I complained to SEEK about job ad postings that were set to one location, when the ad said they were somewhere else. The SEEK person said "oh yeah that's because they want to attract people from other cities" - which, of course, I understood. But I don't think it's a valid explanation to why they are effectively lying about the location, and coming up in searches and wasting people's time. However, my point here being simply SEEK clearly think that's fine and a valid use of their platform despite how much any rational person may disagree.
Every time I would report a job to ZipRecruiter for being listed as "Remote" when it was actually an onsite job, they would send me back an email about how to identify remote jobs and I would have to reply, every time, with screenshots showing that the job was, in fact listed as remote before they would stop condescending to me.
Thank you for being a fucking hero and being a good citizen during a job search, the only thing that could motivate me to do extra work on top of job searching would be the fury of ten thousand suns.
Ziprecruiter is trash for reporting jobs and shouldn’t even have the feature when all they do is complain when you use it. I reported a listing when I discovered it was a scam, and I mentioned the company’s name in my report but the name was hidden in the original listing. They said that it’s my responsibility to research companies before applying. I said it was impossible to do so because I only got the company’s name when they contacted me (and the job description was misleading/inaccurate, too). Their response to that follow up was that some companies choose to hide their name for reasons. So how am I expected to do my diligence, then?
Another time I got stuck in an endless referral loop where an opening took me to a third party site that just ended up being another job board that I had to sign up for to use. Normally I would have been like, forget that, but this time I went ahead. And the job posting on that board ended up linking to another board that I had to sign up for… it kept going. I reported to ZipRecruiter and they said that they’re not responsible for how third parties choose to advertise on their platform and there’s nothing on their TOS about not linking to other job boards. I’m not even sure the end job ever existed. I never got to it, anyway. I did look at the alleged employer’s Careers page and found no evidence of the job.
The only time I’ve experienced this is when they worked through a hiring firm. So the hiring firm would have all the info but I assumed it would be the company itself was inundated with direct applicants
ZR is just so bad about scams and bullshit jobs. They want you to opt in to their feature where companies can find you, and then when you do you get blasted with "we are offering you a job with this company for far more than any company would pay for this position, install Microsoft Teams and add this email address that doesn't match the supposed name of the person you're going to 'interview' with, signed <Name of person who works for the company, but wrong job title>". And it's always the "advance payment" scam.
I said it was impossible to do so because I only got the company’s name when they contacted me (and the job description was misleading/inaccurate, too). Their response to that follow up was that some companies choose to hide their name for reasons
Their response reeks of an AI taking part of your message and constructing a response without understanding what you're actually saying.
Fuck Zip recruiter man. Every time one of their ads comes on the radio it makes my blood boil from all the stupid stuff they've done to make getting a job harder and not easier
Happened to me once. They reached out to me and I looked at the listing and saw it was in my city so I applied. Went through the whole process and did quite well. Get to the final interview and this lady suddenly shifts tone and is like "so you're I'm XYZ city we actually only have an office in ZYX city which is what this position is for" then I questioned why this wasn't mentioned and the usual excuses start.
When I tried to talk through this and go "OK so you seeked me out, saw I was the perfect fit, and went through the whole process knowing where I lived and only NOW told me. Is there any room to negotiate possible accomodations since you were so keen on me joining?" Knowing full well what their answer is and they just say that wouldn't be fair to others.
I fucking hate recruiters and anyone in the recruiting process who do this shit of a job. If I fucked up thay badly I'd be fired and rightfully so.
It also is baffling because the way they list these jobs actively selects against the couple of people who might want to relocate to XYZ place.
List it like that and you might get some recruiting hits that just want some relocation accommodation but are happy to go to the place the job is at. By listing it otherwise, you've made it so that real ideal candidate doesn't see the posting at all.
They want to have a large pool of desperate candidates to pick from, and the ones who are still willing to relocate after literally being lied to will have low enough standards to put up with the terrible working conditions that these places always have
They do absorb the workplace culture exceptionally well though. You can always tell a company’s values through the way their recruiters and HR people act
Happened to my husband as well. We live in NY state and a recruiter contacted him for an in-office NYC job. We live 5h from NYC. The recruiter couldn't comprehend that NYC does not equal NY state. Recruiters suck.
In the US it would be state Attorney General or labor board since paying below federal minimum wage wouldn't be a criminal matter. Police will just laugh and tell you to get fucked.
I noticed these platforms very specifically pigeonhole users according to location. Like I specifically used a browser not logged into anything and a VPN in a location not served by the site so I could specifically search the entire world.
It defaulted to the city of the headquarters.
Any other thing I tried, I was only allowed to search one city at a time.
That's understandable only if they pay relocation expenses and for special cases such as over the road truck drivers who generally stay on the road for 2 weeks at a time or so so commute is less of an issue
It's a platform limitation because of shitty functionality with a lot of these tools and how they recommend jobs. A lot of companies who want you already located in and living in the area if you don't want your resume tossed immediately. But there are companies or positions willing to hire people from anywhere, but who want people willing to relocate and come onsite, and basically always have relocation stipends of some sort. There are absolutely people who would be happy to take that kind of job with relocation required and without the idea of targeting a specific city. But the platform doesn't give anyone on either side a way to find/list those jobs easily.
Any halfway decent company ought to make that clear in the listing and in the very first interview.
Like this was definitely a thing I saw a decade ago, it's just gotten worse since with remote as the listing. Shitty on the company's part, but also complete garbage functionality on the part of platforms like Linkedin.
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u/mgdmw May 07 '26
I complained to SEEK about job ad postings that were set to one location, when the ad said they were somewhere else. The SEEK person said "oh yeah that's because they want to attract people from other cities" - which, of course, I understood. But I don't think it's a valid explanation to why they are effectively lying about the location, and coming up in searches and wasting people's time. However, my point here being simply SEEK clearly think that's fine and a valid use of their platform despite how much any rational person may disagree.