Job seeker petitions Parliament to ban fake job advertisements
Sunday 4 October 2026 · 2 outlets · 2 reports · updated In this story LinkedIn
Charlie Maclean has petitioned Parliament to ban fake job advertisements and 'ghost' interviews. She describes the experience of interviewing with an AI agent as awkward and lacking human connection. Maclean is concerned that these processes are being used to harvest data for artificial intelligence.
Key facts
4 facts
- Charlie Maclean petitioned Parliament to ban fake job advertisements
- The suspected 'ghost jobs' involve advertising roles with no intention of filling them to harvest data
- Maclean experienced an AI-led interview that used timed responses
- Recruiters have not reported seeing ghost jobs within New Zealand
The full story
1 min read · 2 outlets
Charlie Maclean has launched a petition to Parliament to explicitly ban fake job advertisements. This follows her experience with an AI interview agent that left her feeling awkward and eventually ghosted her. Maclean believes the company may have been using the process to harvest personal data to train artificial intelligence.
Maclean described the AI interview as having specific questions that were timed, which prevented her from pausing to think mid-sentence. She noted that the agent would assume she had finished speaking and cut her off to move to the next part. She has raised concerns about companies on LinkedIn advertising remote roles with attractive salaries that appear to lead nowhere.
Recruiters contacted have not encountered ghost jobs in New Zealand but have heard of the practice. Tribe Group chief executive Bruce Pilbrow said the scenario of harvesting information is plausible, stating, "Data is king". Victoria University senior lecturer Andrew Lensen noted that CVs contain valuable data, such as names, addresses, and educational backgrounds, which raises concerns regarding how that information is used for future AI systems.
Ben Walker, a senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Victoria University, suggested that intense recruitment drives from unknown companies could be a red flag. While Walker lacks definitive evidence of phantom listings, he noted that online commentary suggests some advertised roles may be spurious.
Compiled from reports by NZ Herald and 1News.