A bug was discovered on LinkedIn that let someone post a job opening for Google's CEO role.
If you recently came across a job opening for the position of Google CEO on LinkedIn, it’s not because Sundar Pichai has quit. In fact, the job opening was not posted by Google itself. A flaw on LinkedIn allowed someone to post the job opening on Google’s page. The bug allegedly allowed users to post an unofficial job opening on any company’s LinkedIn page. However, LinkedIn has fixed the bug now.
According to The Next Web, the flaw on LinkedIn was first discovered by Netherlands-based recruiter Michel Rijnders, and he “went on to create job postings for a Chief Executive Officer for Google and LinkedIn at no cost.” This happened despite the fact that creating job postings requires a premium subscription on LinkedIn. However, posting a fraudulent job opening without the company’s knowledge is a violation of its terms and conditions.
What’s more interesting is that the opening also popped up on Google Search as it avails listing information from different websites, like LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is looking for a Chief Executive Officer. pic.twitter.com/mLlTQnKWi7
— Michel Rijnders (@rijnders) 25 July 2019
After Rinjders tweet, Raul Rockwell, LinkedIn’s head of trust and safety, said in a statement that LinkedIn had removed the posting and that they were working to resolve the issue that published his job listings.
In a statement to Adweek, LinkedIn informed that it had patched what appeared to be a bug that accidentally went live as part of the test. Here’s the official statement: “This issue was caused by a bug in our online jobs experience that allowed members to edit the company after a job had already been posted. The issue has now been resolved. Fraudulent job postings are a clear violation of our terms of service. When they are brought to our attention, we quickly move to take them down. While we do allow companies to post on behalf of other companies (such as in the case of recruiting firms), this is only permitted with the knowledge of both parties.
Regarding free job postings, we have not historically had free job postings as part of the LinkedIn experience. However, we’re running a test that allows small and midsized businesses to post a limited number of jobs for free. This member was a part of that test.”
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