I mean, in 26 years in the industry I’ve never worked anywhere that kept ads up for jobs that had already been filled. Not even on their own websites where hosting those ads is effectively free (as opposed to LinkedIn et al where you have to pay).

I’m not saying there are no companies that keep non-live job ads up purely for fishing purposes but, in my experience, it’s not the norm. It would really piss jobseekers off and that’s the kind of word that tends to get around and make it harder to hire in future. Maybe not if you’re a FAANG, because so many people want to work for you anyway, but it’s going to cause problems for “normal” companies.

Anecdotes are not data, etc, but several years ago I worked for a mom & pop company that conducted interviews with people for a job that didn't exist 'just to see what was out there', so stuff like that definitely does happen. (That place eventually went out of business for unrelated reasons)

https://www.resumebuilder.com/3-in-10-companies-currently-ha...

2024.

I worked at several FAANG and similar companies for 20 years. We were always hiring from new grad up to principal. Just a handful of generic position descriptions.

I think the more common case is listings that are technically "open" but due to slow internal processes, repositioning, etc etc, no work is being done towards filling them that is visible to candidates.

For example, I've personally witnessed situations where the funding for a role gets postponed to next quarter, but my manager just kept it open anyway, either out of fear of missing out on the perfect candidate if they stopped accepting apps, or because it's simply easier than going through the HR process to re-post it in a month.