August 5, 2026
Now Hiring: Your Despair
The Job Board Is Lying to You
More than 1 in 4 job posts may be fake, and commenters are absolutely furious
TLDR: The article claims over a quarter of LinkedIn job posts may be fake or used to collect free applicant data instead of filling real roles. Commenters reacted with fury, calling it scammy, depressing, and absurd, while swapping horror stories about rude AI interviews and fake hiring hoops.
If you thought job hunting was grim, the comment section says it’s somehow even worse. The article’s big bombshell is that a huge slice of online job listings may not be real at all, with some postings allegedly acting less like hiring ads and more like traps to collect free test work, video clips, and personal data. In plain English: people think they’re applying for jobs, but some fear they’re actually feeding machines and wasting hours for nothing.
That claim lit up the community fast. One of the angriest reactions came from a commenter who bluntly said this kind of thing should be a felony. That set the tone: lots of disgust, very little sympathy. Others sounded less enraged and more emotionally exhausted, with one person saying the whole piece made them sad about the state of the world. And then came the dark comedy. One user mocked the headline itself, joking that “is lying to you” has become the internet’s favorite cheap trick for clicks.
The most vivid story came from someone who says they actually did one of these AI interviews for Mercor and found it bizarrely rude, with the bot constantly interrupting them mid-answer like the world’s most impatient recruiter. Another commenter turned the thread into survival advice: no AI interviews, no early tests, salary up front, and charge extra for every day in the office. The mood was clear: job seekers are done being played, and the comments read like a mix of rage, burnout, and gallows humor.
Key Points
- •The article claims many AI-related job listings on LinkedIn are vague postings designed to route applicants into assessments and interviews that generate training data.
- •It cites Mercor and micro1 as examples, alleging that applicant submissions, recordings, and monitored interview activity can be commercially valuable to those companies.
- •The author describes an application process in which screening, interviewing, test grading, and rejection communication were all handled by AI with no human interaction.
- •The article says ghost jobs are widespread, citing a 48% phantom rate for tech listings in a Columbia Law Review study, 1-in-3 employer admission in Clarify Capital's survey, and a 27% ghost-job rate on LinkedIn.
- •It argues that AI has created a recruiting feedback loop in which mass applications drive automated screening, which then encourages applicants to adopt tactics like prompt injections in resumes.