Frustrated Job Seeker Takes Revenge By Flooding Company With Hilariously Fake Resumes After Endless Rejection

A qualified job-seeker kept watching the same role reposted month after month, yet every polished application vanished into the void—no rejection, no call, nothing. Fed up with the ghosting, they unleashed revenge gold: fake résumés with names like “Mike Hunt,” listing “skills” like “Professional Ghost Buster” and “Expert at Being Ignored.”

The posting vanished overnight, never to return. Petty genius struck again, and the black hole finally swallowed its own tail.

Redditor fights endless job ghosting by spamming company with hilariously fake résumés.

Meeting the hiring manager should feel like a promising coffee date, not a Houdini routine. Yet in today’s market, even stellar candidates like our Redditor with years of spot-on experience get treated like they never existed.

The numbers are grim. Jobvite’s 2024 Recruiting Benchmark Report shows the average corporate posting attracts 250 résumés, yet only 4–6 people ever get a phone screen. That’s a 98% ghosting rate by design. When the same role keeps popping back up every few weeks, it’s rarely because nobody’s qualified; often it’s because the requirements are comically out of touch.

A 2023 Greenhouse study found job descriptions now demand 3–5 more years of experience than the same roles did a decade ago, even for mid-level and entry positions.

Deven Lall-Perry, a director of talent acquisition and retention who has experienced the process from both sides, explains in CNBC: “There are three main reasons you’ll never hear back from a recruiter, even if they reached out to you first or you’re a perfect fit for the job: The company is no longer hiring for the role. Your salary expectations are out of budget. An agency recruiter is in the dark about the company’s hiring plans.”

This insight cuts to the heart of why our Redditor’s perfectly tailored application vanished into the ether, despite years of experience and direct outreach, it’s often internal chaos or mismatched priorities, not candidate flaws, that keeps qualified folks sidelined.

Lall-Perry’s point underscores a broader flaw in modern recruiting: rushed processes and siloed decisions act as gatekeepers, prioritizing quick fixes over human potential, which explains the endless reposting of roles no one can “perfectly” fill.

Then there are straight-up ghost jobs. Clarify Capital’s 2024 survey of 1,000 hiring managers revealed that nearly 40% of companies have posted openings with no immediate plan (or budget) to hire, often just to look like they’re growing.

The real revenge, of course, is getting hired somewhere that actually replies to emails. But until the system fixes itself, a little absurd humor might be the sanest reaction we’ve got left.

Here’s how people reacted to the post:

Some people criticize employers for setting absurdly high or unrealistic requirements for entry-level jobs.

Some applicants enjoy sneaking silly or provocative jokes into applications or cover letters.

A user shares stories of dodging bad or dysfunctional companies during the hiring process.

Some believe companies sometimes post jobs they have no real intention of filling.

At the end of the day, our Redditor just wanted the courtesy of a ten-minute phone call. Instead, they gave us a masterclass in chaotic good. Was flooding the inbox with fake names the most professional move? Obviously not. Was it hilarious and weirdly relatable in a world where qualified people get ignored daily? Absolutely.

So tell us in the comments: have you ever been tempted to fight fire with funny when a company ghosted you? Where’s the line between petty and poetic justice? Drop your best (or worst) job-hunt horror story, we’re all ears!