I've come to the upsetting revelation that some job postings are not for open positions. Reasons I've heard are that the job needs to be publicly posted to show that there was a search, and the position is filled by an internal employee or someone else already in mind; or the company is collecting resumes for later. I think the first reason already existed before covid. And don't get me wrong -- I would be happy to hear that a company was able to retain or call back an employee into a different position -- I just wish it wasn't posted for me to see! The "later" reason doesn't make sense to me either. Why refer to a batch of stale resumes later? Er, that is, if "later" ever comes? I have lost so much sleep applying to jobs and I feel so defeated and unmotivated knowing that some percentage of these were not even actual openings. Doesn't HR know how time-consuming and mentally draining applying for jobs is!! How can they treat job seekers like this? As if we aren't busy enough! The only way I've seen to get around this is to ask. I've had luck ONCE of getting my time saved, not applying to a post for a job that actually wasn't open; my rate of responses from people inside companies is low. I'd love for anyone reading this to tell me I'm wrong, that no dear, every job posting is for an actual opening; or a better way to tell if it is. Desperate and pissed, Anonymous