The Ladders

Signed up for free service last year. Over the course of that year received nothing but junk email, noting even remotely related to any search profiles I created.

In May 2014 I noticed a charge to an expired debit card account for $180.00 as an Auto renewal fee!

The web site only says I must disable the secret auto renewal feature first or get billed and there is only an help email address to contact, no phone number, no exception, no refund policy.

This is not professional and probably not really legal, if it is in the volumes if Ts & Cs no one ever reads it's not obvious that thee is a $180.00 auto renewal fee.

Buyer be ware

PLEASE BE AWARE! You do not need to pay ANYONE to find you a job. I am currently a Corporate Recruiter/Vendor Manager and have been in the IT Staffing business for almost 20 years. I posted 4 new positions on LinkedIn and on our company website 4 days ago. I have received multiple resumes and emails from people telling me they saw our positions posted on TheLadders.com. One person said, and I quote "You may want to have your advertisements for the job checked then as I found the advertisement initially on Ladders.com and it shows Pay rang from 110K to 170K for Salary expectations". Our company never posts salary ranges so this was made up and inaccurate and wasn't "our advertisement". We never used this company to post our positions nor did we give them the authority to do so, especially with information that is completely false. People who pay for this service think they are getting to apply to positions they would not have know about without this service. Obviously TheLadders just pulls information from LinkedIn and other sites and posts them here with information that is not accurate or verified. I URGE you ...DO NOT SIGN UP FOR OR PAY FOR THIS SITE. You can find 95% of these positions on free sites and know the information is accurate. If in doubt, always go to the website of the company you want to apply to, they will have their open positions posted and you can apply directly. I am not sure if there is anything I can do about them posting our positions with information that is completely false (they even have the" industry" we are in listed wrong, so they didn't even take the time to research the company/jobs they are posting; remember you are paying for this "service"!) but I can certainly take the time to warn others not to fall for this scam company. I wish everyone success in their career search!

The Ladder’s Resume Service is a scam. I have known quite a few co-workers who initially used their critiquing service and received the SAME crituquie with only minute differences. These differences were in places where they simply pulled information from the resume and posted it in one of the sections to “personalize” it. They scare people into thinking that their resumes are sub-par and then try to get you to pay enormous fees to have THEM write it for you. This service preys on people fear of being inadequate and not finding a job.

Steer clear of the LADDERS.com!

A legitimate JOB posting website will NOT CHARGE MONEY, except in the case of successful job offers. Such as monster.com, they don't seem to charge do they?

So right away if they are charging you before even entering a pro membership, be aware its likely a scam. Ladders does not have any good repute either. Even in the slim situation that it was above board I would not trust it - they didn't give legitimate testimonials. Any company worthy of business would include them on the front page.

I used The Ladders 14 months ago for one month. I ended up buying a company so did not need them anymore. I cancelled all the emails and though I was done with them last August or September. They just charged my account $75.00! I have emailed them anc caled them but have not heard anything back from them. I emailed the class-action website about this.

Like so many people on this forum, I consider my membership of The Ladders in the UK, a total waste of money. Despite cancelling my subscription they have continued to remove money from my account and fail to respond to my emails.
Interestingly, when I now try and log in to the "cancel my subscription" element of their site, they state that my email address is not recognised! Perhaps this is all part of a scam?

Used to work there, quit after 6 months. Marc is a smooth-talking crook who pretends to "love the customer" but in reality employs an auto-renew policy to exploit job seekers as much as possible. Horrible way to run a business, and always felt sorry for those who were taken for money they couldn't afford to lose. Overall, it's pretty darn close to a full-blown scam, for several reasons.

The bottom line is if you have the skills necessary that sites are looking for, using Monster, Careerbuilder, et. al., there is no reason recruiters wouldn't be calling you. I use LinkedIn quite a bit to keep contacts with people I have worked with in the past as well as other recruiters who have come through on contracts (I work in Healthcare IT). There is no way that Ladders would ever get a penny from me. Although I find their free article newsletter in my inbox to sometimes be filled with interesting tidbits, I don't think I would pay them money to regurgitate what all the other job boards have. Take the time and hunt for yourself and save a lot of money. Best advice I ever had about my resume? Make VERY certain you have no mistakes in spelling or grammar. That is an instant red-flag and a deal-killer for many places.

The Ladders Trial Offer:

My situation is a bit different than most, or so it seems. This is the first time is over 20 years I find myself in the awkward position of being a job seeker.

I have participated with standard Internet sites including Career Builder, Monster, Indeed and Dice. Predicated upon skill set and with respect to those sites, it appears some job seekers do very well, while others fail. Most jobs filled seem to be "contract jobs" with no benefits and terminal longevity. Therefore every six months or so the job seeker is again hunting for a new position in an effort to stay ahead of the monthly bills. I am sure there are exceptions and some job seekers actually secure a rewarding, permanent position. Personally, I have not experienced such fortune.

Enter The Ladders... I recently joined The Ladders on a free trial basis (14 days) fully cognizant of the negativity that seems to gravitate to Mr. Cenedella's firm. I made it abundantly clear to my "Ladders Advisor", prior to the trial subscription, that, at this time, I did not seek to be inundated with a barrage of emails on everything I am doing wrong with respect to job seeking. This included my resume, which I believe is well written. Well here is the first email from my "Ladders Advisor" which I shall share with everyone.

"Resume Critiques
PREMIUM MEMBER ORIENTATION

Hi JC,

Today, I wanted to touch base with you on your resume. Having a powerful, professional resume is essential to a successful search.

Our team of Executive Resume Analysts sees tens of thousands of executive-level resumes from $100K+ job seekers like you every year. Unfortunately, 94% of the resumes we see are not what recruiters are looking for. It makes sense: While most of our members are experts at their jobs, very few are experts at writing professional executive resumes.

As a Premium member, you can find out if your resume will work for recruiters: An Executive Resume Analyst will critique your resume for free so you can apply to jobs with confidence.

Get your free resume critique now.

They'll be honest with you: if your resume is great, your analyst will confirm that. If not, they'll tell you what you can do to make it better.

If you'd like to learn more about resumes on your own time, our News and Advice team has gathered some great articles on Resume Advice.

You can't afford to be wrong about your resume. So get your free critique now. Good luck with your search!

Regards, "

... I would surmise many others have received the same boilerplate letter. If I am in err, my apology to Mr. Cenedella. As I stated to The Ladders' representative and prior to joining, I am not interested in having my resume rewritten. I would think the resume should be authored by the person actually applying for the job. After all, job seekers can not have someone from The Ladders show up and do the job interview for them as well. It would be like having someone else take a LSAT exam for you to get into law school. I do understand, however, a constructive critique is a good thing.

My first "session" with my "Ladders Advisor" included site navigation and the fine tuning of "My Job Ladders" settings . The site is complex, and for those who like to play around on an Internet site, The Ladders is for you. I have three "Job Ladders" categories and each ladder has several sub categories. I will say the "Ladders Advisor" did follow up and was helpful in clicking the appropriate job nodes. After I completed this task, I would learn that I have over 1, 057 jobs to browse. I was hoping The Ladders would streamline the search process, eliminate the clutter but at this point, it simply appears the subscriber is paying for access to job postings exclusive to The Ladders. Or are these the same jobs that are resident on other site? Perhaps I am wrong, but it will take many man hours to review each job to determine which ones are appropriate for me. The question I can't help but ask are the jobs current or is this just indeed another colossal waste of time.

This is my initial experience with The Ladders. I welcome your thoughts. JC

The Ladders is one of the longest running online ripp offs on the Web. First let me say that I signed up and paid for a subscription as a job seeker several years ago ( 2005 ) Paid over $300 for monthly fees. Everytime I found a postion I wanted to apply to, the system told me it required a premium subscription (not my basic subscriptions) so I signed up for the premium subscription and immediately the system says the position is no longer available. Okay so now I have the premium subscription and literally every postion is closed, no longer available etc. Throughout my entire membership with the Ladders, I received a number of calls from Headhunters, recruiters for horrible positions. I finally cancelled my membership and had similiar issues as the other posters, my credit card still charged. Finally I cancelled the card and they were no longer able to charge me. I did land a position and a few years later I decided to post on the Ladders as a recruiter(30 day posting cost $ $295 or 395 I don't remember the exact fee) I also posted on other sites. My job posting on the ladders expired after 30 days. I recently did a search for the postings after 90 days, to make sure they were all deleted because e I filled the position. Well behold!, TheLadders is still showing the posting live, then tell candidates, to view the posting they must sign up for a subscription because the Job Posting requires a premium subscription. As the poster I know the job posting is expired and already filled and I'm livid they are using my expired posting to trick people into paying them money. It is companies like this which give the internet such a horrible reputation. Its a legal Scam and I honestly hope people do their reseach and come here before paying their hard earned money. The cost of posting a job to recruiters and employers is very high from $300 -$1000 just to post one job, no wonder so many people are out of work and unemployment so high. there are jobs out there and I don't blame employers for not posting them and paying high fees to scams like the Ladders. I am sure there are recruiters and employers who've hired from the Ladders or interviewed candidates from there, after all its really designed for the recruiters and employers willing to pay the high fees for good candidates. However I caution any candidate looking for a position to be very very careful about signing up for a subscription. Keep in mine that employers are paying hefty fees to posting openings, there's no need for such greed to require candidates to pay money in addition to the poster. This is just pure greed. Yes the Ladders has a number of employees which make commissions from the sale of additional subscriptions and other fees that are paid. I understand they have to make a living as well, but how do they sleep at night knowing they are asking people out of work and struggling to make ends meet pay hefty fees to find a job. I equate them to the snake oil and insurance sales people, let me throw some of the mortgage brokers in this group. Compare this group to attoneys and the above group will eat lawyers alive. The online job boards are really designed for recruiters not the candidates or the employers so please keep this in mind before you pay any subscription fees to view jobs.