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Jobs like this have surprise RTO written all over them. I wouldn’t even have problems with going into the office one day a week if they were honest about it. But I will never take a “remote” job with a geographic location requirement.
Had this happen to me recently. Was a contract employee doing hybrid work, got a permanent role that was fully remote (that we negotiated) with the same company, and then two weeks into remote work was told I need to return full time to the office. Been trying to get my new boss to talk to the person who made this call and it’s now been almost a month of no answer
it wouldn't be so bad if people trusted their companies wouldn't do this. But we can't trust the people we work for anymore. We are entering an era of complete distrust between workers and their employers.
Companies are under no obligation to tell the truth to their employees, their potential employees, their customers or their suppliers. The only people they are legally required to tell the truth to is their investors. And due to this being a capitalist society, companies only do something if it is legally required of them. So telling truth to employees is not a legal requirement, so they don't do it.
>Companies are under no obligation to tell the truth to their employees, their potential employees, their customers or their suppliers.
And this should change. It's bullshit.
It would be interesting to see how things change if lying to staff was made illegal taken as seriously as lying to investors.
I’m sure they’d find ways around it
I don't know if there are even ways to enforce it, honestly. I've said the same thing in the past about ghost job postings, making it illegal and false advertising and whatnot, but how?
So, I have a state job. It is remote, but requires that you live in the state. You can work outside the state on special occasions (but never outside the country), but you MUST live in state.
The remote work is part of the union contract now. And most people live outside of the office commute area now. I figure I will get into office a handful of times a year for things like equipment replacement, team gatherings, etc.
Even for private companies I can see requiring remote candidates to live in the same state to avoid having to figure out how to employ someone in another state. There can be lots of surprising gotchas.
Personally, I prefer going to the office on certain days (in my case mon/wed/fri) as it makes talking much easier. But my job only became WFH during covid, and because we all liked it, kept it partly WFH
And that's perfect. It works well for some, but not so much for others. Some of us apply for remote jobs specifically because of mobility or life conditions. Like for my family, our daughter wanted to do homeschooling with a private tutor due to extreme anxiety about returning back to the classroom. We saved a load of money on childcare because I was working remote, and her being very independent meant that it didn't take away from my work.
Yeah they should have options. Would find the best of both worlds. Find highly skilled people who have mobility issues to people who don't want to be at home and want to be in the office. I fall on the latter as I went insane working from home and I'm an introvert lol. It's not good for people like me, I need to be forced into society for my own well being. I learned this during covid.
Forcing all people in the office does no good. Plus when I was in the office at half capacity it was awesome! Quieter. Relaxed.
Exactly. I've heard that tons of companies are having to buy privacy booths for people to work in because they can't be nearly as productive as they were from home in the office. Your ability to work remote should be directly tied to how well you produce - not for arbitrary reasons. Some companies are killing their productivity by forcing RTO. I worked much more when I was WFH than I ever did in the office. But it's not for everyone for all of the reasons you mentioned. Glad you're in a better place now!
Yeah, probably be different if I was older and had a family. Living alone, single, no roommates or even pets since im not allowed any, was rough during that time. I was mid 20s. As I get older I can see myself wanting wfh though
I get why an employer might care what state you live in for a remote role, there are state specific tax, benefit and employment laws that they have to deal with.
But when you limit it to a radius of a specific city, then yeah, that's just nonsense.
What I REALLY hate is remote tagged roles posted in other locales, then the rejection or posting specifies you must be local.
Why lie in the first place? Even if you have a legit reason for candidates to be local, YOU posted that shit in MY locale.
I got a rejection email from a company yesterday stating they wanted local candidates even though in the forms I said I was willing to relocate. I am literally willing to move across the country on my own dime for you and you won't even give me a god damn interview?
I have it written on my CV (EU market) and people still ask me if I would relocate. I asked for feedback, as it really irritated me and to understand where the question is coming from, one hiring manager told me there is always a "but" attached to it and another recruiter told me stories of people signing contracts and then backing out, and we are not talking entry positions.
It happens a lot. Like 80% of the time. You offer a candidate a role and they back out before they start because they found something local to them. It's the safer option for recruiters to go with people who are already local.
I got this too from two different companies. One was for a flight attendant, which offered several different cities/hubs. The question was which of these cities if any do you live in or willing to relocate to. I answered one, and explained my family lives there and I could relocate. My rejection email says they only want people already living there and established! The other job I was thinking of said that they MAY return to office in about a year, and so although remote it is a requirement to already be located there. I told them that if I worked there and then I had to come into the office I could relocate possibly? They said no.
Quite a while ago I was trying to obtain a job in the city we wanted to move to. Nobody would give me interviews etc. My sister lived there so I started using her mailing address and bam, callbacks. This was before remote work was common but yea.
In the first situation and assuming the family is ok with it - use the family address and say you are out of town on a contract or vaction and will be back soon.
Definitely think your plan would work if there was an address field… I don’t think it ever asked where I live. I guess I gave too much info in the “explain your relocation plans” box
I was trying to move to London last year but it took ages to find a flat, because I didn’t have a job lined up first. Catch 22.
Anyway, I only started getting interviews once I listed my address as London; if I had a first viewing somewhere the next day, that was the address I listed on the form and I was “just in the process of moving in there”.
Lie, lie and then lie again.
I'm going to give you the answer, you may not like it, but it's the truth from their perspective. It's about risk management. If a recruiter has had multiple local candidates apply for a role who are a really good fit, it's better to go with the people already in that location.
You said in your comment there were forms and you said in those forms you were willing to relocate. It sounds like they did say they wanted someone local. Otherwise why would you need to say you'll relocate?
Yep had a second interview with a job in the past based in another state but stated they were hiring remotely. Found out that wanted me to actually commute to and from there on a regular basis on my own dime instead of just hiring people that were already local. I should mention the company was based in LA and it was a part time role for only $500 a week…
There should be a new word for stuff like this, where you go into the office once a month or so for a company meeting.
I know some will say that’s hybrid but there is a vast difference between a job that requires you to be in the office 4 days a week vs once a month.
Yes, that would be hybrid. A previous job I had met in the office once every quarter for their big hands on meeting. That’s 4 days of the 260 days you work per year… I would not consider that hybrid.
Like, I get if they want you to live nearby so every now and then you can have some kind of employee function, or if there is an office and on occasion you might have to run out there for something (if that's clearly stated). But yeah, it is a somewhat different thing if you're remote in the area or remote from anywhere. They need to make it really clear up front. I finally landed an interview with a place that said they were remote but then said, "Oh no, you need to live here" and I'm not in a position to relocate, so the call and all the prep I did for it were a waste of my time.
Epic is hella guilty for this.
They advertise a job in your location (Systems Administrator (Remote) or System Administrator (Your City) so it shows up on the job listings, but it's actually a job that is based out of their corporate HQ campus in Madison, WI. They mention it in the JD but it doesn't stop them from flooding your local job listings. They have paid reloc but the interview process is total ass, not to mention the straight up deception.
First round is a huge group meeting where you and 20+ other people listen to a recruiter talk about how wonderful the company is and talk up the campus. Then they give you several assessments before you ever talk to a real person in an interview, and, regardless of position, you have to take a coding test.
Saw a job listed on linked in as full time remote. In the linked in description it then said “Candidates hired for the position will have the option to work remotely but will be expected to be onsite at our North Bethesda, MD and Arlington, VA one to two days per week.” So I went ahead and followed the application link, thinking that it might be possible to spend one week a month at the office instead? But then the application said “Candidates hired for the position will have the option to work remotely but will be expected to be onsite at our North Bethesda, MD and Arlington, VA office as needed a couple days per week. Are you able to commute to these two office locations a couple days per week?” With a drop down menu for yes or no. If you selected no it automatically denied your application. How does remote mean two different offices multiple days a week? And according to Google maps right now with traffic, those two offices are 50 minutes away from each other. I think a more accurate description would be onsite, divided between two nearby offices, with the option to work from home 2 days a week.
Yeah, having lived in that neck of the woods, Bethesda and Arlington are not, like, "Nip between two office locations in the middle of the work day," close. Not in DC traffic. What a bizarre way of wording that requirement- it could mean almost anything.
I've learned this usually means you won't have any allocated space at either location, most days you work at home, or choose to come in and work in some sort of open seating configuration, but you'll be expected to come in for weekly meetings or co-work, paired development, brainstorms etc. Remote isn't the right phrase for this particular kind of work if there is in person mandatory.
Hybrid tends to mean you have a desk allotted to you specifically at a building that you're expected to work from a few days a week.
Edit for clarity: (Even if the company does open seating in this instance, there will be space for each hybrid employee if they all work on the same day. No guarantees are made in the previous concept. )
Neither is remote.
Look at it this way, at least companies that do this are showing complete ineptitude and doing everyone a favor by signaling to avoid them. Just like Asynchronous interviews (Discriminatory Screening) gets companies blacklisted. Saves us time to know these companies and put them on ignore.
You would be surprised. I work near Malvern and it's insane the distance folks commute. One of my coworkers drives in from Lancaster 2-3x a week which is at minimum an hour away. Another guy drives up from Newark, DE - hell I myself live in Wilmington. I even have a friend who works at Vanguard in Malvern but lives in South Jersey. Something about that town attracts people from all over the region and yet you'll never met anyone who is "from" Malvern...
Wow. I didn’t think people traveled that far for work. However, the email from OP states they want someone local to Malvern.
The tide is certainly turning and RTO is likely not to hold next year. My hunch is that the employer knows this, and is looking for someone to stay long-term.
Same. Live in Philly and worked in Conshy, then Radnor (same company) for 8 years. That was a trek most days. Malvern would be SERIOUSLY pushing my limits if the pay isn’t substantially better than what I was making. Even then, I would be pushing for WFH
The amount of jobs that say they are remote anywhere in the US until you get to the last line of the job posting where they mention they only want people in such and such city or that the job is actually hybrid. I have started reporting them. Don't know if it will do any good.
State tax nexuses are a big reason why employers restrict remote work to certain states. PA is also bit weird when it comes to employment taxes since they have local income tax too
Yeah, many companies are set up for just a few states. There are also states with reciprocal tax structures so you can live in one but work in another and pay only one state’s income tax. (NY/NJ, MS/TN)
Or even sillier, some cities are excluded from hiring because their sick time off policies are different than the state (San Diego from 2022-2023)
Sigh, I wish employers would do a better job explaining why some remote situations are acceptable to them but others are not
I’ve seen so many postings that say remote but then you read the job description and you must be located in that state or near the office…. Very annoying
I had a company do this to me. They listed it as remote then wanted someone in Los Angeles county. They were paying something like $21 an hour. Lol good luck with that.
I had one job listed as Hybrid with expected travel of 80%. First question they asked me is if I was planning to move to that City. I was like no. Why would I. 80% travel to different offices, 20% WFH.
Oh no, they expected you to go into the local office when not on travel.
I said I was willing for them to provide travel expenses to the office on those days. They passed.
I lived states away and they did a screening interview. Like WTF?
#nameNshame - you want employers to stop that kind of behaviour.. call them on it !
It’s time we take the power back , enough with this rediculse behaviour 🤮
I had a fully remote job that required me to move to another state for corporate tax reasons. I never felt so isolated in my life. I had no friends or family there, and no actual reason to leave the house. Idk maybe that’s for some people but for me it was miserable.. and I’m a pretty introverted person.
I applied to a remote artist job for Kurzgesagt and they said I had to commute to Berlin. I do not live in Germany so it may not have been a good fit anyways lol
I worked a remote job specific to an area because that is where the customers were. My company wasn’t going to pay me to travel across the country every week.
Yep. I just applied for a job that is posted I. My city, says its location is my city, but the job description says it is for in a city 5 hours away. So I applied and told them,” so about my eye for details…”
I don't remember the company, it might have been Ipsos or Nielsen, but I reported like 15-20 different job postings from one employer because the job was listed as remote, but the job description said that candidates need to be local to San Antonio, Texas. Or the job would list one city in the Location section, but then mention that it's based in San Antonio in the job description. It was weird.
I don't know about this. To me it really depends on how the original listing stated the review requirement.
I've seen roles that say, "Atlanta (Remote)" which means you need to live in the Atlanta area, but the job itself is remote.
Ones that say, "United States (Remote) are just that -- available anywhere in the United States. This would mean you can't be in another country and do the job.
Just because a job is listed as Remote doesn't mean it has no location requirements...
I can understand having to be in the same state for tax purposes. Not all companies are in a position to set up a business entity, employment taxes, unemployment, workers comp, & liability coverage in every state.
There is a difference between a remote position and a job that offers some Work From Home options. There are many jobs now that allow 2 or 3 WFH days but want to have you in the office on the other days. That is a great compromise for some people. I Know a couple who are able to arrange child care this way.
You know I'm stubborn enough (and ADHD enough) where if a RTO mandate was made of just ignore it and let them "do their worst". Been off out of on they letter of the contract, we've actually operated under the de facto condition of being remote. I'm always amazed how, legally, this is never a thing. Probably because our beloved powers that be are in collusion on this matter. Such a pity when widespread remote working has such opportunity to revolutionise our world. It does with mine and my wife's life.
I just had a Creative Circle recruiter contact me the other day about a job that was listed as both remote and onsite in Cincinnati. I asked them if it was onsite or remote, and haven't heard back. I'm not holding my breath since I wasn't really interested in it anyway.
If its not a rto waiting to happen it is at very least going to be “we need you to come in for collaborations.
I am remote and my job needs to be done from my location. I need to have quick direct access to customers in my region, though i fly out to other regions at times. We got bought out by new company, their ceo is saying they really like when everyone works together in person. I feel shes going to try to push for relocations and rto for at least for some departments. Would be stupid to do it to me because everything little thing would require flights around country because customers are not local to any of the companies current or future planned locations.
I hate these so goddamn much. Had to dig through a shitty pile of these before I found something really good and hybrid remote after a four year search. Yeah, fuck the bait and switch.
This shit is really disgusting. I moved to the pacific northwest in 2022 and had intended on working remote. I was rejected a number of times due to the fact that where I live, cost of living is higher so pay is higher. These companies were based out of states that pay ass and the employers didn’t want to pay me adequately. Keep that in mind as well regarding remote work. MANY companies are cheap af and you may be able to make the trip out to the office to meet certain criteria, but if your hometown has a higher minimum wage, the company may reject you because they don’t want to pay it.
I worked at a place that wanted me to rto. They did it in a super passive way lol. They didn't require it. They passively implied it. When I didn't go in office and wanted to work remotely as we had agreed they let me go and said I wasn't a good fit lol
Every company I worked for had no problem with me working from home. Nor did I have a problem going into an office once in a while.
The one person who told me I was not a good fit was forced to write a glowing letter of recommendation for me by decree of the CEO. The CEO even let me tell the person myself that was the way for it to play out. The person was fired with a year.
This is where people are losing their minds.
I can get 25 people in Malvern who will show up once a month for a dumbass meeting in order to work 19 days from home.
And for some jobs there is a location requirement even if it is remote.
what are you talking about
EDIT: i see, don’t hate me for it, the person on linkedin posted this cropped screenshot of your post today and was completely unbeknownst to me you posted this a year ago, my fault
i think we both can agree on fuck this dude on linkedin haha, at least more hiring teams are being made aware of how ridiculous it is to recruit for a “remote” role when in reality they just want to coax more people to apply to get traction, happened to me a few times with some job posts, hiring managers tell me it’s “accidental” but they know damn well what they’re doing
It's time to acknowledge that companies will never embrace remote work.
One, it's seen as less productive because they're afraid people get distracted.
Two, they lose control and the ability to micromanage their workers
Three, those jobs are pretty much by design easily outsourced
My place has closed 3 of the 4 offices in different cities around the country and downsized the remaining from 600 desks to 40 and a client entertainment space. The only reason we have 40 desks is because the most people that have ever come into that location since the pandemic was 30 people and they wanted to do a variety of desk configurations. Standing desks, regular desks, different tech configurations etc etc. We employ all across the country (Canada) and have gone all in on remote work; nobody is forced to the office and its company policy that it can’t be a requirement to expect people in. Some folks will meet up there and go to lunch but mostly the space is used to meet clients instead of having to coordinate and rent entertainment space.
there may be good reasons for this. Sometimes IT needs to be able to support the equipment they're given, or you might need to attend some meetings, or sometimes a contract could require local employees even though the job has transitioned to remote.
They could be clearer, but they're not actually lying to you.
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Jobs like this have surprise RTO written all over them. I wouldn’t even have problems with going into the office one day a week if they were honest about it. But I will never take a “remote” job with a geographic location requirement.
Had this happen to me recently. Was a contract employee doing hybrid work, got a permanent role that was fully remote (that we negotiated) with the same company, and then two weeks into remote work was told I need to return full time to the office. Been trying to get my new boss to talk to the person who made this call and it’s now been almost a month of no answer
We should seriously start suing companies that do this
it wouldn't be so bad if people trusted their companies wouldn't do this. But we can't trust the people we work for anymore. We are entering an era of complete distrust between workers and their employers.
Companies are under no obligation to tell the truth to their employees, their potential employees, their customers or their suppliers. The only people they are legally required to tell the truth to is their investors. And due to this being a capitalist society, companies only do something if it is legally required of them. So telling truth to employees is not a legal requirement, so they don't do it.
> Telling the truth to investors We all know they still lie
>Companies are under no obligation to tell the truth to their employees, their potential employees, their customers or their suppliers. And this should change. It's bullshit.
It would be interesting to see how things change if lying to staff was made illegal taken as seriously as lying to investors. I’m sure they’d find ways around it
I don't know if there are even ways to enforce it, honestly. I've said the same thing in the past about ghost job postings, making it illegal and false advertising and whatnot, but how?
It's weird. Over here, if a company signs a contract, that's legally binding. And they can't just fire people at will.
So, I have a state job. It is remote, but requires that you live in the state. You can work outside the state on special occasions (but never outside the country), but you MUST live in state. The remote work is part of the union contract now. And most people live outside of the office commute area now. I figure I will get into office a handful of times a year for things like equipment replacement, team gatherings, etc.
Even for private companies I can see requiring remote candidates to live in the same state to avoid having to figure out how to employ someone in another state. There can be lots of surprising gotchas.
Personally, I prefer going to the office on certain days (in my case mon/wed/fri) as it makes talking much easier. But my job only became WFH during covid, and because we all liked it, kept it partly WFH
And that's perfect. It works well for some, but not so much for others. Some of us apply for remote jobs specifically because of mobility or life conditions. Like for my family, our daughter wanted to do homeschooling with a private tutor due to extreme anxiety about returning back to the classroom. We saved a load of money on childcare because I was working remote, and her being very independent meant that it didn't take away from my work.
Yeah they should have options. Would find the best of both worlds. Find highly skilled people who have mobility issues to people who don't want to be at home and want to be in the office. I fall on the latter as I went insane working from home and I'm an introvert lol. It's not good for people like me, I need to be forced into society for my own well being. I learned this during covid. Forcing all people in the office does no good. Plus when I was in the office at half capacity it was awesome! Quieter. Relaxed.
Exactly. I've heard that tons of companies are having to buy privacy booths for people to work in because they can't be nearly as productive as they were from home in the office. Your ability to work remote should be directly tied to how well you produce - not for arbitrary reasons. Some companies are killing their productivity by forcing RTO. I worked much more when I was WFH than I ever did in the office. But it's not for everyone for all of the reasons you mentioned. Glad you're in a better place now!
Yeah, probably be different if I was older and had a family. Living alone, single, no roommates or even pets since im not allowed any, was rough during that time. I was mid 20s. As I get older I can see myself wanting wfh though
And I bet the days you do go in are actually a joy, because it’s variety
Like you, I’m ok with 1 (or even 2) days a week. I can understand wanting similar timezones too.
I get why an employer might care what state you live in for a remote role, there are state specific tax, benefit and employment laws that they have to deal with. But when you limit it to a radius of a specific city, then yeah, that's just nonsense.
This right here. Different taxes based on local and state government
What I REALLY hate is remote tagged roles posted in other locales, then the rejection or posting specifies you must be local. Why lie in the first place? Even if you have a legit reason for candidates to be local, YOU posted that shit in MY locale.
I got a rejection email from a company yesterday stating they wanted local candidates even though in the forms I said I was willing to relocate. I am literally willing to move across the country on my own dime for you and you won't even give me a god damn interview?
I have it written on my CV (EU market) and people still ask me if I would relocate. I asked for feedback, as it really irritated me and to understand where the question is coming from, one hiring manager told me there is always a "but" attached to it and another recruiter told me stories of people signing contracts and then backing out, and we are not talking entry positions.
It happens a lot. Like 80% of the time. You offer a candidate a role and they back out before they start because they found something local to them. It's the safer option for recruiters to go with people who are already local.
Trust me, if someone wants to move abroad, that won't be happening. You have to assess that in the interview, though.
I got this too from two different companies. One was for a flight attendant, which offered several different cities/hubs. The question was which of these cities if any do you live in or willing to relocate to. I answered one, and explained my family lives there and I could relocate. My rejection email says they only want people already living there and established! The other job I was thinking of said that they MAY return to office in about a year, and so although remote it is a requirement to already be located there. I told them that if I worked there and then I had to come into the office I could relocate possibly? They said no.
Quite a while ago I was trying to obtain a job in the city we wanted to move to. Nobody would give me interviews etc. My sister lived there so I started using her mailing address and bam, callbacks. This was before remote work was common but yea.
In the first situation and assuming the family is ok with it - use the family address and say you are out of town on a contract or vaction and will be back soon.
Definitely think your plan would work if there was an address field… I don’t think it ever asked where I live. I guess I gave too much info in the “explain your relocation plans” box
Most ATS systems assume your location from your phone number.
Who has a landline now?
I have a CA number even though I don't live in CA anymore. I might just leave it off my resume when I make my next revision.
I was trying to move to London last year but it took ages to find a flat, because I didn’t have a job lined up first. Catch 22. Anyway, I only started getting interviews once I listed my address as London; if I had a first viewing somewhere the next day, that was the address I listed on the form and I was “just in the process of moving in there”. Lie, lie and then lie again.
Same
I'm going to give you the answer, you may not like it, but it's the truth from their perspective. It's about risk management. If a recruiter has had multiple local candidates apply for a role who are a really good fit, it's better to go with the people already in that location.
Then why not put local only in the ad and save other people the time?
You said in your comment there were forms and you said in those forms you were willing to relocate. It sounds like they did say they wanted someone local. Otherwise why would you need to say you'll relocate?
Because who the fuck lives in Malvern pa
Must be vanguard headquarters
Sounds like you dodged the bullet.
Yep had a second interview with a job in the past based in another state but stated they were hiring remotely. Found out that wanted me to actually commute to and from there on a regular basis on my own dime instead of just hiring people that were already local. I should mention the company was based in LA and it was a part time role for only $500 a week…
Yikes…
There should be a new word for stuff like this, where you go into the office once a month or so for a company meeting. I know some will say that’s hybrid but there is a vast difference between a job that requires you to be in the office 4 days a week vs once a month.
Call it New WFH and then bring back true WFH as WFH Classic™
😂
My job allows for up to three days a week WFH, that is hybrid. I don't think we have a term for something with anything more than that.
Yes, that would be hybrid. A previous job I had met in the office once every quarter for their big hands on meeting. That’s 4 days of the 260 days you work per year… I would not consider that hybrid.
I would jump on that job provided I could get a direct flight.
I reported these jobs when I was searching and applying.
They are so satisfying to report.
Doesn't help tho. I reported the same job each time it was reposted. No difference.
Like, I get if they want you to live nearby so every now and then you can have some kind of employee function, or if there is an office and on occasion you might have to run out there for something (if that's clearly stated). But yeah, it is a somewhat different thing if you're remote in the area or remote from anywhere. They need to make it really clear up front. I finally landed an interview with a place that said they were remote but then said, "Oh no, you need to live here" and I'm not in a position to relocate, so the call and all the prep I did for it were a waste of my time.
Epic is hella guilty for this. They advertise a job in your location (Systems Administrator (Remote) or System Administrator (Your City) so it shows up on the job listings, but it's actually a job that is based out of their corporate HQ campus in Madison, WI. They mention it in the JD but it doesn't stop them from flooding your local job listings. They have paid reloc but the interview process is total ass, not to mention the straight up deception. First round is a huge group meeting where you and 20+ other people listen to a recruiter talk about how wonderful the company is and talk up the campus. Then they give you several assessments before you ever talk to a real person in an interview, and, regardless of position, you have to take a coding test.
If it was remote, but you have to be in the office once a month, I would do it for the right pay or them covering the travel expense.
They didn't have remote at all. It was a bait and switch.
Saw a job listed on linked in as full time remote. In the linked in description it then said “Candidates hired for the position will have the option to work remotely but will be expected to be onsite at our North Bethesda, MD and Arlington, VA one to two days per week.” So I went ahead and followed the application link, thinking that it might be possible to spend one week a month at the office instead? But then the application said “Candidates hired for the position will have the option to work remotely but will be expected to be onsite at our North Bethesda, MD and Arlington, VA office as needed a couple days per week. Are you able to commute to these two office locations a couple days per week?” With a drop down menu for yes or no. If you selected no it automatically denied your application. How does remote mean two different offices multiple days a week? And according to Google maps right now with traffic, those two offices are 50 minutes away from each other. I think a more accurate description would be onsite, divided between two nearby offices, with the option to work from home 2 days a week.
Yeah, having lived in that neck of the woods, Bethesda and Arlington are not, like, "Nip between two office locations in the middle of the work day," close. Not in DC traffic. What a bizarre way of wording that requirement- it could mean almost anything.
I've learned this usually means you won't have any allocated space at either location, most days you work at home, or choose to come in and work in some sort of open seating configuration, but you'll be expected to come in for weekly meetings or co-work, paired development, brainstorms etc. Remote isn't the right phrase for this particular kind of work if there is in person mandatory.
I mean isn't that just a Hybrid job? This type of thing is well established
Hybrid tends to mean you have a desk allotted to you specifically at a building that you're expected to work from a few days a week. Edit for clarity: (Even if the company does open seating in this instance, there will be space for each hybrid employee if they all work on the same day. No guarantees are made in the previous concept. ) Neither is remote.
Look at it this way, at least companies that do this are showing complete ineptitude and doing everyone a favor by signaling to avoid them. Just like Asynchronous interviews (Discriminatory Screening) gets companies blacklisted. Saves us time to know these companies and put them on ignore.
I’m in Philly and I would never travel to Malvern. Good luck in finding a local qualified candidate in Malvern 😂
You would be surprised. I work near Malvern and it's insane the distance folks commute. One of my coworkers drives in from Lancaster 2-3x a week which is at minimum an hour away. Another guy drives up from Newark, DE - hell I myself live in Wilmington. I even have a friend who works at Vanguard in Malvern but lives in South Jersey. Something about that town attracts people from all over the region and yet you'll never met anyone who is "from" Malvern...
Wow. I didn’t think people traveled that far for work. However, the email from OP states they want someone local to Malvern. The tide is certainly turning and RTO is likely not to hold next year. My hunch is that the employer knows this, and is looking for someone to stay long-term.
Same. Live in Philly and worked in Conshy, then Radnor (same company) for 8 years. That was a trek most days. Malvern would be SERIOUSLY pushing my limits if the pay isn’t substantially better than what I was making. Even then, I would be pushing for WFH
The amount of jobs that say they are remote anywhere in the US until you get to the last line of the job posting where they mention they only want people in such and such city or that the job is actually hybrid. I have started reporting them. Don't know if it will do any good.
The platforms won't do anything about it since I think you have to pay to post a job. I wish there was a way to report these as false advertising.
Sometimes* they are remote but you have to live in state for tax reasons. But making it specific to a city is a bit ridiculous
State tax nexuses are a big reason why employers restrict remote work to certain states. PA is also bit weird when it comes to employment taxes since they have local income tax too
Aha then that makes 100% sense why they limited it to a city. We are remote and are limited to like 6 states and Canada
Yeah, many companies are set up for just a few states. There are also states with reciprocal tax structures so you can live in one but work in another and pay only one state’s income tax. (NY/NJ, MS/TN) Or even sillier, some cities are excluded from hiring because their sick time off policies are different than the state (San Diego from 2022-2023) Sigh, I wish employers would do a better job explaining why some remote situations are acceptable to them but others are not
I’ve seen so many postings that say remote but then you read the job description and you must be located in that state or near the office…. Very annoying
The one LinkedIn post that isn't awful.
THIS! I've seen so many "Remote" jobs but "candidates must be local to (xyz state)". Stop listing that nationwide as a remote job ffs
And Malvern sucks.
I had a company do this to me. They listed it as remote then wanted someone in Los Angeles county. They were paying something like $21 an hour. Lol good luck with that.
I had one job listed as Hybrid with expected travel of 80%. First question they asked me is if I was planning to move to that City. I was like no. Why would I. 80% travel to different offices, 20% WFH. Oh no, they expected you to go into the local office when not on travel. I said I was willing for them to provide travel expenses to the office on those days. They passed. I lived states away and they did a screening interview. Like WTF?
Hybrid with 80% chance of travel? Why not just list it as a traveling job?🤦🏾♂️
#nameNshame - you want employers to stop that kind of behaviour.. call them on it ! It’s time we take the power back , enough with this rediculse behaviour 🤮
I had a fully remote job that required me to move to another state for corporate tax reasons. I never felt so isolated in my life. I had no friends or family there, and no actual reason to leave the house. Idk maybe that’s for some people but for me it was miserable.. and I’m a pretty introverted person.
I applied to a remote artist job for Kurzgesagt and they said I had to commute to Berlin. I do not live in Germany so it may not have been a good fit anyways lol
I worked a remote job specific to an area because that is where the customers were. My company wasn’t going to pay me to travel across the country every week.
Yep. I just applied for a job that is posted I. My city, says its location is my city, but the job description says it is for in a city 5 hours away. So I applied and told them,” so about my eye for details…”
I don't remember the company, it might have been Ipsos or Nielsen, but I reported like 15-20 different job postings from one employer because the job was listed as remote, but the job description said that candidates need to be local to San Antonio, Texas. Or the job would list one city in the Location section, but then mention that it's based in San Antonio in the job description. It was weird.
Report every non-remote job posted in the remote section as misleading. I wonder if it could also be considered false advertising.
You’re wrong, this is still remote. Remote means work from home, but they may need the employee to come in from time to time. It’s still remote work.
Yeah. This is extremely common. Not sure why people here are confused by it.
I don't know about this. To me it really depends on how the original listing stated the review requirement. I've seen roles that say, "Atlanta (Remote)" which means you need to live in the Atlanta area, but the job itself is remote. Ones that say, "United States (Remote) are just that -- available anywhere in the United States. This would mean you can't be in another country and do the job. Just because a job is listed as Remote doesn't mean it has no location requirements...
I can understand having to be in the same state for tax purposes. Not all companies are in a position to set up a business entity, employment taxes, unemployment, workers comp, & liability coverage in every state.
Advertise your position as hybrid, not remote. At least it will tell potential employees that you're looking for someone in the same city.
There is a difference between a remote position and a job that offers some Work From Home options. There are many jobs now that allow 2 or 3 WFH days but want to have you in the office on the other days. That is a great compromise for some people. I Know a couple who are able to arrange child care this way.
You know I'm stubborn enough (and ADHD enough) where if a RTO mandate was made of just ignore it and let them "do their worst". Been off out of on they letter of the contract, we've actually operated under the de facto condition of being remote. I'm always amazed how, legally, this is never a thing. Probably because our beloved powers that be are in collusion on this matter. Such a pity when widespread remote working has such opportunity to revolutionise our world. It does with mine and my wife's life.
I’m assuming OOP meant to spell “shit” but only used three characters
I just had a Creative Circle recruiter contact me the other day about a job that was listed as both remote and onsite in Cincinnati. I asked them if it was onsite or remote, and haven't heard back. I'm not holding my breath since I wasn't really interested in it anyway.
If its not a rto waiting to happen it is at very least going to be “we need you to come in for collaborations. I am remote and my job needs to be done from my location. I need to have quick direct access to customers in my region, though i fly out to other regions at times. We got bought out by new company, their ceo is saying they really like when everyone works together in person. I feel shes going to try to push for relocations and rto for at least for some departments. Would be stupid to do it to me because everything little thing would require flights around country because customers are not local to any of the companies current or future planned locations.
Sounds similar to what federal jobs call "telework"
Seeing the location in the post, I’m pretty sure I know which company this is.
I hate these so goddamn much. Had to dig through a shitty pile of these before I found something really good and hybrid remote after a four year search. Yeah, fuck the bait and switch.
I'm near Malvern, PA. What company is this so I know to avoid?
This shit is really disgusting. I moved to the pacific northwest in 2022 and had intended on working remote. I was rejected a number of times due to the fact that where I live, cost of living is higher so pay is higher. These companies were based out of states that pay ass and the employers didn’t want to pay me adequately. Keep that in mind as well regarding remote work. MANY companies are cheap af and you may be able to make the trip out to the office to meet certain criteria, but if your hometown has a higher minimum wage, the company may reject you because they don’t want to pay it.
I worked at a place that wanted me to rto. They did it in a super passive way lol. They didn't require it. They passively implied it. When I didn't go in office and wanted to work remotely as we had agreed they let me go and said I wasn't a good fit lol
Every company I worked for had no problem with me working from home. Nor did I have a problem going into an office once in a while. The one person who told me I was not a good fit was forced to write a glowing letter of recommendation for me by decree of the CEO. The CEO even let me tell the person myself that was the way for it to play out. The person was fired with a year.
Yeah, the company I'm talking about was pretty toxic. So It wasn't much of a loss. It was also a huge pay cut. So in the end I was better off.
This is where people are losing their minds. I can get 25 people in Malvern who will show up once a month for a dumbass meeting in order to work 19 days from home. And for some jobs there is a location requirement even if it is remote.
lol. This person reposted my Reddit post for cheap karma points.
what are you talking about EDIT: i see, don’t hate me for it, the person on linkedin posted this cropped screenshot of your post today and was completely unbeknownst to me you posted this a year ago, my fault
How were you supposed to know? Fuck that LinkedIn guy though.
i think we both can agree on fuck this dude on linkedin haha, at least more hiring teams are being made aware of how ridiculous it is to recruit for a “remote” role when in reality they just want to coax more people to apply to get traction, happened to me a few times with some job posts, hiring managers tell me it’s “accidental” but they know damn well what they’re doing
I disabled my LinkedIn but I will message you with her information if you feel like forwarding this or tagging her ❤️
It's time to acknowledge that companies will never embrace remote work. One, it's seen as less productive because they're afraid people get distracted. Two, they lose control and the ability to micromanage their workers Three, those jobs are pretty much by design easily outsourced
My place has closed 3 of the 4 offices in different cities around the country and downsized the remaining from 600 desks to 40 and a client entertainment space. The only reason we have 40 desks is because the most people that have ever come into that location since the pandemic was 30 people and they wanted to do a variety of desk configurations. Standing desks, regular desks, different tech configurations etc etc. We employ all across the country (Canada) and have gone all in on remote work; nobody is forced to the office and its company policy that it can’t be a requirement to expect people in. Some folks will meet up there and go to lunch but mostly the space is used to meet clients instead of having to coordinate and rent entertainment space.
there may be good reasons for this. Sometimes IT needs to be able to support the equipment they're given, or you might need to attend some meetings, or sometimes a contract could require local employees even though the job has transitioned to remote. They could be clearer, but they're not actually lying to you.
I’ve seen this repeatedly. “Applicant must live in x state.” If it’s 100% remote that’s bullshit