Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 455 posts

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#151

Post by thenerdhead »

Recruiters and hiring teams are hardly ever on the same page. Always get your information straight from the company, not a third party that is enticed to land interviews for higher chance of converting to landing a candidate.

I do think the bait and switch of offering employees who entered the workforce full time employment and then asking them to come into the office two years later is disgusting. There's something bigger going on with how fast this has been swept under the rug.

If you're reading this and want to be fully remote, don't settle for anything less. People have been doing remote work for decades at this point and contributing more than most people do in an office. If you prefer to work at an office then do whatever suits you.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#152

Post by dspillett »

> the agreement they signed didn't say remote

While the recruiter lying is the cause of the problem, there are several points during the process when they could have confirmed the relevant job details. Just before signing the agreement is the last such opportunity.

> but that's not the company's problem

If it causes enough problems, such as people not signing when offered because they have read the agreement or people leaving without notice during probationary periods (in most legal jurisdictions these periods work both ways) because of the divide in expectations, it will become the company's problem, and they'll stop using those recruiters.

Unfortunately some are desperate enough for work that they'll just go with it until finding something else, so there may not be enough signal to insight change that way. Especially given that there are apparently very few recruiters who don't act in similar ways.

> but it seems to encourage bringing in as many candidates as possible over treating them with honesty and respect

That is exactly how it works.

If it is any consolation they often lie to the employers too, though that isn't quite as easy to get away with due to the differing power dynamic.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#153

Post by foxtacles »

vasco wrote: post #96
mabbo wrote: post #45

When 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 fac…

+1, similar situation here and I agree completely. I've been working for the same remote-only company for almost 10 years now. In my opinion, it's very important/essential that the company culture has "remote" in its DNA.

(anybody who may be interested in working at such a company, check my profile)

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#155

Post by calvinmorrison »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #81

> 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. This is exactly how it works, recruiters don't get paid unless they get a candidate hired. Despite all the words they write and say to you, they only care about getting you and the hiring manager to say yes and _everything_ else doesn't matter…

> This is exactly how it works, recruiters don't get paid unless they get a candidate hired.

Not exactly. I mean yes - exactly. But they also typically have riders on the contract. Firstly, our recruiters do not get the same cut if the new hire doesn't pan out. Also recruiters I have worked with in the past tend to get a percent of the salary number. That helps as the recruiter is really trying to get you the highest number.

So yes, and no.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#156

Post by angarg12 »

My advice for those people is: don't go to the office. Simply work remotely as it was agreed and let the managers make a move.

Considering how insanely difficult it is to hire right now, I predict most of times they will do nothing. However this might sour your relationship with your manager so you might want to consider looking internally for someone who supports remote work, or look for another company that's more honest and transparent.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#157

Post by ravenstine »

supertofu wrote: post #15

Maybe we should get a list going of scummy recruiters.

A whitelist (or whatever the correct term for that is now) would be more effective.

Frankly, I'd say the vast majority of recruiters are bad. They are worse than a used car salesperson, and I will never deal with any of them again besides the occasional one that's actually working directly for the employer, as opposed to third-party recruiters from large recruiting firms.

A few years ago, I was working on some software that would find quality job listings and auto-apply for them (in theory; I don't believe I finished the form-filling part). Part of that filtering involved removing any listings from third-party recruiting firms. Blocking on the person-level really wasn't practical. While it worked somewhat, it seems that more of these firms appear and change names every year. It would always be imperfect unless someone was constantly monitoring the countless number of recruiting firms.

My best experiences were with small-time recruiters who worked for themselves. I'd much rather identify who these recruiters are and then ignore all the other ones by default.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#158

Post by 999900000999 »

I'm thinking hybrid work is the best older companies can do.

The only way to know you'll never need to come into an office is to work somewhere without an office. If they company isn't fully remote they'll eventually want you to come in.

I'd love something like working a straight week per quarter in the office.

Then if you decide to have a San Francisco office, I can endure The tenderloin for a single week every 3 months

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#159

Post by calvinmorrison »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #137

Ask the people you're talking to where the teammates are, the expectations of return to office. Ask them in the very first call. Either they'll be offended because they probably have nefarious plans (dodged a huge time waste), or they'll happily explain how their team is spread across 4 timezones and could never return to the office since there isn't one. Sadly "remote" is just a buzzword to a lot of people. But on t…

At my last role, I got all the way to the "signing your hiring paperwork" to find out that vaccines were mandatory for all new hires. Seeing as that's 30% of the workforce or so who isn't, and this being a senior level position, and a year more after they were first available (meaning, anyone who wanted to get a vaccine - probably would have already)... you'd think they'd bring that up day one.

I about flipped shit on the recruiter.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#160

Post by jacquesm »

sjg007 wrote: post #141
derelicto wrote: post #114

This is very anecdotal, but I have a friend that interviewed at Google for a Remote SWE position - everything indicated that it was remote: the posting, the recruiter and the hiring manager. Now they announced RTO, his manager said: "We're excited to have you at the office" - he was really confused about this messaging, so they forced him to apply to work remotely (even if he had been hired as such) denied his applic…

Your friend probably has a claim against the company for breach of contract. When people leave a job to join a new one and incur expenses and then the new company lays them off or fires them for no fault then the judges usually side with the employee.

Indeed, and then he finds that not only is there breach of contract but that the company is also quite vindictive and will use any kind of claim as a reason to not even consider hiring you in the future, assuming that it stays within the one company and doesn't get passed around between recruiters.
Post reply on HN