I had a quick phone screen, and was given an assignment, where I had to give responses to questions customers could ask about their product. Within a day of turning it in, I got a call with a verbal offer for the position. And that I would
be starting remote for the position. I initially accepted.
But as the days leading up to the first day of remote work passed by, I was noticing some red flags. This company gave me the job without a technical screen, despite 1 year of coding experience being in the job description. This company gave me the job without ever having met me in person, there were no on-sites at all. And the company had not even sent me an offer over email. The company was not following any of the standards of the golden rules for hiring practices.
When I emailed them asking for the offer to make it official, they countered that they would be sending me a
"consultancy agreement" instead. When I did my research and asked in a follow up email if this meant I would be doing
a 1099 instead of a W2 for my taxes, they said yes.
So what is a 1099? A 1099 tells the government you are self employed and contracting your work to the company, rather than that you are an employee to that company. So you pay the same 7.65% tax employees pay, but also the 7.65% employers pay. Whereas an employee on a W2, you would only pay the first half. The company saves on taxes by writing off your services as a business expense. As a non-employee, you have fewer protections than employees. The client can use any reason to fire you, and you would have few legal remedies. In short, you pay more in taxes and have less protections.
I have had friends that have done warehouse jobs on a 1099. But these companies at least directly told them this during the interview process. And while I was told by my interviewer in both calls that this was a part time job, I was never told it would be a 1099. I was only told this important piece of information when I directly asked them on my own initiative, and it was done so at last minute. I told them I was no longer interested.
This company is NOT worth applying for. They show a lack of respect for their candidates, such as keeping quiet on important information for the job, or through forcing candidates to pay for hotels on their own dime and cancelling last minute, as a previous review stated. And a company that does not respect it's candidates will likely not respect it's own employees as well.