If I wanted to grow my company's LinkedIn following count, I would just post a few fake jobs.

When people apply for jobs on LinkedIn, there's a "Follow <company>" checkbox near the submit button that's checked by default. Candidates who are spamming applications most likely wont uncheck the box. Candidates who really want the job will probably leave it checked as well (looks good if the company decides to check them out).

I think this is the real problem. LinkedIn made it easy to get followers by posting jobs. Follower count looks good.

Back when H1B visas were new. Companies would post jobs they did not want to fill. The posting was to provide evidence that they could not find anyone who could do that job. Personally I have seen so many Microsoft listed jobs, that it seems impossible that they could have a layoff, unless of course ....

This can still happen a lot for normal job roles.

I have a candidate that I want to hire (say a recommendation, a referral, or someone I just want to give a job to) my internal processes may mandate that the job needs to be “advertised”.

So it gets advertised - and what do you know - the only applicant that fits the bill is this one person…

Some companies state that there is a strong internal candidate on the job ad. I think that’s a better way to do it

Considering the job description is unrelated to the company and the title, this is a scam post, not quite a "ghost job".

They're probably rapidly opening + closing new jobs to increase visibility, as matching models on job boards tend to prioritize new posts.

I suspect some companies do this to look healthy from outside.

a lot of market forces that incentivize the wrong behavior.

your company raised a bunch of money during the ZIRP era, your company needs to hire a large amount of H1Bs, you're a founder of 3-5 person startup that's been default dead - but your ego won't allow you to shut down the company or make it a 'lifestyle' company that's not attractive to VCs + many other factors

that's how you end up with endless jobs on LinkedIn.

Indeed has better signals.