The volume of job offers posted on France Travail has recently decreased, and a significant portion of the published ads never leads to a recruitment. France Travail estimates that by 2025, approximately 126,000 offers that were open for at least a month have been abandoned due to a lack of suitable candidates. In this context, how a candidate navigates job sites is as important as the quality of their CV.
Ghost offers and expired ads: what platforms do not filter out
Among these 126,000 abandoned offers, about 81,000 concerned sustainable jobs. For the candidate, this means that some of the results displayed on a job board correspond to positions that have already been filled, frozen, or simply forgotten by the recruiter.
Identifying these ghost ads requires some reflexes. An offer reposted multiple times identically over several weeks, or one whose publication date is more than two months old, deserves verification. A direct call to the company’s HR department or a message on LinkedIn can confirm whether the position is still open before investing time in an application.
The date sorting filters offered by most platforms help isolate recent ads. Setting the display to the last seven or fourteen days reduces noise and focuses attention on active offers. This navigation discipline, often overlooked, prevents applying into a void.
Before multiplying applications, it is useful to explore the Job and Co site to identify the categories of offers that match your sector and geographic area.
Job search keywords: going beyond the job title
Most candidates type their exact job title into the search bar and then limit themselves to the results obtained. Platforms operate on a principle of lexical matching: if the company has written its offer using different vocabulary, the ad simply does not appear.
A marketing manager may be posted under the terms “digital communication officer,” “growth manager,” or “acquisition manager.” Varying the keywords used in the search multiplies relevant results. Testing synonyms, titles in English when the sector allows, or technical skills rather than a job title opens avenues that standard searches do not reveal.
Combining filters and alerts to cover the hidden market
Email alerts remain the most underestimated lever. Creating multiple alerts with different combinations (title + location, skill + sector, technical keyword + contract type) allows you to receive offers that manual searches do not surface.
- Create at least three alerts per platform with distinct formulations of the same job sought.
- Broaden the geographic area by one or two additional departments, especially if remote work is possible.
- Include an alert based on a technical skill rather than a job title, to capture offers written differently.
The decrease in the volume of offers on France Travail reinforces the importance of this multiple setting. Waiting for a single generic alert to produce results means deliberately narrowing your search scope.
Algorithmic biases of recruitment platforms: what candidates need to know
A documented case in 2025 revealed the use of an AI tool that scraped CVs from job platforms, then applied filters related to age, gender, and candidates’ origins. The absence of a response does not always reflect the profile’s suitability for the position.
AI recruitment is now regulated by European law, but the concrete effects of this regulation on the sorting of applications remain to be observed. Feedback from the field varies on this point: some companies report having adjusted their tools, while others have not yet changed their automated filtering practices.
For the candidate, the practical consequence is direct: never depend on a single platform for your job search. Diversifying channels (general job boards, sector-specific sites, company career sites, professional networks) is a response to the limitations of sorting algorithms.
Candidate profile and navigation on job offer sites: the settings that matter
Most platforms offer a profile space that candidates fill out once and then forget. This profile serves as the basis for automatic job offer suggestions and visibility to recruiters who search the CV database.
An incomplete or generic profile generates inappropriate suggestions. Accurately detailing the sector, technical skills, the type of contract sought, and geographic mobility improves the relevance of the results proposed by the platform.
Often overlooked navigation features
- The application tracking integrated into some platforms allows you to know if the offer has been viewed by the recruiter, and to avoid unnecessary follow-ups.
- Filters by company size or collective agreement help target structures that match your criteria, beyond just the job title.
- Saving favorite searches, distinct from alerts, allows for manually relaunching a refined query without recreating it at each login.
These features exist on most online job sites, but the available data does not allow for concluding that they are actually used by a majority of candidates. Regular observation of recruiter profiles on LinkedIn suggests that the best-positioned candidates are those who systematically exploit these tools.
Job searching online is not just about browsing lists of offers. Setting up your navigation tools, diversifying your channels, and verifying the validity of ads before applying transforms a passive approach into an active strategy. The job market absorbs fewer offers than before, making each targeted application all the more crucial.
