Integrity Ideas are specific actions a leader can consider during the RE-ALIGN step of Integriosity^®—actions that will begin to RE-ALIGN the organization with Biblical beliefs, principles, and priorities.  You can find more Integrity Ideas at Integrous | Integrity Ideas (integriosity.com)

INTEGRITY IDEA: Be a Ghostbuster

“Be a Ghostbuster” does not involve Bill Murray or Dan Aykroyd, and it is not about exorcism or deliverance.

“Be a Ghostbuster” is about a faithful leader implementing policies and practices to ensure that the organization does not advertise what have been called “ghost” job openings—openings that do not exist, have already been filled, or that the organization has no present intention of filling.

“Be a Ghostbuster” recognizes that ghost job listings run counter to several foundational Biblical beliefs, principles, and priorities that should guide the pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing—Imago Dei, the Golden Rule, and the commandment to love your neighbor—as well as the two components of the word Integriosity^®—integrity and generosity.

It also recognizes that ghost listings work against the bigger WHYs of an organization pursuing faithful integrity: Humanizing People, Beautifying the World, and Glorifying God.

Integrity Ideas are practical actions toward implementing a bigger WHY for the organization.  Some are helpful ideas to consider as a faithful leader prayerfully discerns how best to steward the organization. Others may be important steps in the RENEW/RE-IMAGINE/RE-ALIGN/RESTORE process.

“Be a Ghostbuster” is in the “necessary” category. While most Integrity Ideas encourage faithful leaders to take positive action toward Biblical flourishing, some call out business as usual practices that are out of alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles, and priorities.  Posting or negligently maintaining ghost listings is one of those practices.

Ghost Listings

This post was inspired by a recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled “‘Ghost Job’ Ads Are Getting So Bad That Lawmakers Want to Ban Them.”  It suggests that as many as one in five job listings are for openings “the company has no real intention of filling,” reporting that approximately 19% of jobs advertised on digital job boards during the second quarter of 2026 were classified as ghost jobs by Greenhouse, a hiring platform.

The WSJ article notes that the attorney general of Texas opened an investigation into LinkedIn, and legislators in New York and Pennsylvania have already proposed legislation to combat ghost listings.

The WSJ article and a post on Built In titled “Ghost Jobs: What Are They and How to Spot Them” identify several possible explanations.

While it seems some ghost listings are the product of delays or negligence in removing listings for positions that have already been filled, both articles suggest that others may be the product of more self-serving intentions. Employers might create a ghost posting to collect resumes that could be helpful in filling a future opening. Others might do it in the hope of finding a “dream” candidate or merely to compare a favored internal candidate with external applicants without any genuine willingness to hire an outsider. Still others might use ghost postings to create the perception of growth.

Even more troubling, the Built In post cites a 2024 survey by ResumeBuilder of 649 hiring managers whose companies had posted fake jobs. It found that 62% of those hiring managers admitted to having “posted ghost jobs to make their employees feel replaceable.”

The problems with ghost postings should be obvious to any faithful leader. Job seekers spend significant time, energy, and other personal resources responding to those listings, and then suffer the discouragement of receiving no reply and never knowing whether the opportunity was real. As noted by the WSJ author, Lauren Weber:

The cycle of heartbreak is familiar to job seekers everywhere: They see an ad for a role with great pay and potential, spend time customizing a cover letter and resume, hit submit, and then…nothing. 

The morale of current employees can be damaged by listings intended to make them feel replaceable and listings that promise the help of co-workers who never materialize.

Biblical Standards

As noted above, ghost job listings run counter to Imago Dei, the Golden Rule, and the commandment to love your neighbor—as well as the two components of the word Integriosity^®—integrity and generosity. They dehumanize rather than humanize job seekers, uglify rather than beautify the world, and fail to glorify God.

If a ghost posting is simply the result of the organization’s failing to remove the listing for a job that has already been filled, it falls short of the excellence required of an organization pursuing faithful integrity:

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord. (Colossians 3:23)

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

If an organization intentionally lists a job it has no intention of filling, many more Biblical passages are implicated. Leviticus 19 is a treasure trove:

You shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. (Leviticus 19:11)

You shall not oppress your neighbor. (Leviticus 19:13)

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18)

Ephesians 4:25 poignantly instructs, “Having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”  Other convicting passages include:

As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. (Luke 6:31)

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3–4)

Speak the truth to one another. (Zechariah 8:16)

Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. (Proverbs 12:22)

But it is Proverbs 13:12 that speaks directly to the injury inflicted on job seekers and current employees who are misled into placing some hope in a ghost post, only to be disappointed:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick.

A job posting is an organizational communication to job seekers, who are already “neighbors” and who become stakeholders in the organization’s community when they respond. A ghost posting designed to manipulate or motivate current employees by creating the fear of replaceability or the hope of co-workers to share the burden is a communication to current neighbors and, more fundamentally, to humans made in God’s image whom the faithful leader is called to steward and treat with dignity and care.

CONTINUUM: Policies, Practices

The Integriosity model organizes “heart change” along six Covert-Overt Continuums.  There is nothing inherently magical about these categories, but we believe they are helpful in thinking about practical execution of a Re-Imagined Purpose, Re-Imagined Values, and a Re-Imagined Culture.  The Continuums are Prayer, Proclamation, Policies, Practices, Products, People.

Each Continuum represents an area in which leaders can begin to think about, plan, and institute Re-Alignment changes to the heart of the organization.

“Be a Ghostbuster” is on the Policies Continuum and the Practices Continuum. It requires establishing an organization-wide rule prohibiting misleading job listings, as well as implementing practices to ensure that a legitimate posting is promptly taken down when the position is filled.

COVERT-OVERT RATING: Highly Covert

The Integriosity model breaks the Covert-Overt Continuums into six gradations—from Highly Covert to Highly Overt—that we believe are helpful in beginning to pray and think about what is most appropriate for an organization at a particular moment in time.

Most Integrity Ideas have one place on the scale.  Some can vary depending on how they are implemented.  We identify “Be a Ghostbuster” as Highly Covert (an action that would be taken by a secular company). Ghost postings can damage the reputation of an organization, which is a priority for secular as well as faith-driven organizations.

It can be moved toward the Overt end of the Continuum by, for example, explaining the Biblical basis for promptly removing listings for filled positions and not posting false or misleading listings.

STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees, Community, Kingdom

When we categorize faith-based actions, we also consider the stakeholders principally impacted by the action: Employees, Customers/Clients, Owners, Suppliers/Vendors, Community, and Kingdom.

“Be a Ghostbuster” serves many stakeholders.  Ghost posts can create fear or misplaced hope in Employees.  Job seekers become part of the organization’s Community when they respond to a listing, and the Kingdom is served when an organization operates counter-culturally with integrity and generosity, in alignment with Biblical principles such as Imago Dei, the Golden Rule, and the commandment to love your neighbor.

IMPLEMENTATION

An organization pursuing faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing should prevent ghost postings, whether unintentional or intentional.

Ghost postings that result from failing to remove filled positions may be unintentional, but they are sloppy and fall short of the excellence that glorifies God.

The intentional use of ghost postings has all the hallmarks of business as usual behavior aligned with a WHY of Profit as Purpose and the assumptions of Scarcity and Self-Interest.  When profit is the end toward which a business is managed, people can never be more than tools of production to be manipulated and managed toward that end.

The intentional use of ghost postings treats job seekers as tools to build a resume pipeline, find a “dream candidate,” create a perception of growth, or manipulate current employees. Those goals reflect the assumptions of Scarcity and Self-Interest: fear that qualified workers will not be available when needed, fear of missing the “dream” employee, and a desire to attract investors by projecting growth.

The practice can also be motivated by the belief that current employees will respond by working harder from a fear of losing their jobs or will have their morale boosted by thinking reinforcements are on the way.

Implementing “Be a Ghostbuster” is straightforward.

• Adopt a policy that prohibits deceptive job postings.  A listing for a possible future opening is not necessarily deceptive if it is plainly described as a continuing expression of interest or talent-pipeline invitation. The key is honesty and transparency about whether an opening currently exists and whether the organization presently intends to fill it.

• Assign responsibility for each posting and require periodic confirmation that the position remains open and that the organization is still actively recruiting for it.

• Review the organization’s practices for promptly taking down job postings once a position has been filled, and revise those practices as necessary, including procedures for confirming removal from third-party job boards.

• Promptly notify applicants if a position is filled, withdrawn, or placed on hold.

The most difficult aspect of implementing “Be a Ghostbuster” may be the trust required to move away from the ways of the world and the fears of Scarcity.  It is about trusting that God will provide the right employees at the right time, without the need to deceive job seekers. It is trusting in God’s promises, commands, and sovereignty.

As we have written several times, trusting God means trusting God’s process, timing, and outcome:

• Process: God’s process is often counter-intuitive and counter-cultural.

• Timing: God’s timing often seems excruciatingly slow.

• Outcome: God’s best outcome for a business (the “all these things” promised in Matthew 6:33) may not be the world’s best outcome.

By recognizing job applicants as stakeholders whose time, effort, hope, and dignity matter, implementing “Be a Ghostbuster” reflects and reinforces an organizational culture that prioritizes relationships, community, human dignity, and the flourishing of all people.

PERSONAL NOTE (from PM): Leading a New Canaan Society chapter and having children, nieces, nephews, and their friends beginning careers has exposed me to the frustrations of today’s online job market through the experiences of those searching for jobs.  I have heard stories of people submitting hundreds of applications and resumes online over several months without receiving even an acknowledgment.  I never imagined that many of the listings might not have represented honest employment opportunities. It is not something we should need the government to regulate, but the secularization of our culture has eroded the ability to regulate ourselves through transcendent values.  As Ken Eldred has written, “Character is the long-lost ingredient of successful capitalism, and biblical values are the underlying values of the character ethic.”

ESSENCE:  Integrity Ideas are specific practical actions a faithful leader can consider in leading faithfully through business a better way.

INTEGRITY IDEA: Be a Ghostbuster

“Be a Ghostbuster” does not involve Bill Murray or Dan Aykroyd, and it is not about exorcism or deliverance. “Be a Ghostbuster” is about a faithful leader implementing policies and practices to ensure that the organization does not permit what have been called “ghost” job openings—openings that do not exist, have already been filled, or that the organization has no present intention of filling.  While most Integrity Ideas encourage faithful leaders to take positive action toward Biblical flourishing, some call out business as usual practices that are out of alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles, and priorities. Ensuring that job postings are “real” seems obvious, but ghost postings have apparently become so common—whether through neglect or self-serving intent—that government officials are investigating the practice and lawmakers are considering legislation to protect job seekers.  “Be a Ghostbuster” recognizes that ghost job listings run counter to several foundational Biblical beliefs, principles, and priorities that should guide the pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing—Imago Dei, the Golden Rule, and the commandment to love your neighbor—as well as the two components of the word Integriosity^®—integrity and generosity.  It also recognizes that ghost listings work against the bigger WHYs of an organization pursuing faithful integrity: Humanizing People, Beautifying the World, and Glorifying God. By recognizing job applicants as stakeholders whose time, effort, hope, and dignity matter, implementing “Be a Ghostbuster” reflects and reinforces an organizational culture that prioritizes relationships, community, human dignity, and the flourishing of all people.

COVERT-OVERT CONTINUUM (six Continuums for action): Policies, Practices

COVERT-OVERT RATING (several levels from Highly Covert to Highly Overt): Highly Covert

STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees, Community, Kingdom

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Photo credit: Original image by Paul Michalski using Gemini
(photo cropped)