I got hired through Hired.com, the process allowed me to quickly determine what the industry thinks of my skill sets, transparently see what companies would offer for positions, compare offers and make the right career choice!
The problems with Hired have nothing to do with their business, but more about some of the companies that use it.
When you are a job seeker on Hired, you get the option of setting your desired salary in your online profile. This GREATLY influences what happens next.
Companies will try to get your attention by requesting to interview you for a job that matches your salary ideal. If you make it to the offer stage, those same companies will suddenly try to low ball you, in the same tired, traditional and potentially awkward negotiation phase. The "salary" will often magically transform into a lower base salary + performance bonus that still results in a numerically lower annual salary than the interview request said.
There is room for negotiation here, but the point is that despite the market efficiencies that Hired's system promote, the companies on it completely undermine it.
In a 4 week time period, I got interview requests from 15 companies and progressed to various stages will all 15 companies. Here are some examples of offer discrepancies:
-
A CEO eventually offered me a lower position than the interview request was for, which I declined. He called me on my personal phone and told me the salaries of everyone else at the company and that justified his offer. Although peculiar, it wasn't necessarily bad, the job title dictated a lower market rate, and I was flattered that he initially wanted to even interview me for the higher job title.
-
A CEO and Hiring Manager gave me an interview request substantially below my ideal salary. They quickly moved to the offer phase, and the offer was even further below their interview request!
-
A CEO answered my questions about the job title and responsibilities, as I had never heard of the job title before, saying that he the company has been transparent about what they will pay for it. Offer came in much lower.
Again, I don't see anything unscrupulous about this, it has nothing to do with Hired.com itself, and there was room for negotiation. Unless you were looking for ammunition in a gender pay gap debate, the point is that Hired.com's system doesn't fix this particular lack of transparency or market inefficiency. In this regard, it is the same as having zero information about what a company will eventually offer you in your compensation package.
These are meant to be illustrative examples showcasing that casually getting validation of what you are worth, through interview requests with dollar figures attached, won't result in you actually understanding what you are worth to the market. You don't get any more insight into what you could/should/on average get paid than any other recruitment method.
But on the flip side, these interview requests do change the behavior of other companies. Employer's using Hired's system looking for potential candidates get to see that people actually are giving you interview requests. This reinforces what you are worth to other market participants, and that is a market efficiency that other recruitment methods will not have.
My Hired.com bonus appeared in my bank account two weeks after starting my new job. Hired pays the you bonus for accepting a job, and they do it promptly, without any drama or long wait times. They use Bill.com to get your bank account information and process payment. Very lean and very practical operation. They grant themselves three months to get send it to you, this is a factor of the recruitment industry, where employers get 3 months to evaluate a new-hire and fire them without needing to pay the recruitment agency. So the recruitment agency also doesn't want to lose money paying bad employees their bonuses.
Looks like Hired will send 1099-MISC form with "Box 7: Nonemployee compensation" box checked next year.
Source: https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/can-a-bonus-from-hired-com-be-considered-as-a-pass-2902787.html