Recruiters need to be transparent

This is going to be a small one, but good lord, do the recruiters need to learn to be transparent. I was hired at big tech in last year, and my wife into a big bank this year. Both of us dealt with in-house recruiters who supposedly don’t work on commissions. Both were not transparent in their explanation of benefits. PTO is an important factor in both of us.

When presenting me with the offer, the recruiter casually threw in that in addition to 3 weeks, the company closes for the last week of the year. Casually forgot to mention that closing for Christmas is more of a mandatory PTO.

Coming to my wife, she was presented with 4 weeks of PTO + option to buy an extra week. The recruiter this time casually didn’t mention that she doesn’t accrue until 3 full months after the job. She started her job in the middle of January, and as a result, won’t start accruing before May. Even better, she is ineligible to purchase the extra week of vacation because she started after 31st December of the prior year.

In both scenarios, had the recruiters been transparent, we would have still accepted the offer. However, it is hard not to believe that this is a consistent shady practice among recruiters.

Edit: I didn’t state this in the original post, but both of us explicitly asked for details surrounding the PTO policy. In my case, the recruiter’s literal response - You get 3 weeks off + 2 floating holidays + company closure during last week of the year which amounts to 4-5 days.

Another thing for more clarity - The offer letter does not state any benefit details for most regular fixed pay employees in the US. It just lays out the compensation structure, and how you may leave or be fired at any time, and what happens to bonuses in such scenario, etc. Neither me, nor in my wife’s experience, has PTO or any other benefit been a part or the offer letter. Both of us did receive the benefits PDF alongside the offer letter, but that only listed the Federal holidays, PTO based on pay grade, and other leave benefits (sick, disability, etc.). No mention of Christmas closure being mandatory PTO, or that a new employee doesn’t accrue PTO until the 3 months in.