Is That Dream Remote Job a Lie? The Rise of the WFH Bait-and-Switch

Some companies post jobs with the remote or WFH tag but fully expect you to work on-site or at another location, either permanently or for occasional training, meetings, teambuilding activities, or specific tasks.

Many job seekers now see these “stealthy hybrid” jobs tagged in the remote category when searching job boards, which can be discouraging in an already challenging market full of job scams and ghost jobs.

This apparent bait-and-switch tactic leaves hopeful candidates in the lurch, with many online calling for companies and job boards to revise how they classify their listings.

It’s a giant waste of time, says one job seeker on the Ask a Manager advice blog, and “they are shooting themselves in the foot by not being upfront.”

What does a stealthy hybrid post look like?

Some roles like this may include “remote” or “WFH” in the title, but have a few giveaways that you may miss, such as a “Remote (Friendly)” tag that indicates some flexibility pertaining to where you work while also demanding periodic in-office visits.

In the job description, you may see a clarification that the role is only “partially remote,” which essentially means the same thing as “hybrid.” There may not even be a clear policy on how many in-office days are expected.

Other posts may similarly state that the role is remote but have conflicting information further in the job description stating that you’re required to be in a specific location, usually near the office, so that you can pop in for meetings.

What do job seekers think about stealthy hybrid jobs?

Nothing positive, apparently.

Some recall having to reject multiple jobs because positions advertised as remote were in fact hybrid or on-site, like users in this Reddit thread on r/recruitinghell, one of whom remarked that this should “be illegal as a ‘bait and switch.’”

Frustrations are mounting among those who seek out the flexibility of remote roles as a necessity. As one LinkedIn user highlights, “for those with childcare responsibilities, caregiving duties, or a true need for remote work, inaccurate labeling makes an already difficult market even harder to navigate.”

Some job seekers only find out later that a position isn’t actually remote, like this Redditor, who discovered 45 minutes into an interview that the position would start remote and then transition into a fully on-site job in 2 months—and who only had one thing to say about that offer: “Fuck that noise.”

Unfortunately, it seems that stealthy hybrid posts are a recurring problem for seekers, who’ve sounded off in comment sections across the internet.

“It’s not right, or reasonable, but it’s so common that there’s probably no escaping it,” another job seeker writes on the Ask a Manager blog.

Testing job boards

To gauge how much of an issue this actually is, we spent 30 minutes on each of four job boards: Get.It Recruit, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Indeed.

When browsing each board, we filtered for US jobs using the remote location tag. Get.It Recruit also had a feature to further filter jobs by a specific remote location, such as “Remote, VA”, and Glassdoor had a “Remote only” filter we also included in our testing.

Here’s how these job boards stacked up against one another:

Get.It Recruit

Our first pit stop was the recruitment platform Get.It Recruit, which was mentioned in this Reddit thread, where one user reported seeing a job tagged as remote that was in fact a warehouse job upon further inspection.

We tried Get.It Recruit ourselves and found multiple (almost back-to-back) listings with the contradictory “Remote | WFH” and “remote-friendly” tags within the first minute of filtering, which we initially did with the location tag and then by job titles with “remote” or “wfh.”

One especially confusing listing was for a pilot instructor, which is definitely not remote—even if one of the listed duties is to perform flight demonstrations “in remote locations.” This job requires you to travel and physically handle the equipment in some instances:

From our testing, we concluded that both listings that are truly remote and only partially remote seem to get lumped together in the site’s system under the “Remote Friendly” tag. This misleading tagging may be a design issue on the part of the job board’s AI or algorithm.

LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, we fared much better and found only two stealthy hybrid posts in a half-hour span.

Oddly enough, we also found jobs marked as remote with a slew of location exclusions, perhaps due to legal, payroll, and tax compliance burdens in these states. These considerations only compound the hoops job seekers have to jump through to find truly remote roles they’re eligible to apply for.

Here’s an example of one of those posts:

Glassdoor

Glassdoor also yielded two stealthy hybrid posts, one within the first 10 minutes. Interestingly, this included a post that was marked as remote but indicated in the description that the company would consider remote applicants in “in many cases.”

We’re not exactly sure what the company meant or what qualifying criteria we’d need to match. The exact job listing on the company’s site gave no clarifying details.

Indeed

We found a stealthy hybrid job within the first 5 minutes of searching on Indeed. This job may have formerly been remote, but the company edited the job description to include on-site responsibilities without also updating the remote tag (when we last checked on March 10, 2026).

Retroactive changes to job descriptions and duties seem to be just another worry exasperated job seekers have to add to their list.

If the technology is there to make job searches more convenient, why do job seekers encounter these problems?

Our testing proved that these listings are everywhere, but is this a result of technological incompetence or calculated deception?

Some mislabeled jobs are caused by technical errors

As one 2022 Slate article notes, mislabeled listings can happen due to an error in the Applicant Tracking System or “ATS” (e.g., Paylocity).

For example, a company may create a job in their ATS and accurately write in the description that it requires 3 days in a San Diego office. However, when the recruiter cross-posts this listing to the job board, the site’s system itself marks the post as remote, like we suspect happens with Get.It Recruit.

We also found instances on another platform (Indeed) where jobs were correctly flagged as hybrid but incorrectly retained “remote” in the titles, which means they could still show up if applicants use the term in their search.

Some companies want a bigger pool of job applicants

This is the theory that many tend to believe. The idea is that companies often disguise hybrid or on-site roles as remote roles to attract a wider pool of job seekers (since WFH positions generally get more applications).

Job seeker Jamie Jackson spoke to the New York Post about her misleading experience with a mislabeled job on LinkedIn that was cross-posted from Get.It Recruit and insists that it’s likely “a way to trick candidates into applying.”

Misclassifying jobs as nation-wide remote opportunities also allows companies to cast a wider net to find the perfect candidate who may be using the remote tag—even if the job itself ends up being in an office.

Here’s a job post where a company outright admits to tagging an on-site job as remote because they’re willing to relocate a candidate:

Some companies want to avoid legal issues

As mentioned, some job listings may claim to be remote but require employees to be near the office (which many job seekers find suspicious), or they may exclude candidates from certain states entirely.

These conditions may be due to corporate “nexus.” Simply put, if an employee works in a state, the company is legally doing business there, which requires the employer to register with that state’s Secretary of State, pay into local unemployment insurance, and comply with state-specific tax withholding and corporate income tax laws.

“Every country, province, state, many counties, and many municipalities have their own tax and labor laws with varying degrees of compliance hurdles,” says one payroll tax specialist on LinkedIn. “An employer offering remote is already being very flexible. The fact they want to remain domestic, or avoid certain compliance requirements is perfectly understandable.”

Another LinkedIn user says, “I heard of a company that the state of Ohio sued for operating a business without a license when an employee secretly moved. It complicates unemployment as well.”

Some companies might not understand what remote means

According to some online discourse, companies might be listing jobs as remote if their employees don’t work in an office, such as if there is travel involved or if the workplace is secluded (i.e., if it’s in a “remote” or faraway area).

In this Reddit thread, one job seeker’s apparent favorite example of this is oil patch companies (usually located in isolated areas) that use the remote tag “because the jobs are often far off into the bush.” Other users report seeing companies use similar logic for classifying warehousing and trucking jobs.

Companies may believe that the remote tag is justified if they allow you some time to work from home, regardless of the conditional arrangements you’ll need to meet first.

“Have to work in the office four days a week? Remote!” complains another Redditor. “Require constant travel? Remote! Have to work in office for a year first? Remote! Company secretly plans on ending all work from home ability after a certain period of time? Remote!”

These stealthy hybrid posts put a lot of extra pressure on applicants to be especially mindful when hitting ‘Apply’ on a post. Job seekers are getting frustrated with the flimsy justifications and have begun compiling lists of warning signs to look out for when determining if a job is truly remote or not.

Not every stealthy hybrid job will be immediately obvious, and as a job seeker, you probably won’t have much time to spend scraping every word in a job post.

Here is a snapshot of a few common phrases to search for in the job description (or listen for later on in the interview), according to other job seekers:

• “Travel to the office for teambuilding/meetings/training”
• “Must live in [specific city or county]”
• “Must live X miles from [office]”
• “Flexible”
• “Occasional visits”

To reiterate, a company having location requirements may not always indicate that you need to head into the office, but it’s important to have that conversation with the recruiter or interviewer.

Other possible red flags to watch out for

Be mindful of any other excuse a company might use to get you in the office:

• The equipment hook: If the company expects you to be close enough to pick up equipment in person, they might also call you in at any moment.
• The soft mandate: Some companies may not have a clearly defined WFH policy, but will make it known (during the interview or onboarding) that other employees come in 1 or 2 days a week. While not a hard and fast rule, this may be a subtle hint at the team’s cultural requirement, which may affect your team cohesion if you don’t abide by it.
• The return-to-office (RTO) trend: Some companies are beginning to issue RTO mandates requiring previously hybrid or remote workers to return to the office. Check public employee sentiment on Reddit and job board reviews, search “company name + RTO” on LinkedIn and news sites, and look for certain language in job descriptions that point to any on-site expectations (e.g., “in-office,” “hybrid,” “collaboration”).

Questions to ask the recruiter or interviewer

Ask these questions during the interview to cut through the vague language and get to the heart of the company’s expectations:

• “What is the policy for remote workers if the company issues a general RTO mandate?”
• “How many members of this specific team live outside of a 50-mile radius of the office?”
• “Is the remote status of this role written into the employment contract, or is it a discretionary policy?”
• “Is there a travel or commuting stipend for the ‘occasional’ in-person meetings mentioned?”

Contract negotiations to consider

An open conversation with the recruiter or interviewer is a good start, but you should make any agreements you have ironclad with a contract. Be sure to include specific information about the working location, compensation if an in-person visit is needed, frequency of those visits, etc.

This helps you avoid situations some job seekers face when they accept positions that seem fully remote, only to be told differently once they’re employed, like this Reddit user:

Where should you look to find true remote roles?

To find verified, flexible remote jobs in the US, use curated job boards like SideHustles.com (disclosure: this is our own job board), FlexJobs, Remote.co, and We Work Remotely, which also screen for scams.

The job market is already exhausting, with more than half (54%) of job seekers in 2026 claiming it has negatively affected their mental health, so it’s no surprise that some job seekers are overwhelmed or infuriated by the idea of these stealthy hybrid jobs. 1

If you’re at your wits’ end, there are a few things you can do:

Apply anyway

We know that applying to a misleading post reinforces the company’s bad behavior, so telling you to do it anyway is a bit of a hot take. However, if you consider yourself a high-value employee (e.g., you have more than 5 years of experience or you’re highly specialized), some advise you just apply and negotiate for more WFH time in your contract.

Companies may be willing to be a little flexible if you’re the right fit.

One Redditor reports that his company has transitioned back to an on-site work model, “but continues to hire remote candidates because ‘they’re the best candidates.’”

Of course, there’s no guarantee that you may get the job, and as one LinkedIn user notes, the company may have a WFH policy but ultimately, the individual manager may reject an employee’s request for that time away. But it’s worth a shot (especially if you can get a solid WFH policy baked into your contract).

Negotiate for a higher salary to cover your commute

If you do intend to come into the office, be sure to factor in the cost of commuting in any salary or travel stipend negotiations (and get that in writing).

Vehicle owners need to account for gas, wear-and-tear, and parking. If you don’t drive, you’ll need to calculate the cost of public transport or ride-sharing trips. These costs rack up over time and should be included in any discussions about salary and benefits so that the burden doesn’t fall solely on you as the employee.

Report the post

Job seekers are encouraging one another to report misleading “remote” job posts by using the job board’s platform’s “Report Job” feature to flag them for a wrong location or false advertising.

You can normally find this feature represented by a flag symbol somewhere on the listing.

Glassdoor’s report button is to the right of the job title.

LinkedIn’s report feature is in a dropdown menu located on the top right on the listing.

On the other hand, Indeed’s report function is at the very bottom of the listing, often below the “Explore other jobs” section:

According to remote work stats highlighted by Forbes, there’s been a slight increase in fully remote postings for high-skilled, senior roles but an overall decrease in general flexibility as companies enforce stricter RTO mandates.

More and more companies are issuing these mandates, despite on-site being the least popular working model at the moment, which means that previously hybrid or WFH employees now have to be back in office for 5 days a week.

Remote job seekers themselves are already seeing the effects with the influx of stealthy hybrid jobs.

“So many roles are listed as remote, but once you read the description, they turn out to be hybrid with an expectation that you live near a physical office,” one LinkedIn user observes. “I have even seen jobs tagged as remote that require being onsite four days a week.”

Unfortunately, there’s no surefire way to tell if a position is at risk based on the job post alone.

However, as mentioned, check employee sentiment on forums and jobs and be aware of vague legalistic language that gives companies a little wiggle room in the event that remote roles return to on-site positions, such as having a WFH policy that is “subject to change” or under “post-pandemic” policy review.

As always, it’s best to clarify with the recruiter or interviewer. Have any arrangements you make with management written into your contract.