Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#361

Post by achenatx » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:22 PM UTC

brazzledazzle wrote: post #124

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…

At the end of the day it's a sales position and just like any sales people they can have a flexible relationship with the truth.

not good people who plan to develop long term relationships. A good recruiter can place the same person many times over the years. But not if they lie.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#362

Post by blagie » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #343

dvtrn wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your recommendations for those of us who work in "at-will" states, where it's common to see "Offer letter is not a contract" in the offer emails, contracts are often eschewed except for certain key roles, and where employers have a much easier time changing parameters of your employment? (No I'm not uprooting the family and moving, either)

Since most of us work in at-will states, the advice is pretty much the same. Once you get a sign that management is no longer on your side, start your next job search and document as much as you can. And also try to get an actual contract and not just an offer. Most decent companies will actually give you a real contract beyond the offer that details what the job duties are and the compensation and anything else you'…

Why document?

I've gotten that advice, but I've almost never seen it to be helpful:

- It's almost impossible to win a law suit for being fired, unless it's clearly based on sex/race/etc.

- If you sue, you'll burn bridges

- If future employers find out you sued, they won't want to hire you.

It's one of those things that's nice in abstract, but in practice, seems like a waste of time, relative to practising for interviews, applying for jobs, or trying to fix things with the old employer.

My advice is to jump ship, and leave on good terms.

Companies aren't people. I once worked for a company which wasn't a great employer, but I'm glad I left on good terms. The place no longer exists, and there are lots of people there whom I value.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#363

Post by tdfx » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:26 PM UTC

fanf2 wrote: post #342

tdfx wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's millions of people that have already been infected with COVID and receive no calculable benefit from taking a vaccine. While the vaccine has been proven to be safe and effective, there are rare side effects that some people might not want to expose themselves to for no reason. Springing that blanket requirement on people at the end of the hiring process is a shitty move.

There are significant benefits to getting the vaccine after infection https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html

I really wish people would read their sources, and specifically with the CDC, read the sources the CDC is using. The CDC page you referenced uses https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm as its only source for this recommendation.

The study monitors outcomes for a group that were all infected at some point in 2020. The vaccine was released at the end of 2020. The study monitors the infection status of these people in May-June 2021. It's purposefully selecting people who had no recent exposure via natural infection and comparing them to people that recently had the vaccine. I don't know how they can use this to support their recommendation with a straight face.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#364

Post by stevespang » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#365

Post by achenatx » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

tdfx wrote: post #252

breakfastduck wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People just assume anyone with a reasonable amount of common sense would be fine with it I imagine.

There's millions of people that have already been infected with COVID and receive no calculable benefit from taking a vaccine. While the vaccine has been proven to be safe and effective, there are rare side effects that some people might not want to expose themselves to for no reason. Springing that blanket requirement on people at the end of the hiring process is a shitty move.

each time you are exposed via vaccine or getting infected, it builds immunity.

Getting exposed turns out to be similar to having gotten one shot, though Im sure the immune response has a wider antigen coverage.

Keep in mind that getting infected has a substantially higher risk of bad outcomes than getting the vaccine. Getting the vaccine substantially reduces the risk of bad outcomes.

Getting infected then getting the vaccine is not as good as getting vaccinated then getting infected.

Also getting infected likely makes you completely immune to that variant. But getting vaccines/boosters likely gives you stronger partial immunity to mutated variants.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#366

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

geocrasher wrote: post #7

bcj7393nsk wrote: post #4

Don’t worry, remote WFH is ending. Soon, this situation will never happen.

Hardly. I work at a startup that doesn't even have an office. We are distributed around the world, and everyone, CEO included, is WFH. Perhaps your comment was sarcastic, but that doesn't make it any less incorrect.

I have the same deal here.

Pre-COVID, they had a WeWork office, but some employees were remote around the USA. Once COVID hit, they left the WeWork and became fully remote. We don't have an office, and now have people from all over the world.

HR and the C-suite make a big point of advertising both internally and externally that we are a 100% remote company. They've also arranged full-company gatherings so we can meet each other and put an actual person behind the face we see in Zoom. A couple months ago, it was in Chamonix, France.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#367

Post by cracell » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

diehunde wrote: post #89

If you get to the point you get an offer, always make sure to get that in the contract. I was working remotely for a company that went through some re-org and ended up with a different manager who wasn't very excited about having remote team members. Unfortunately for him it was part of my contract so he couldn't force me to relocate.

Was this not at-will employment?

While getting it in writing is good, it doesn't actually protect you. Vast majority of people are working at-will. Which means either party can change the terms of employment whenever. And if the other party disagrees then employment is terminated.

In this case meaning, if your contract says remote then they can change it to not remote at any time. That said, any company that will pull shenanigans like that you don't want to be working for anyhow as they don't respect you and that will impact you across all aspects of your work.

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#368

Post by RangerScience » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

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.

Signing for my current job, I learned that there's a legal concept for "quitting with reason", which is essentially the inverse of "firing for cause". Among a few other things, if it procs (which is excessively unlikely), my stock grant is accelerated.

The concept amounts to "a material change in working conditions", and covers pay, work load and type, work location, and location in the hierarchy (aka demotions, even if the company doesn't call it one).

(It's also why I made sure my paperwork specified "remote" rather than "LA")

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#369

Post by RangerScience » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:36 PM UTC

dvtrn wrote: post #329

jedberg wrote: post #161

Protip from an old guy: Always get everything in writing. No verbal promises. Make sure everything you discussed is written in the offer. If you discussed 100% remote, make sure the offer says 100% remote. If it doesn't, ask them to add it before you sign. And then if they go back on it, keep working there, look for a new job, don't go to the office even if they tell you that you have to, and bring up that you have i…

What are your recommendations for those of us who work in "at-will" states, where it's common to see "Offer letter is not a contract" in the offer emails, contracts are often eschewed except for certain key roles, and where employers have a much easier time changing parameters of your employment? (No I'm not uprooting the family and moving, either)

IANAL or OP; I work in CA (which AFAIK is at-will) and I made sure the actual employment contract specified remote, and didn't consider myself as having a new job until I had that paperwork (aka - didn't quit existing job, literally or emotionally, or stop other job search prospects, etc)

Re: Tell HN: Recruiters are lying about remote positions

#370

Post by nineplay » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

mattzito wrote: post #129

It's hard to know what happened here without knowing the company and the internals - I know for Google, for the hiring committees I'm aware of (I'm a PM hiring committee member), we cant' even easily see where the candidate is based vs. where the role is based, and it's not something we take into account. We don't care, we just want to say whether the candidate passed the bar to work at Google, and from there it's be…

In the off chance you're open to feedback...

I don't understand why the hiring committee had to be the last step in a months long process. If I'd gotten though the 5 grueling interviews and heard a "no", that would have been fine - these things happen. Instead, my last interview was in Jan and I got bounced by the hiring committee in March. I know that I was naïve, but I thought I must be set. I though the hiring committee was going to look for red flags but other than that, they'd say yes.

Why drag me through all that process and all that stress just to have some faceless committee reject me with no feedback and no explanation? Why not figure out if I'm a good fit before or during the interview process?

At the risk of sounding dramatic, it was cruel. It felt like a romantic relationship where everything is going great and then you get a call that says "Sorry, bye, don't call me again".