Terms of Use — Left on Read

1. About Left on Read

Left on Read (“Left on Read,” “we,” “us”) is an open, anonymous record of job candidates’ interview experiences. Anyone can read reports, and anyone can publish one without creating an account. Reports describe things like ghosting, interviewer conduct, misleading job postings, excessive interview rounds and unpaid assignments.

Reports are written by members of the public. We do not verify them, and they reflect the views and recollections of the people who wrote them, not the views of Left on Read.

2. Accepting these terms

By using Left on Read, including reading reports, you agree to these Terms of Use and to our Privacy Policy. By publishing a report, corroborating a report or flagging a report, you also agree to the content rules in section 5. If you don’t agree, please don’t use the site.

3. Who can use the service

You must be at least 16 years old to publish, corroborate or flag a report. If you use Left on Read on behalf of an organization, you confirm that you are allowed to accept these terms for it.

4. Publishing a report

When you publish a report, you confirm that:

it describes a hiring process you took part in personally;
it is accurate and honest to the best of your knowledge, and you clearly separate facts from your opinions;
you are not posting on behalf of, or in exchange for anything of value from, the company you are reporting, a competitor of that company, or anyone else with a stake in the report;
you have the right to share everything you include.

You are responsible for what you publish. You can delete your own report at any time from the browser you published it from, using “Delete my report.”

5. Content rules

Reports and flags must not:

name, describe or otherwise identify individual recruiters, interviewers or employees, or include anyone’s personal contact details;
contain statements you know or suspect to be false, or present rumours as fact;
include confidential material, such as non-disclosure agreements, offer letters, internal documents, assessment questions you agreed to keep private, or trade secrets;
harass, threaten, demean or discriminate against anyone, or include hate speech or sexual content;
contain advertising, spam, links to unrelated sites, or attempts to manipulate a company’s statistics, including coordinated or repeated posting;
impersonate anyone or misrepresent your connection to a company;
break any law or encourage anyone else to.

6. Rights in your report

You keep ownership of what you write. By publishing, you give Left on Read a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable licence to host, store, reproduce, display, format, translate and distribute your report, and to include its details in aggregate statistics such as company ratings, ghosting rates and the ghost score. You can end this licence for the report itself by deleting it. Aggregate figures that no longer identify your report may continue to include its anonymous data.

7. Anonymity

Reports are published as “Anonymous candidate.” We don’t ask for your name, email address or any account details, and we store only limited technical information, described in the Privacy Policy.

We can’t guarantee that you won’t be recognized. A company may be able to identify you from details you include, such as the role, location, dates or a description of what happened. Leave out details you don’t want connected to you. We may disclose the limited information we hold if we are legally required to.

8. Moderation and removal

We don’t review reports before they appear. Anyone can flag a report, and we review flagged reports against these terms. We may hide, remove or decline to publish any report, corroboration or flag at our discretion, including content that we believe breaks these terms, appears to be false or coordinated, or exposes us or others to legal risk. We have no obligation to monitor content, and we may not act on every flag.

Companies cannot pay to remove, edit or reorder reports, and we don’t accept payment to influence any company’s statistics.

9. Companies and disputes

If you represent a company and believe a report breaks these terms, for example because it names an individual or contains false statements of fact, use “Flag report” on that report and explain why in the details box. We’ll review it. We don’t decide factual disputes between candidates and employers, but we will remove content that we determine breaks these terms.

Flagging is also the way for anyone to raise concerns about privacy, defamation or other legal issues in a specific report.

10. Using the site responsibly

You agree not to:

submit content automatically, in bulk, or in a way designed to get around rate limits or other safeguards;
scrape or copy the site in a way that places an unreasonable load on it, or republish reports in bulk without permission;
try to identify the people who wrote reports;
probe, attack, interfere with or gain unauthorized access to the site, its servers or the owner dashboard;
use the site to break any law.

We may block access from any device or network that we believe is doing any of these things.

11. Statistics and scores

Ratings, ghosting rates, the ghost score and other figures are calculated automatically from unverified reports, as described in the methodology. They summarize what candidates have reported. They are not statements of fact about any company, are not a measure of whether a company is a good employer, and may be based on very few reports. Use them as one input among many.

12. Ghost Clock

The Ghost Clock and its follow-up email template are provided for your convenience. Ghost Clock entries are stored only in your browser. We don’t receive them and can’t recover them if they are lost.

13. Disclaimers

Left on Read is provided “as is” and “as available.” To the fullest extent the law allows, we make no warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of accuracy, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. We don’t guarantee that the site will be available, uninterrupted or error-free, or that any report is accurate or complete. Nothing on the site is legal, employment, financial or career advice.

14. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Left on Read and the people who operate it will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, opportunities or goodwill, arising out of or related to your use of the site or any content on it, including reports written by others. Our total liability for any claim relating to the site is limited to one hundred US dollars (US$100). Some jurisdictions don’t allow certain limitations, so some of these may not apply to you.

15. Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Left on Read and the people who operate it from any claims, losses, liabilities and expenses, including reasonable legal fees, arising out of content you publish or your breach of these terms.

16. Changes and termination

We may change these terms. When we do, we’ll update the date at the top of this page. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated terms. We may change, suspend or discontinue any part of the site at any time.

17. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute relating to these terms or the site will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Illinois, unless the law where you live requires otherwise. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect.

18. Contact

Dedicated contact details will be added to this page. Until then, please use “Flag report” on the relevant report to raise any concern about content on Left on Read.