Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

I once applied for a job that precisely matched my qualifications. It was crazy - the job description could have been written by someone looking at my CV.

I didn't even get an interview. Likely no one did.

It wasn't a ghost job, though. It was a position created for a someone they wanted to hire. Being a public institution, they were required to advertise positions. That didn't mean that they actually wanted any of the candidates who applied.

I had a similar situation/question. I knew an old coworker who was eagerly trying to get me on their team at another company. They said I had to apply and then they'd take it to their manager who was already on board with the idea.

So I did, at 10PM or so at night. And within a few minutes, got a rejection email.

To this day I wonder if someone clicked reject, or the system just autorejected me because of something it didn't like on my resume. Needless to say, I gave up on that idea.

Didn't you tell to old coworker what happened? He would have probably looked into it.