In the 80s and 90s companies that did government contracts and contracts with larger corporations would list ‘ghost jobs’ in the newspapers and trade publications.
The reason was that in order to finish the Requests for Proposals, one section usually wanted to know what kind of pool of prospective job seekers was available.
The bidder basically collected resumes and vitas.
If the company won the contract, many of those jobs became available. If the company lost, layoffs and restructuring ensued.
When I graduated as a Mechanical Engineer in 1973, I went on an interview trip to a very large engineering / construction company. I still remember how cagey they were about what projects new engineers were being assigned to. I figured out quickly they had a lot of proposals out and were hiring for when they won those jobs. I was very leery of getting hired, sitting there for months twiddling my thumbs and then gettin the axe. I told them “no thanks.”
Things don’t change.