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Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

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Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, I focused on companies that were based abroad but hiring in the US. Can't be forced to commute from Seattle to Mexico City. And if anyone is interested in for real remote work, we're hiring SDE & Sr SDE frontend (React) and backend (Python). See my profile for contact info if interested.

> See my profile for contact info if interested. No contact info on profile (not interested, just saying).

Fixed!

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

If it's that important to you, it probably wouldn't hurt to get a prospective employer's vaccine policy in writing before accepting an offer. You can ask for that without revealing your own views on the subject.

I guess, I have never before been asked to meet any vaccine requirement in my professional career, and all health and safety requirements are typically listed up front, including steel toed shoes and lifting up to 50lbs, I don't know why I would have to ask an endless list of requirements.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but it's also a good way to get "blackballed" in today's tech industry. I would not encourage people early-to-mid-career, to do this.

I'm sceptical as to whether you can actually get blackballed, unless your misdeeds achieve a Hans Reiser level of publicity. I've had recruiters claim that if I use the offer they got me to negotiate a raise from my current employer, they'll make sure I never work in this town again - and yet recruiters keep calling.

>unless your misdeeds achieve a Hans Reiser level of publicity.

Really. I know people with felony convictions for serious crimes who got back into the industry they offended against. It turns out that background check firms are only reliable when the applicant has no criminal background, heheh.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand at least the reasoning behind checking criminal history of potential hirings (even though as an European, I disagree with the concept on a fundamental level and it's illegal in Germany to demand a criminal record check outside of very specific industries). But how on earth do civil lawsuit records in the US end up anywhere where the background-checking industry can get their grubby paws on them?!

The simple answer to "how do civil lawsuit records end up where they can get their hands on them" is that civil lawsuit records are of course public, and available to anyone who wants them. Although I haven't specifically heard of this one before. Are civil suit records not public not in Germany? But hearing that a criminal history check is illegal in Germany outside of specific industries continues to reinforce my b…

I would not know how to access such records. Doubt they are publicly available. Germany isn‘t perfect, but if you want to come, the blue card process is pretty straightforward. If you do python backend stuff, talk to me.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#276

> 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…

OP experience makes me think some kind of added process like Letter of Agreement or Letter of Intent from the initial outreach that says “assuming you pass all the rounds, we will hire you to a remote position at a salary to be determined but between the range of x-y, etc.” could be helpful. It’s not a contract but a precursor and some lighter level of commitment. Common in enterprise sales scenarios but not in mid l…

If the hiring manager or the people on the hiring committee change their mind about remote work, you are not getting hired anyway not matter what the intent was when you started interviewing.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#277
I recently had a slew of interviews at FAANG and FAANG-adjacent companies (and accepted a great offer at one of them) that were 100% remote. It's good to name and shame the ones that are lying or otherwise underhanded about it, but I've never seen so many good-paying, 100% remote roles available. Do get it in writing and it never hurts to focus on companies with a track record of doing remote well rather than just doing it under pandemic duress.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#278

That's brutal. We're on the other side of it right now trying to get exec and HR to actually commit to something so we can hire remote. We had multiple good people in the pipeline who we had to pass on, because they won't actually say if they'll demand these people move to Toronto (one of the worst housing markets in the world) as soon as they sign the papers. It's like we're supposed to surprise them with that?

Rents and prices in Ontario are absurd and unless a company is offering remote - or is a satellite dev shop for a US company taking advantage of currency and R&D tax credits and can pay US salaries, they just aren't going to be able to be competitive for talent. If your product market is global like any product has to be right now, Toronto is more of a constraint than a strategy. I'd be skeptical of how much leverage that HR approach has for tech staff right now.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#279
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.

I am in this process now. Only looking for companies without offices and who will put in my contract that I never have to come in even if they do buy one.

I am beyond sick of my current company pretending like everything is going to go back to normal one day. We have 75% of people working from home although not labeled remote and maybe 25% back in some offices. The CEO pushing that we are an office company has destroyed communication and meant that over the last two years instead of adjusting how we work just pretending like nothing every happened. So now we have terrible communication even within teams and no one who wants to fix it because that would be a waste of time since soon everyone will be in the office. This has been going on for over a year.

Maybe they will fix this but it’s completely destroyed my desire to work for what was once a great company. They have over 1k employees. It’s unbelievable how much time and energy have been wasted because management has refused to accept the current situation. If i had taken this same approach when things changed at this current job or others I would be fired. I need to switch to management.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#280
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.

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…

I've been in all remote companies since '12, and will never go back unless forced. For what we do, it's pointless to travel to an office. Same goes for a huge majority of corporate work. It's gonna simultaneously trigger and require the economic destruction of a huge amount of office real estate investments to enable the change to remote work to become the majority.
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