Why would anyone apply for a role, go to an interview, sign a contract, but never turn up to work? The answer probably lies in the punishing jobs market ... Name: Career catfishing. Age: It’s very 2025. Appearance: None. I didn’t realise you could make a career out of catching catfish. This is a different kind of catfishing, one that is increasingly prevalent in today’s job market.
What do I have to do to get in on it? Don’t turn up for work. I like it already. What next? That’s it – you apply for a job, get the job, accept the job, and then skip your first day of work, and all days thereafter. How do I explain that to my boss? You don’t. You just disappear.
Huh. And this is popular? According to a survey, 34% of gen Z jobseekers have indulged in career catfishing. Gen Z – are there any longstanding cultural norms they can’t subvert? Apparently 24% of millennials, 11% of gen X and 7% of boomers have also done it.
But why apply for a job, go to all the trouble of getting it and then not show up? Any number of reasons – in the course of a long and dispiriting recruitment process, they may have got a better offer, or simply changed their minds. In that case, couldn’t they have just said, you know, thanks, but no thanks? Evidently they don’t feel they owe prospective employers anything.
Why would that be? Because they feel they’ve been treated very badly by them. How so? Recruitment is often labyrinthine, opaque and time-consuming. Research has shown that it takes, on average, between 100 and 200 job applications to receive a single job offer these days.
That’s ridiculous. In part, it’s because a significant portion of the jobs being advertised don’t exist – they’re ghost jobs. Ghost jobs? Fake job openings posted by companies, either to make it look as if they’re recruiting and therefore growing, or to keep their present employees on their toes, or for some other terrible reason.
I get it: it’s a jungle out there. There is also the phenomenon known as professional ghosting, when companies put applicants through multiple interviews, and sometimes even make job offers, before abruptly ending all communication. What you’re saying is, employers deserve everything they get and more. Not necessarily – career catfishing can cost companies huge amounts of money.
Good. After all, the only real safeguard against catfishing is more catfishing. Ghost employees for ghost jobs – sounds like the future. Do say: “Great offer! Can I think about it and get back to you some time around never?”. Don’t say: “So the official job title is abandoned amusement park caretaker, but at night you simply wear a sheet to scare off any meddling kids.”.
