TheLadders

Adding this review in case anyone is thinking about signing up.
The jobs available on theLadders are all available on other websites. Like Indeed. There is nothing behind the door that you can’t find elsewhere. And applying for roles via theLadders will definitely not give you any kind of leg up. Just a word the wise. Save the money.

Terrible referrals for jobs. Terrible amounts of spam and terrible customer service. Just a terrible service and company. Good Lord, I don’t even pay for it and they are the worst of the worst. If they are terrible at their job, how are they going to help you eh?

I sent a resume in for a positon I am almost over qualified for, emailed an HR recruiter I worked with (one who oddly enough, was fired from the job we worked together at), not even a response from him. Never got a response for anybody. Incredibly unprofessional. They are staffed with gym teacher equivalents of HR recruiters. A total marketing mirage. Do not bother with any of their job ads. It is a waste of energy. I suspect the jobs do not even exist.

i used to pay for this service years ago, which is how i got an account with them in the first place… and the service, at the time seemed legitimate and was useful (it cost $ 100).
now it seems the company has gone downhill. they charge a fraction of that and the website is not as robust or professional.
the customer service experience is terrible. i cannot reach a live human being or person at all.
i have tried so many times to opt-​out of their incessant emails to me — and cannot reach anyone on the phone or via email. i am further unable to get a password to re-​set my account to login and change my email preferences.
as far as i am concerned — the ladders are unprofessional — as well, as being in violation of tcpa regulations for email spamming.
i am very frustrated and would not recommend this company to anyone… unless you like being frustrated!!!

TheLadders gives spamming a bad name. Avoid. Made the mistake of subscribing and am paying for this error with an never ending avalanche of SPAM.

I would not call these guys a scam, per se, but they are near worthless. I joined and actually found one job listed that I had not found elsewhere, so I figured it was worth the money. That one job, two months ago was the only job I found. So, I blew a little money, but the really irritating thing is their search criteria are clunky, and the friggin’ emails they send me with irrelevant jobs are a regular reminder that they simply don’t have jobs that cannot be found elsewhere. Blech.

I had received a notice from a recruiter and had responded with a note back. When I received an automated response, I paid little attention to it. However, later that day, a live representative reached out to me to ensure that I was aware that they were not the right department and wished me luck in my search. I was actually quite surprised that I mattered enough to get a human response… something, I was not expecting. Most importantly, the representative offered to help me in the future, if I needed help. Are you kidding me??? What an amazing experience. I fully endorse The Ladders… they care.

This review pertains to customer service.
I was having difficulty logging in to the website to view job matches. Margaret was prompt and helpful at restoring my access to the site, and it could not have gone much more smoothly. I am still using the site as I search for new jobs and will update this review if necessary.

is a large waste of money. When I signed up and paid my fees, I discovered that all of the jobs were copied from other sources, and the salaries were inflated. the ladders did not fulfill the original promise.
Now that I am no longer a paying member, they have changed my profile to be that of a person looking for a position as a high paid napper. Now they keep sending me lists of potential matches for «high paid napper» telling me that I would get more jobs if I paid them money and updated my profile to something other than high paid napper.
First they rip you off, then they resort to being bullies. Nice!
What the heck!!! Stay away from
, as well as their new «saleslad​der​.com».

Although I didn’t find my new job using TheLadders Premium membership, I did find it to be an excellent source of executive openings in numerous industries. This enabled me to understand what companies were looking for, how competitive my skill-​set is and what I could expect to make in such roles.
Ultimately, I found my role through a network I’ve built up throughout my career-​which every job search expert will tell you is the best way to find your next job. Oh, and two other things I learned from my experience, companies take 3 times as long to fill an executive role as they claim it will take and the time to look for a new job is «always”-never stop looking-​even if you’re very happy with what you’re already doing.

Wow. Based on what I’m reading here, I got lucky. They took my money, but failed to deliver any services. When I called to complain or get results, they simply offered to refund my money.
I took that option and will move on… thankfully.

Waste of money! My original résumé gets more hits than my Ladder resume! Although the resume looks professional, 450 bucks was a little steep– especially since i have not received a single call! Arghhhh!
Ok, I have been getting few calls from top companies lately using my ladder résumé! Although it took a while, I thought I update!

Unfortunately I have to agree with the bad stuff written above. I go way back with The Ladders, and as they grew, they just seemed to get out of control.
I used just regular (non-​subscription) access at first, then last year signed up for the $ 75 for 3 months ‘membership.’ I duly filled out all the information boxes, and would review emails of suggested jobs that were sent me, but it just wasn’t giving up useful stuff, or much of it. So … after months of this (and into a second $ 75 membership), I logged in directly and saw that their data page on me was way out of whack, so I changed all the wrong stuff, saved it, and went back to monitoring the suggested jobs emails that were sent to.
Still not producing much, but I thought it was just because the job market is bad. Went back in to my data on the site a week or so ago, and it STILL had wrong data about me – listing me as looking only in a field I know zero about and would never have checked the box for. I’m not surprised wasn’t getting any inquiries … nobody looking at my resume from that highlighted field would have any reason at all to talk to me, much less hire me. (And their questions on the questionnaire were awful — irrelevant, unclear, useless.)
Okay, spent a couple HOURS fixing it again, saved it up to their server, and BANG, all the new data was gone AGAIN. Got online with their help desk, and was told that I would have to re-​input all the data «after you refresh your browser.» I told them I would do that as soon as I finish techie school, but do not know how to do that NOW, please advise how.
They responded that their system is in the middle of a massive back-​office upgrade, being rolled out to segments of people like me over time, not sure when it would get to me. So, given how long my data had been bad despite my updates, their back office has been a mess for the better part of a year, and they’ve done nothing to fix it that would help … say, paying customers like me.
I would guess that Cendella had a good idea but got in over his head — financially and/​or management-​wise — and is having a hard time getting it fixed while keeping suckers … I mean, paying customers on the hook. Too bad, it had a good start.

I so wish I was much more successful with searching for TheLadders here on Unilocal before I too fell for their scam.
It’s been two weeks of them giving me the run-​around with not having my resume ready to this date.
First, after I signed up for their resume writer offer, my appointment person never called me. I wasn’t able to get through to them on the phone either. Long story short after I sent an email to them, their office was having technical issues 4 days after Hurricane Sandy hit NYC. I was asked to complete a questionnaire and send it in to the person I was supposed to have my conversation. 48 hours later I sent the completed 7-​page document in as requested and I’ve not heard from them since.
After several emails and unanswered calls have not been returned, today I moved forward with disputting the charge on my CC. I am SO done with them. And I will make sure that after my 3 month subscription comes to an end, I will not renew it!
Stay away from these folks…

The worst scam! Two years ago, it may have had some relevance… now they leave fulled positions on the site! Why? Some have a diagonal note «filled», so why do I care to see that! I’m a job seeker, I am not impressed that you posted a job that is «filled». Jobs listed as currently open were filled months or weeks earlier and still shown as currently open. Sometimes when clicking through to jobs on the company site are dead and The Ladders suggests you «let them know»… no… I’m not doing your jobs of knowing when jobs are filled.
What is this … a recruiter wants you to follow them? A dime-​a-​dozen, contingency recruiter? I’m paying you to be connected with useless, contingency recruiters, I’m fighting off with sticks without paying for the privilege. The Ladders you are DONE!

In hopes to reconstitute my professional aspect TheLadders. com, Inc. has stalled it somewhat further. There are minimal positions in TheLadders. com, Inc. that are actually relevant to my search. Basic free membership is available to paid membership for job candidates to access all features and function of employers and job database, nevertheless ineffective results. Callous standard auto generated responses apply. Ergo no further comment as this employment agency is another utter useless that do not bear substance as it is fruitless.

I engaged
Resume Writing Service to rewrite my resume and help restart my career. The woman who was assigned to my rewrite, Stephanie, seemed capable. All interactions with her, however, were via «canned» form letters and personal communication did not seem possible. The resume that came back, although the information was improved, was hideous to the eye: drop shadows on fonts, shaded blocks, tons of lines, and overuse of italics. There was no whitespace, no sense of design whatsoever.
After a few days of sitting with it, I emailed Stephanie and the «contactus» link on
.
No response came from Stephanie offering to make changes, but a call came from the manager: Kensington. Kensington had already made up his mind to not offer any «make good» to me and told me: «Design preference on a resume is like choosing a suit. Some people like pinstripes, some like solids. Nobody likes shoulder pads right now.»
Excuse me? THAT is the analogy you chose, Kensigton?
He then said, «Well, we don’t write resumes for free.»
Um, I know that. All I was asking for were the possiblle options to remedy the situation: rewrite, partial refund, etc…“
I redid my resume with the help of a friend after all this. I changed the name on the crappy ladders version and applied for the same jobs. Guess what? Call backs from *my* rewrite, *Nothing* on the
resume. I mentioned this to Kensington. He said it was irrelevant and anecdotal.
Really?
I asked Kensington for the name of his supervisor, and number. He said it was none of my business. They are a private company and I have no right to know.
Oh Kensington, Kensington. Sigh. Such poor, poor customer service.

TheLadders is probably not worth the cost. Their new policy on showing ALL jobs (not just $ 100K+) is disappointing. I received no solid follow-​ups/​interviews from TheLadders. All face-​to-​face interviews came from leads on CareerBuilder and Monster. I paid nothing to post my resume on these two sites. I wish I would have focused more attention to their sites than TheLadders and tried their paid services. Also, I received direct calls from companies that found my resume on the other sites and not one company I interviewed with found me on or referred tome from TheLadders.
After a 3-​month search (two of which I focused on TheLadders… ARGH!!!) I have landed a new position as a Major Accounts Manager that I couldn’t be happier with.

Darn,
I so wish I had checked here first before giving them any money. Fortunately, I did not let myself get upsold beyond the 3 month $ 75 membership.
Yeah, this service is bad, but let’s review why they really suck. The previous reviews are all accurate. There’s the bait and switch, and then there’s the excessive spamming, but the thing that really conveys what a scam this organization is how they prey upon executives with false scare tactics. Sure, they’ll provide a free critique of your resume (which will really just be a templated form letter automatically criticizing your resume no matter how smoking great it is), and then they’ll use your fear to try and upsell you to some very pricey resume writing services at around $ 695.
Today, TheLadder’s joker CEO, Marc Cendella, was so arrogant as to send me a newsletter telling me that it will help me if I promote his services to headhunters. Then for insult to injury, he spammed me again in a second e-​mail to promote the same service.
I wish I had checked TheLadders out here first; but maybe by leaving advice, I’ll help others to avoid this obvious scam. One last thing… If you do waste time and money with TheLadders, don’t expect to receive any response to the gads of resumes and cover letters that you will send.
Spend your efforts else where with service providers that are honest and honorable.

Classic bait and switch.
First I conducted a search based on my criteria, then suddenly I had to join to see the results. Ok.
Then I was required to upload my resume. Sure.
Next, they wanted me to complete profile information which included my professional and educational experience. Fine.
Somewhere in all of that, they provided me with membership options. I opted for Basic, of course.
I really just want to see the freaking search results!
Then a few more questions so they can tailor my search. Answered.
FINALLY, I get to the results. Click on an interesting posting. And am then told I have to PAY for PREMIUM services in order to see the job details and apply.
So, what does the Basic membership get you? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. But I’m sure they will now start spamming the hell out of me.
Bottom Line: Don’t waste your time with these phuckers.