Why your Job Posting is Now a Legal Document

Pull up your careers page and pick the oldest posting on it. Not the oldest one you’re actively working, just the oldest one that’s still live.

How long has it been up? Is there a req behind it? Does anyone on your team know who’s supposed to take it down?

I’ve worked with many companies who couldn’t answer those questions and I’m guessing it’s the same for many of you.  And starting soon, in a growing number of states, those answers stop being a housekeeping issue and become a compliance issue.

Last week in Part 1 (The Regulatory Roadmap Part 1), I covered the laws aimed at AI recruiting tools. This week is about the document almost every new hiring law seems to be targeting: the job posting itself.

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For most of my career, a job posting was a marketing asset. You wrote it to attract people, posted it everywhere, and left it up as long as it kept pulling in resumes. Evergreen requisitions, “always hiring” pipelines, a posting that outlived the role it described by six months: all normal, and mostly harmless.

Lawmakers have noticed, and so have candidates. The newest wave of state laws asks the posting to do three things it was never designed to do: show the real pay, describe the real package, and prove there’s a real job behind it.

Your job posting used to be marketing. It’s becoming a legal disclosure. Start writing it like one.

What’s Landing and When

Already live (2026). The pay transparency map keeps filling in. Virginia went live July 1 with no headcount minimum. It covers internal postings for promotions and transfers, not just external, and it includes a salary history ban. Maine followed in late July for employers with 10 or more employees. Connecticut’s amendment took effect October 1 and adds benefits information to what postings must disclose.

Pending: New York’s “ghost jobs” bill. It passed the legislature in June and, as of this writing, is still waiting on the governor’s signature. If signed, it takes effect immediately for employers with 100+ employees. Every posting would need to state whether there’s a current vacancy and when you expect to hire. Filled postings would have to come down within two weeks. Fines would run $2,500 per platform where a noncompliant ad appears. (My home state of Pennsylvania introduced its own ghost jobs bill this past spring, so don’t assume this stays a New York thing.)

January 1, 2027. Columbus, Ohio’s pay transparency ordinance takes effect. In California, pay data reports get more granular, expanding from 10 job categories to 23. That’s one more reason your posted ranges and your actual pay need to tell the same story.

September 26, 2027: Delaware. The state’s pay transparency law takes effect for employers with more than 25 employees. Both internal and external postings will need a pay range and a general description of benefits.

Why This Matters to the Recruiting Team

Compensation sets the ranges and legal interprets the statutes. But recruiting writes the postings, sends them to job boards, and decides when they come down. That makes recruiting the function that has to operationalize all of this. Start here:

• Don’t think about trying to maintain different postings for each state.  Build one template that meets the strictest standards (salary range, benefits summary, vacancy status) and use it everywhere. 
• Reevaluate the use of evergreen postings.  Work to make sure every live posting maps to a real req or an honestly labeled talent pipeline.
• Establish a team member who owns the date the posting comes down on your site and on every job board it was posted to.
• Internal postings should no longer be treated as informal.  Ensure internal promotion and transfer postings carry the same pay disclosure as external ones.
• Do a full compensation analysis before the position is posted, not at time of offer.  Make sure to check that range against what the current team in that role is actually paid and that you would offer someone an amount within the range.   (I made the full case for this in my pay transparency piece in August.)

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Good university recruiting programs have been running a “ghost jobs compliant” process all along without calling it that.

Campus postings say exactly what they are: a Summer 2027 analyst internship, a June start for the new grad class, applications closing on a specific date. Candidates know the timeline before they apply. The roles tie to a defined headcount plan. And when the season closes, the postings come down, because next year’s class has its own calendar.

Nobody on a campus team would leave last year’s internship posting up just to collect resumes.  Take that same discipline and bring it to your experienced-hire reqs.

Great ghost-jobs policy isn’t a disclaimer you bolt onto old postings. It’s a process where postings expire on their own.

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Please don’t fall into the trap and just assume this is an issue for your legal department.  Legal owns the interpretation. Recruiting owns the execution.

If counsel hands you a finalized policy on December 20, nobody is rewriting every live posting, rebuilding templates in the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), and chasing down syndicated ads on all of your job board postings by January 1. That work takes weeks, and it’s recruiting’s work. Get in the room now, bring a list of every place your postings appear, and let legal tell you what has to change on each one.

A quick disclaimer, same as last week: I’m a recruiting guy, not an employment lawyer, and several of these laws will get more detail from regulators before they take effect. Talk to counsel about your specific issues.

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None of these laws ask for anything a great recruiting function shouldn’t already be doing: posting honest pay, describing the real package, and taking down jobs that don’t exist. The deadlines just make it non-negotiable.

So, back to that oldest posting on your careers page. Is it still a real job? Drop a comment – I’d love to hear how old yours is. I promise not to judge (much).

If you want help auditing your postings, templates, and job board syndication before the next deadline instead of after it, that’s exactly the kind of work ES Talent Solutions does. Reach me directly at estewart@ESTalentSolutions.com and let’s talk.

#PayTransparency #GhostJobs #EmploymentLaw #TalentAcquisition #RecruitingCompliance #HRLeadership #ESTalentSolutions

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