I feel for the OP. I have a more general question. Let's say your contract states that you are remote. What if the company changes their mind say 12 months down the road, are there any recourse? As far as I know, there isn't much you can do about it other than perhaps a X-month severance package or go back to the office.
Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
101–110 of 455 posts
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#102> the agreement they signed didn't say remote Just read stuff you sign, don't sign unless you agree, and ask to modify if needed. Incredibly easy way to avoid problems like this.
How would that have helped OP - who wasted a lot of time interviewing and didn't have anything to sign?
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#103FAANG recruiters will lie with a straight face. Not surprised at all by this.
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#104When 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.
Focusing on remote-only, remote-first, remote-from-scratch companies is how I ended up at my current, and literally best company I've ever worked for, gig. Obviously the pool of such companies is smaller than in-person and they tend to have more competition for roles, but my unscientific guess is that pool is growing larger.
Bonus points for those companies because they didn't have to "figure it out" or change upper management corporate culture to go remote.
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#105You 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
Society runs on example making, sadly. For all the good or ill that entails.
Someone deserves to be named and shamed, with the caveat of, there must be an agreement to actually accept the results of further digging.
If the recruiter said yes to a remote position that wasn't, the fault is rightly on the recruiter. If the recruiter was told remote was fine only for eventual reneg when ink was being put to paper... That is absolutely a reputation hit the client of said recruiter needs to take.
Fixing a fault requires identification, localization & characterization, and remediation.
This fault has been identified, but not localized and characterized.
Ergo, if remediation is the goal, naming and shaming absolutely needs to happen.
And everyone involved, up to the company execs making the decision themselves should understand the importance of this dynamic unless they've all been playing games to get to where they are, in which case, the callout is doubly needed.
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because companies going back on their word during the hiring process is a bad thing. It's a bait and switch.
This has happened to a number of folks that I have known over the years, and long predates remote work. I have known many people that have picked up and moved across the country for "the dream job," only to return, a couple of months later, tail between their legs, because the job turned out to be unsuitable in any of a dozen different ways (usually, it was because the duties did not match what they were told, but I…
Sounds like a bunch of excellent reasons why such companies should be named.
Companies are huge and they can hurt many people at scale. Individuals are small, relatively powerless and easy to manipulate. Especially if they don't organise themselves. Spreading information is the first step of getting organised.
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what context is focusing ones outrage at all useful, ever? This is just reinforcing destruction, promoting group identity, enabling a mob mentality, and sometimes promotes violence. Honest critique is one thing, mob mentality outrage is not an honest critique.
The company is doing what would be illegal in most places, and definitely immoral here. They deserve the outrage and the outrage is the only thing that's gonna fix this. Also to answer your question. Literally every single positive change in this country has come out of focused outrage. Civil rights movement LGBT rights Women's rights The basic amount of worker and consumer rights.
So we've escalated from "top paying tech company decided I can't work remote" to the civil rights movement... this thread is an interesting study in internet discourse
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#108When 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.
Shopify is an excellent company to work for. Congratulations!
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#109Thanks for the heads up. I'll be sure to get it in writing if I find myself in the job market.
If I could do it again, I'd probably still go through the interviews but I'd have spent little if any time on prep. If they asked the knapsack problem and I couldn't code up a solution in 40 minutes, oh well - I tried.
And if you could do it the time after that you'd probably make it the first thing you say when you speak to anyone from the actual company
Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions
#110A friend of mine went to an interview after a recruiter called him and said it was hybrid (up to one day at the office every two weeks and rest remote) but at the interview when it was done, they said that he needed to be at the office a minimum of four days a week. I feel like this is sort of common these days.
I've literally had recruiters email me job descriptions with "remote" in the email header and the document inside says "hybrid".
None of these people actually read the crap they shovel onward.