Hardware engineers are most likely to run into ghost listings, with nearly 30% of openings being posted more than once by the same company, according to an October 2026 report on stale job ads in the US. This freshly released study by Click Intelligence reveals the top 10 tech jobs where applicants often encounter ads that stay online for months or keep getting reposted.
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Machine learning engineers often apply for jobs that are already filled, with nearly 40% of openings left online for over two months.
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Almost 1 in 4 data scientist job ads are repeats from the same employer in the same city.
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Many sales engineer job ads are just as outdated, with more than 1 in 10 sitting online for half a year or longer.
The research examined 30 popular tech jobs to find where applicants are most likely to run into ghost listings. The report looked at how long ads stay online, how often the same employer posts the same job in the same city, and whether a few employers fill most of the newest ads. It also counted how many ads are live for each job. These factors were finally combined into a single score, revealing where outdated job ads are most common.
Here’s a look at the top 10 tech jobs where ghost listings are most common:
|
Job Title |
Share of Listing Live 60+ Days (%) |
Share of Listings Live 6+ Months (%) |
Duplicate Listing Rate (%) |
Total Live Listings |
BLS Projected Openings per Year |
|
Hardware Engineer |
27.00 |
5.24 |
28 |
3,915 |
4,100 |
|
Machine Learning Engineer |
37.90 |
15.02 |
8 |
4,340 |
2,900 |
|
Data Engineer |
30.61 |
5.01 |
8 |
18,838 |
3,900 |
|
Data Scientist |
27.17 |
4.62 |
24 |
7,063 |
24,800 |
|
Sales Engineer |
34.84 |
11.24 |
8 |
3,978 |
3,800 |
|
Cloud Engineer |
26.56 |
4.69 |
18 |
7,489 |
9,600 |
|
Software Engineer |
28.13 |
5.53 |
14 |
61,850 |
95,300 |
|
Solutions Architect |
24.87 |
4.32 |
20 |
10,626 |
32,900 |
|
Network Engineer |
29.80 |
4.52 |
4 |
9,615 |
9,600 |
|
Embedded Software Engineer |
28.25 |
4.86 |
20 |
2,262 |
95,300 |
You can access the complete research findings here.
1. Hardware Engineer
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Repeat postings among the newest ads: 28%
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Newest ads from just three employers: 58%
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Live ads: 3.9K
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Jobs expected to open in a year: 4.1K
Hardware engineer job applicants are most likely to run into a ghost listing. Roughly 1 in 4 of its newest openings is a repeat, meaning the same employer put up the same job in the same city more than once. On top of that, nearly 6 in 10 of the newly-listed ads come from just three employers, which are often staffing agencies or recruiters, not the direct employers. Overall, 27% of hardware engineer vacancies have been up for more than two months, long past the time most employers need to fill a job.
2. Machine Learning Engineer
Machine learning engineer ads are most likely to stay online for months. Nearly 4 in 10 have been live for more than two months, and about 1 in 7 has been up for six months or longer, the longest stretch of the 30 jobs studied. Right now, there are 4.3K ads online for a job where the US expects only 2.9K openings in a year. That’s roughly 1.5 listings for every opening, which means that job seekers often end up clicking ads that have been posted half a year ago, and an application sent to one could land on a role that is already filled.
3. Data Engineer
Data engineer job listings are everywhere right now. Close to 19K are live, which is nearly five times the 3.9K openings expected in a typical year. This indicates that many of them are simply duplicates, or the companies aren’t even hiring for them anymore. A handful of names fill the front of the results too, with 56% of the newest ads coming from only three employers. Plus, around 3 in 10 of all live openings have been online for over 60 days.
4. Data Scientist
Data scientist job boards are also full of duplicates. About 1 in 4 of the newest listings is actually a repeat from the same employer in the same city, the second-highest rate of the tech jobs studied. This means that a job seeker can easily apply for the same opening twice without knowing it. Nearly half of the newest ads, 46%, come from just three employers as well, and more than a quarter have also been up for longer than two months.
5. Sales Engineer
Sales engineer rounds out the top five. More than a third of ads under this category have been online for over two months, and 1 in 10 have been up for six months or longer. With that, the typical vacancy is estimated to be about 74 days old. The sales field adds to the problem, with the share of brand-new openings about 12% lower than in early 2020, the steepest drop of any sector in the study. With 3.8K openings expected each year and 4K ads live, duplicates and outdated openings also create problems for salespeople despite shrinking employment.
James Owen, Co-founder and Director at Click Intelligence, commented on the study:
“Lawmakers have started to notice ghost listings. A bill that passed the New York legislature in June would require employers to state whether a posting is for a current opening, and to take filled jobs down within two weeks. Fines would be $2.5K for each platform where a violation happens. Similar bills have been proposed in Pennsylvania and are being discussed in California and New Jersey. If more states follow, companies will have to clean up their job boards, and job seekers could see fewer listings that lead nowhere.”
