> how does that work as a growth indicator, are there any known organizations that track your growth based on how many job postings you do, and then use that data to indicate your growth?

As a wild guess this may be part of the story a company tells itself. Every individual and company needs to tell themselves a nice "story" to feel good about themselves. In case of a company "damn, look how many jobs we're posting, we're growing and doing great" is a nice story to tell. Yeah the owners/manager know it's fake, the people writing the post know it's fake, people receiving applications also know it's fake, yet it still works. On paper officially they can tell each other how great they are doing. This is more likely how a large company would operate.

Another, more positive perspective from a small company I worked for is "ABH" (Always be hiring). That means always post jobs, and continue interviewing, because you might find an exceptional engineer for whom you'd make an exception and hire them. But at least in our case it was always an honest effort every time to sit down and evaluate the candidates, pay them to visit and interview face to face and such. It wasn't a game it indeed took quite a bit of effort on our side.

It must fill some purpose though. I doubt it's entirely just marketing in most legitimate companies.

Effectively a/b testing job adds?

Or trying to get a range of candidates so they can find a good fit?

Let's say you have, like, 10 jobs to do but you're only going to hire two people (either loading them up with more work, or internally reshuffling responsibilities, probably a bit of both).

So you advertise for every role in your ideal team, then get the two candidates who plug the most holes, or look like the best fit.

I feel dirty suggesting it, but it probably happens.

I heard an argument that the fake jobs are actually to appease internal employees. "We know you are over-worked, but we are trying to get you some help. Look at these postings -too bad everyone who has applied thus far is a complete dud."

I've heard in the sales world, the way to hire two sales people is to hire three, then fire the bottom performer after a month or a quarter.

Traditionally the 'Carreers' tab on the website had to exist to project the image of a succesfull growing company.

It was always a delicate balance between on the one hand projecting success, and on the other not scaring clients you couldn't meet demand.

Companies don’t have a legal obligation to publicly disclose revenue in many countries, so if you’re selling business insights you’re always on the lookout for indicators that can be used as a proxy to revenue.

So, they’re just lying to make more money. Got it.

Yes, but also to fake how well they are doing to potential, or current investors.

IMHO, these aren't smart investors.. because this should be something that comes up in due diligence, the amount of money left, the current burn rate, and what the company is doing about the latter. If the company was on paper fully staffed, but also actively hiring. That would be for me an indicator that either the hiring is fake, so what else are they faking. Or that the hiring is real, and they are fiscally irresponsible.

There's another angle to all of this, and that's obviously the company isn't fully staffed, there's still some space in the runway for another hire. It's just that right now its a buyers market from the perspective of the company.. So, well, beggars can be choosers.. They're just holding out until that golden candidate comes along. This obviously sucks, and there SHOULD be a maximum length a company can have a job ad out before they have to explain why it's taking so long.

It's not uncommon for countries to require citizens to disclose Who and How many jobs they applied for this week to collect social security.. There should be something similar for companies who have job ads out.

Maybe they were, but now? I doubt that every investor or even AI takes job postings with a grain of salt or plainy ignores them and just looks at the numbers of employees.