table and the reasoning behind each row.
Ghost jobs by job board: the full table
One row per board. “Score 25+” is the share of scored active postings with a ghost score of 25 or higher, which requires at least one strong signal (open 45 days or more, reposted, or mass poster) plus a supporting one. “Open 30+ days” and “Reposted” use the full sighting log, which starts on 2026-07-23 for most of the applicant tracking system boards, so 30 days is the age threshold every board can report. “No salary” is the share of scored postings without a posted range.
| Board | Score 25+ | Open 30+ days | Reposted | No salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SmartRecruiters | 96.7% | 71.1% | 52.6% | 94.7% |
| Workday | 94.1% | 58.9% | 47.1% | 80.3% |
| Y Combinator | 82.5% | 70.7% | 63.6% | 17.8% |
| Lever | 43.9% | 4.4% | 2.4% | 90.0% |
| Greenhouse | 36.8% | 8.5% | 2.3% | 55.1% |
| 21.2% | 31.1% | 9.9% | 76.9% | |
| Ashby | 15.1% | 19.1% | 11.0% | 60.8% |
| Indeed | 11.7% | 25.1% | 4.8% | 58.5% |
| Workable | 6.4% | 42.7% | 6.1% | 82.3% |
| Paylocity | 2.4% | 44.6% | 2.2% | 89.7% |
| All boards | 17.8% | 28.6% | 8.0% | 66.9% |
What the table says, board by board
SmartRecruiters
96.7% of scored SmartRecruiters postings score 25 or higher, the highest share in the table, and 40.0% score 50 or higher. The cause is concentration: 96.3% of scored postings belong to a company with 500 or more open roles, and 52.6% of active postings have been reposted. This is an enterprise applicant tracking system whose public boards are dominated by a small number of very large employers refreshing evergreen requisitions.
Workday
Workday reads the same way: 94.1% at 25 or higher, 94.9% at mass posters, and 58.9% of active postings first sighted more than 30 days ago. Workday also re-dates postings on edit, which is why 63.2% of scored postings carry a posted date that drifts 30 days or more from the first sighting. A Workday posting that says it is new often is not.
Y Combinator
The startup board tops the age columns: 70.7% of active postings are more than 30 days old, 65.3% more than 45 days old, and 63.6% have been reposted. Founders leave roles open indefinitely and refresh them, and there is no timer. 73.1% of scored postings score 50 or higher, the highest stacked share of any board, driven by age plus reposts rather than by mass posting.
Lever
43.9% score 25 or higher, but almost none reach 50. Lever’s share comes from mass posters (41.0% of scored postings) and a re-dating habit (76.8%), not from age: only 4.4% of active Lever postings are more than 30 days old, which fits the short lifespans Lever postings show.
Greenhouse
36.8% at 25 or higher, again almost all in the 25-49 band. Greenhouse combines mass posters (43.1%) with the highest stale posted date share among the ATS boards (63.8%). The age and repost columns are low, which says Greenhouse boards are actively maintained; the score comes from how the dates are reported, not from postings that linger.
21.2% at 25 or higher, slightly above the cross-board share, with the mass poster signal on 20.2% of scored postings and a repost share of 9.9%. Wide and shallow: many postings with one strong signal, few with several. Details in LinkedIn ghost jobs.
Ashby
15.1% at 25 or higher. Ashby is used by smaller companies, so the mass poster signal is low (7.6%), and its share comes from a moderate repost rate (11.0%) and re-dated postings (60.1%).
Indeed
11.7% at 25 or higher. 25.1% of active postings are more than 30 days old but only 4.4% more than 45, because free postings stop being shown after a fixed window, so aged ghosts are rare; what remains is mass poster inventory and repost cycles. Details in Indeed ghost jobs.
Workable
6.4% at 25 or higher, one of the cleanest boards. Workable serves small and mid-sized employers, so mass posters are almost absent (1.9%), and although 42.7% of active postings are more than 30 days old, few of them carry a second signal.
Paylocity
2.4% at 25 or higher, the lowest share in the table, despite 44.6% of active postings being more than 30 days old. Paylocity postings are old but otherwise unremarkable: single employers, few reposts (2.2%), and a high no-salary share (89.7%) that adds little on its own.
Why the timer boards and the ATS boards diverge
Every row above is explained by one of two mechanisms, and knowing which one applies tells you how to filter. The first mechanism is the timer. Indeed stops showing free postings after a fixed window, and the general-purpose boards refresh their inventory constantly, so a posting nobody maintains disappears on its own. On the timer boards the age column falls off a cliff at the window: 31.1% of active LinkedIn postings and 25.1% of active Indeed postings are more than 30 days old, but only 4.0% and 4.4% are more than 45 days old. Their ghost-like share comes almost entirely from mass posters and repost cycles, so the right filter is a score cap, because an age filter has little left to remove once the window has done its work.
The second mechanism is the recruiter. Applicant tracking systems and startup boards close a posting when a person closes it, and nothing else does. Their age columns are high, their repost columns are high where large employers refresh requisitions, and their posted dates drift because edits re-date the listing. The right filter is a score cap plus posted_at_max_age_days, and the right freshness field is discovered_at rather than date_posted.
A third pattern sits between them. Paylocity and Workable postings are old but carry few other signals, which says small employers leave postings up for a long time without refreshing or re-dating them. That is stale rather than ghost-like, and an age filter alone handles it.
How to read this table
Three rules keep the table honest. First, the score measures ghost-like behaviour, not intent: a company with 600 genuinely open roles trips the mass poster signal on every one of them. Second, the boards at the top are not worse boards; they are boards whose inventory is concentrated in large employers, which is also what makes them valuable for sourcing. Third, the denominator is scored active postings, which excludes listings seen once and younger than two weeks. The by-board pages under /ghost-jobs carry the same rows with a per-board checker.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which job board has the most ghost jobs?
By share of scored active postings with a ghost score of 25 or higher, SmartRecruiters (96.7%), Workday (94.1%) and Y Combinator (82.5%) top the table. All three are dominated by long-running requisitions and, for the first two, by employers with hundreds of open roles.
Which job board has the fewest ghost jobs?
Paylocity (2.4%), Workable (6.4%) and Indeed (11.7%) have the lowest shares scoring 25 or higher. They serve smaller employers or expire free listings on a timer, so postings rarely carry more than one signal.
Does a high share mean a board is worse?
No. The score measures ghost-like behaviour, not intent, and the boards at the top are boards whose inventory is concentrated in large employers refreshing evergreen requisitions. That concentration is also what makes them valuable for sourcing. Treat the table as a guide to how much filtering each board needs.
How is the ghost score computed?
Each active posting with at least two sightings or more than 14 days of tenure is scored daily from its sighting log and content: open 45 or 90 days or more, three or more sightings with a gap of ten days or more, a description under 400 characters, no posted salary, an employer with 500 or more open roles, and a posted date drifting 30 days or more from the first sighting.
What does reposted mean in this table?
A posting seen three or more times with a gap of ten days or more between sightings, measured over the full sighting log of every active posting on the board. It captures listings that were taken down and put back, or refreshed so they surface as new.
How do I reproduce the clean cut for one board?
Send POST /v1/jobs/search with source_or set to the board, status set to active and max_ghost_score set to 24. Raise the cap to widen the cut. Every record returns discovered_at, last_seen_at, status, closed_reason and ghost_score so you can apply your own thresholds.