Kickresume Study Finds 36% of U.S. Job Ads Linger 30 Days

More than a third of U.S. job listings on Indeed — 36% — had been posted for at least 30 days, according to an analysis by the AI career tool Kickresume reported by Entrepreneur on October 13, 2026.

Kickresume reviewed 96,902 postings for signs of so-called ghost jobs, openings that employers advertise without intending to hire. Researchers flagged three warning signs: ads running longer than a month, duplicate listings and ads calling for urgent hiring without a closing date. The review spanned healthcare, finance, marketing, technology, recruitment and general business roles.

Aged listings were the most common signal. In technology, 43% of ads had been up for more than 30 days. Duplicate reposts accounted for 0.1% of ads, and the same share applied to deadline-free urgent-hiring notices.

"These are two key warning signs that a job may not be genuine," Peter Duris, chief executive and co-founder of Kickresume, said in a statement about the two rarer red flags.

Kickresume said employers post roles they are not filling for several reasons, including gathering résumés for later openings, testing how low a salary will still draw applicants, signaling headcount growth to investors and competitors, or meeting a requirement to advertise a job that will go to an internal candidate. A listing that has been online for weeks is not automatically fake, the company said, but applicants should check the employer's careers page or contact the hiring manager first.

This story was first reported by Entrepreneur.