alt Hacker NewsIt certainly would be illegal in Europe under the GDPR - data collected for one purpose (handling of applications) cannot be used for another without explicit, informed consent.
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pydry • last Thursday at 8:52 AM
Im sure it isnt that hard to get candidates to tick another check box that says the data can be used for other stuff.
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It may be illegal, but shady stuff certainly happens in EU too.
Recently investigative journalists here in Finland found out that a significant percentage of job postings over here are indeed fake. Unsurprisingly, worst offenders were recruitment companies, which sometimes listed fake jobs to generate a pool of applicants they can later offer to their clients. Doing this is easy, as no law requires these companies to disclose who their clients are when creating job postings. It's also very common for same position to get posted multiple times.
Other than wasting applicant's time, this behavior also messes up many statistics, which use job postings to determine how many open positions there are available. Basically the chances of finding a job are even worse for unemployed people than stats would imply.