Same thing happened with me @ Apple last year. Went through 4 or so interviews with the expectation that it was a remote role. Then the day before the big remote "onsite" I was told they actually wanted someone in-person. So I removed myself from the process. I'll chalk it up to 2021 being a confusing time for everyone - but I felt pretty burned by it.
Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
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Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#92You definitely need to name the company that did this.
Why? This isn't Twitter, piling on a company doesn't add much to the discussion, it just lets people focus their outrage better
OP dodged a bullet frankly, but it really sucks when most big companies all shoot at you.
We don't even need to promote much discussion on it TBH. If OP is to be believed, the company blatantly lied to OP and wasted a large chunk of his time.
Just like in anything else in life, if someone is not held to the consequences of their actions, they'll keep doing it.
It's frankly pathetic if this remains the norm for our profession.
It's not like most of us applicants go in, blatantly lie, and waste the companies time. We, and every other worked applying to any job, should at least be treated the same as a bare minimum.
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#93You definitely need to name the company that did this.
I'll bet I know which company (I won't name them, but I get regular automated contacts for them. They used to be onsite-only, but the contacts recently, have been stressing "remote-only." I don't believe them, at all).
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#94This is just another thing in a long line of scrupulous things that recruiters do. If bad actors will edit your resume before sending it in then lying about the remote nature of a job is just another part of that. Which FAANG? Name and shame.
I'm still holding on to a slight hope that the recruiter will find a hiring manager willing to override the committee and all of my time and effort will not have been wasted. They said they'd keep looking but they were probably just trying to get me off the phone. I'll put it this way. One FAANG I wouldn't work at under any circumstances. One FAANG has been very clear that they want employees on site. One FAANG has a…
> One FAANG I wouldn't work at under any circumstances.
Amazon
> One FAANG has been very clear that they want employees on site.
Apple
> One FAANG has a recruiting proc where you are hired once you pass the interviews, you can figure out your team later.
Meta/FB
> One FAANG doesn't really fit in the FAANG acronym.
Netflix
QED
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#95> I'm not sure what the compensation model for recruiters is, but it seems to encourage bringing in as many candidates as possible over treating them with honesty and respect.
From experience dealing with recruiters for the last 25 years they universally lie to both sides to pocket the commission at all costs.
I drove 400 miles once to do an interview for a solution architect position. Got there and the company were recruiting an Oracle DBA. The recruiter had plain up lied because I had some Oracle experience on my CV. They assured me they would ream the recruiter and bought me lunch and gave me an Amazon voucher to cover the fuel and time though which was nice.
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#96When I went looking for a fully remote position last year, I was worried that exactly this might happen. Then I heard that Shopify had literally shut down and sold their offices. It's not actually possible for the company to go back to the office because they don't exist. So that's where I work now.
+1 On this. Find somewhere that was remote before pandemic or that shifted fully.
I've worked fully remotely for the same company for almost 6 years now. Having worked in an office before, one belief I've formed over the years is that working at a place that doesn't have remote at the core and that has staff that's remote and staff that isn't, would create a two-tier system and I'd be very afraid of trying it.
In fact for a lot of the company history, we've had an office in a location next to the founders, that people were not allowed to use as a work place. You could go there for a day here and there but not as a group and not as a regular activity. There weren't even spots for more than 5 or 6 people at the same time in there, so mostly used to receive mail. This sort of thing won't even be in the minds of a huge corporation that is only doing remote because the pandemic forced them to.
So my advice if you want to go remote, is to find a company that was either fully remote before the pandemic, or a company that has truly embraced it and shifted completely.
edit: seems like there's a bit of attention here, if you're struggling with remote or starting something and you want to exchange some war stories for fun, I'm always up to share some thoughts even though the internet is full of experts on remote nowadays. I've done it as an engineer in a company of 12, later as an engineering manager and more recently being manager of managers and we've surpassed 250 people, so I have thoughts about it from multiple angles. You can figure out how to contact me from my profile.
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#97Short of a contractual guarantee, you should always approach a new job with this expectation. They may say remote now. But almost all of us are subject to 'at will' employment laws and the company could absolutely change its mind later.
I've only been looking at remote jobs that also happen to have big offices or headquarters in places I'd be okay moving to, because I might use it as a plausible path to move there. My ties to the area I live in are about to end, and I'm feeling the itch to shake things up.
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#98> [...] the job opening didn't say remote, the agreement they signed didn't say remote. I don't understand. Do people sign a contract that states something differently than they were being told verbally before? Imho what isn't in writing doesn't exist. Especially when it comes to "promises" from potential employers. For example I would not trust a promised raise in 12 months when nothing was done in writing. Even wit…
That's a pretty hard standard to hold. I've never had a company promise a particular desk to me in writing, but I trust that if they show me their nice office space and verbally tell me that's where I'll be sitting they won't put me on a folding table in the broom closet.
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#99If you made it through the FAANG dynamic-programming circus then plenty of people on here would love to engage you at some level, including me.
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#100While I feel for the people being fooled by recruiters I can not comprehend how come they did not make sure in their first interview that they're indeed hired for remote and it will be stated in their contract. I would never trust recruiter as they're responsible for nothing.