Comments on: The dope on TheLadders

By: tom kane

tom kane — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:07:34 +0000

The Ladders is the most inept organization that I have hired. For the last 7 years I was President/CEO & Chairman of a $10M manufacturer. The time came for me to move, so the Ladders lured me in with the money back guarantee. For 6 months I executed the search with all my effort and following the guidelines of the Ladders. Not one interview resulted from the ladders leads. I participated in 2 interviews through my own contacts. NOW, the Ladders does not want to refund their guarantee because I am 5 phone calls short to my career counselor according to their “checklist of accountability”. I have blown away all the other checklist metrics including # of resumes submitted (they require 3/week and I’ve been burning 30/month). It is simply illogical to use a checklist as the measure of an individuals search effort. It is not reasonable to think that 5 more 15 minute “check-in” calls to my career counselor would have made any difference in the dismal results of their planned program. Further to withhold a $2500 refund indicates that somehow the Ladders believes that services offered have been delivered. OK, “we guarantee a job in 6 months”. No, Marc Cenedella that did NOT happen, and in fact your system failed to initiate ONE SINGLE INTERVIEW despite my dedicated compliance to your proven program. So your Signature program now only failed to produce a job it produced literally ZERO INTERVIEWS for a polished C level executive with 20+ years of excellence. And now your policy decision: you missed 5 calls to your adviser over the 6 month program, making you ineligible for the refund, just read the terms and conditions Mr. Kane. Scam? definitely. Professional ethics? Moral Fabric of the Ladders leadership? A commitment from Marc Cenedella that he stands by his organization and makes good on his BOLD marketing statements. Marc is a well funded fraud at best and a loathsome talent-less queen of the marketing glitter parade, nonetheless, his personal values and company policies prove him to be a cold and inert con artist who gets fat on costly false promises. He is to inexperience and generally ignorant to recognize that he will not leave a legacy of a great company behind. He is making enemies with a select group of businessmen who will expose him and bring down his house of cards. And these men will do it, not for spite, but because it is the right thing to do. (The lessons that Marc missed while he was weasel-wording his terms and conditions.)

As for me, I will be in small claims court should anyone care to join me.

By: kavitha

kavitha — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 04:36:29 +0000

Is there any way we can complain on these guys .No response from those guys . If I can scold them , I should do it myself first as I should have done some research before I payed for it as a recruiter .

By: Tom S.

Tom S. — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:14:57 +0000

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.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:15:58 +0000

Thanks for the article. I know it’s pretty old news, but I was prompted to search for information on TheLadders when I saw a position listed by the site for an Executive Assistant position through Indeed.com.

First flag, the position was posted through a third party. Second flag, it’s for an Executive Assistant position. No way it pays more than $80k. And it’s with a company that, according to my research, doesn’t exactly pay in the high range of competitive.

Pretty disgusting that there are still job-search sites out there made solely to take people for their much-needed income.

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By: Kira

Kira — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:27:45 +0000

I appreciate your article. However, I have the FREE Ladders membership which I use exclusively for the articles, and I find many of them quite good. I recommend the articles to my mentees at my alma mater, too. I agree it is not worth paying for their services.

By: PJ

PJ — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:00:03 +0000

Everyone cuts the THE LADDER but meanwhile they are laughing all the way to the bank!!
what is the point???

If it is deceptive advertising DO SOMETHING!
There is enough verbiage o nthis site to petition and start a C.A suit!!!

By: Denise

Denise — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:42:56 +0000

I’m very happy that I found this post. These are my experiences with The Ladders:

I used their resume writing service and it was horrible. You never speak with the writer by phone and they were only allowing 2 drafts until I complained that I was not happy and would contact BBB if they did not provide more drafts until I was happy.

1. After spending nearly $1K for a new resume and cover letter three years ago, I NEVER received a call from a recruiter with their resume. However, I receive calls from my own resume that I wrote myself.

2. After they re-wrote my resume with a PR focus, I immediately applied for a job with The Ladders are a PR Director. I didn’t get a call back.

3. I’ve applied for jobs that recruiters have posted and have not gotten any responses back – and that was using the resume written by The Ladders.

4. The cover letter is generic. It was the exact format of the cover letters found for entry level jobs in college text books.

5. I provided another resume writing service (that’s cheaper) and they said the resume written by The Ladders was a good start, but ineffective as a sales tool as the statements were too general, the company descriptions to detailed and the information was job description instead of success metrics.

By: Vern Blythe

Vern Blythe — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:54:14 +0000

I’m unemployed for over a year and would qualify for TheLadders income level. However, I stopped short because of my gut instinct that someone offering to help an unemployed person if they paid them money, was just someone scamming on the unfortunate.

In addition, if this is auto-renew – RUN! I’m not so sure it’s even legal and I know it’s not legal in some states. Just remember, auto renew means they can bill you for life.

By: Neesh

Neesh — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 22:00:25 +0000

Wow, I wish I had found this site before I signed up for a $700 resume re-write a couple months ago!
The whole process has been nothing but trouble.