WHEN A JOB POSTING SAYS CONFIDENTIAL, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
A "Confidential" posting means that the company chooses to remain anonymous. This typically happens for one of a few reasons.
- Someone is about to get fired and the company is looking to find a replacement without tipping them off.
- The company doesn't want to deal with the sea of people wanting to follow up via the phone. Yes, when it says, "No phone calls" they are serious. It is not a test to see if you really want the job and will call to follow up. Keep in mind that the average posting gets about 1000 people looking at it, and they would have to hire someone full time just to field the phone calls about the job or the calls of "I just want to make sure you got my resume..."
- We post a lot of jobs from a lot of "big shots". Employers want normal professionals applying to jobs. They don't want a Jennifer Lopez/Brad Pitt/Jennifer Lawrence fan applying to a job that they don't have any business going after.
**UPDATE**We just fielded a support question about the concern of applying to confidential postings. We manually screen each posting, and we run a check on all new employers using the site, so the reality is that a confidential posting can really be one of the "better" jobs that we have on the site.
Unfortunately, we cannot reveal to anyone who the company is. We realize that for some job seekers who are currently employed, you don't want to apply to a confidential job at your own company (this has happened) or otherwise get outed to your employer that you are looking. This industry is filled with go-getters, if you are looking and you get "caught," congratulations, you are just like everyone else.
