Free tool
Ghost job detector
Wondering if an AI posting is real? Paste it below for an instant read - and the exact signals behind it, including the impossible-experience check. Stop wasting applications on roles no one is filling.
Signs of a ghost job
An experience demand older than the technique
The signature AI ghost-job tell: "8+ years of LLM fine-tuning" or "10+ years building AI agents" asks for more years than the technique has existed. Nobody meets it, which usually means no hiring manager read the requirements.
An unnamed "stealth AI startup"
Some stealth companies are real. An employer that will not name itself gives you nothing to verify and nowhere to check whether the role was ever filled.
Evergreen "always hiring" language
Talent-community / pipeline posts collect resumes with no specific opening to fill.
No salary range
Real, budgeted AI roles increasingly publish a range. Its absence is a soft signal, not proof.
A pay band that spans several levels
A range wide enough to cover a new grad and a staff hire means the level is not decided - and often means the req is not either.
An AI title over a data-engineering job
The title says machine learning; the work described is ETL, warehousing, and dashboards with no model training, evaluation, or inference anywhere in it.
A PhD-and-staff bar with no comp floor
A doctorate plus staff-level scope is one of the most expensive hires in the market. Demanding it without naming a number suggests the budget is not settled.
All buzzwords, no duties
"Fast-paced", "wear many hats", "rockstar" in place of concrete responsibilities or a real stack.
Vague third-party / agency reposts
Speculative "our client is looking" posts are more likely to be duplicated or stale.
Skip the ghosts
Browse verified, direct-apply AI roles
Every listing links straight to the employer's own application at the AI companies we read at source - no pipeline traps, no recruiter middleman.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a ghost job?
- A ghost job is a posting that is advertised but not actively being filled - used to build a resume pipeline, keep a role "open" while budget is frozen, signal growth to investors, or benchmark the market. You apply, but no one is hiring for it right now.
- How can you tell if an AI job is a ghost job?
- Watch for an experience demand older than the technique itself ("8+ years of LLM fine-tuning"), an employer that will not name itself, evergreen "always hiring" language, no salary range or a band wide enough to span several levels, an AI title over pure data-engineering work, and buzzwords in place of a real stack. Our checker scores these signals for you and shows its reasoning.
- Why does "10+ years of LLM experience" matter so much?
- Because it is impossible. Large language models only became practicable around 2020, so a decade of experience with them does not exist. It is the clearest evidence that the requirements were assembled from a template rather than written for a real team, and the checker weighs it heavily.
- Is a job with no salary range always a ghost job?
- No. Some legitimate AI roles still omit pay. It is a soft signal that carries more weight when it appears alongside evergreen language, an anonymous employer, or vague copy with no stack - which is how the checker weighs it.