The Job Board Is Lying to You
This article exposes how some AI companies use fake job postings on platforms like LinkedIn as a 'data harvesting' tactic to collect free training data from applicants. It details how these firms trick candidates into performing assessments that are actually used to build proprietary AI models.
Why it matters
It highlights a deceptive new trend in the labor market where job seekers are being exploited as unpaid labor for AI development under the guise of recruitment.
27% of LinkedIn job listings don't exist. AI companies like micro1, DataAnnotation, and Mercor flood job boards with vague postings as data harvesting funnels. Even traditional-looking jobs are annotation work in disguise.
I spent two years working for myself. When I finally opened LinkedIn to test the waters, I searched for my skills and filtered by the past week.
The results were garbage. Hundreds of links pointed to companies I had never heard of. Mercor . micro1 . Outlier . DataAnnotation .
They all wanted an "AI Trainer" or an "RLHF Evaluator." No salary bands. No team details. Just vague copy about the future of artificial intelligence. I kept scrolling. The main feed was worse. Finding an actual open position felt like digging through a landfill.
Did these companies ever intend to hire anyone? I doubt it.
The business model is beautifully cynical.
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