Slashdot Mirror
Non Disclosure Agreements in Interviews?
Rick asks: "I am interviewing for the first time in about 5 years. I have been asked by more than one prospective employer to sign a non-disclosure agreement for the interview. I have a problem with this as I don't feel they should be providing any sensitive information. Signing an NDA might make it more difficult to get employment elsewhere as another company working on the same product could be sued because they put me to work on it. I had two interviews where the NDA was requested. One had no problem and simply did not discuss their sensitive information. The other had no flexibility at all." I've always thought that the interview is where an employer and a potential employee feel each other out. If you ask for someone with a certain skill set and experience level, there should be a way to do this in an abstract manner and without revealing any details about project specifics (and unnecessary NDAs). Why has this changed?
"I asked that the NDA be amended to provide to me a list of the sensitive information that was covered during the interview. This was agreeded to by the first interviewer (in the lobby) and we began. About the time I met the fourth interviewer I was greeted by a small group of people from HR and the director of engineering who terminated the interview and escorted me out of the building. What experiences have others had in relation to the NDA for an interview? How do you handle this sort of thing?"
I interviewed three years ago with a major company. One that is at ther very core of the electronics industry. I did not have to sign an NDA. The interesting thing though was, as you pointed out, I was shown some sensitive information. In fact, one of the interviewers had me work with him on debugging a piece of live code that he had found had a problem the day befor. Not only did this give him a very accurate look at my technical abilities, it also allowed him to judge my ability to work with a team to solve problems. The bug in the code was also one that is peculiar to the feild of programing I am involved with.
Y'know how every fifth post here has IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer) in it? This is a classic example of why professionals [ie. not just geeks] need basic legal skills as part of their repertoire.
There's a legal principle on the table here, and since I'm just a geek layman I'll mention it in English: When two parties agree to be bound by a contract it must be a "two-way street". This means that Party A can't force Party B to be bound by one or more restrictions without delivering some sort of compensation. ie. "In exchannge for keeping said confidential information secret EMPLOYEE shall be entitled to park in the Really Nice, Covered Parking Structure." Or the company can stipulate contracts as a condition of employment, in which case there is an implicit compensation, such as salary. ie. "You get to work here at $123,456/year if you sign this."
That's the obvious part. What people forget is that contracts can be broken, and not just by employees fleeing with the crown infojewels. In the above case the ISP stopped compensating the engineer for being bound by that NDA. Ah ha! you say. He's off the hook, right? Well... He would be, if had gotten a lawyer involved and negotiated fair language into that contract. The fact that it turned ugly tells me he didn't.
Now, I don't mean to seem critical of scoove's posting, but readers need to be aware that in cases like this, not only can you get screwed (and hence need to protect yourself), you can dodge bullets like this well in advance by inserting simple and direct clauses into these contracts. A few meager lines of "This agreement shall be void if EMPLOEYR fails to pay EMPLOYEE in a timely fashion [etc, etc]" would have given the poor engineer a much less painful escape. The take-home lesson is that scoove's story shouldn't just scare readers into into avoiding NDAs like the plague, it should remind them that they really do need legal expertise when negotiating contracts. All of the other ideas above ("lifetime employment", escro accounts, pre-authorized legal expense reimbursal, etc) are good and useful, but don't think that you're going to properly armor yourself in your next interview just because you jotted down some notes from Slashdot. This is the kind of work that lawyers do awn awful lot better than geeks.
Think of it as investing in your financial future. And do try to get their HR department to pay for it. 8-)
This is where the rampant corporatism is taking us: serfdom. What is expected from an applicant is unquestioning, unconditional and undying loyality to the corporation and its cause. In order to get a job, you have to sell your body, soul and time to the corporate demon.
Man, last time I interviewed at Burger King they made me sign an NDA too. Their SECRET SAUCE is, well, you know a secret...
A.C.
P.S> it's not thousand island btw...
That's an interesting take. Being a lawyer I would love to correct you but, unfortunately, I cant figure out how to email you.
I recently left an employer for who's ethical practices I could not accept. At the time they were trying to sue an employee three years after he left the company based on an employment agreement in which he could not work in any "related" industry for 5 years after leaving without expressed permission of the company.
This did get thrown out by a judge (thankfully we don't have an employment version of UCITA...yet...that could make these kinds of rediculous things enforcabable). As I was fully present at the time this issue came up inside the company, I know directly it was entirely because of a personal pique that one manager had, and mearly used this as her means of exacting "vengence" and I would certainly have testified as such if the matter had gone any further.
Now you might ask, what did this highly valued and specially skilled employee do that made him and his knowlege so critical that it could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands of any competitor or be exercised by him for five years lest the free market might collapse..? You can say this slowly...he was a...telephone technician.
I did take the time to write each and every member of the board personally (this was held in ownership by a public company) about both this matter, some other issues of ethical misconduct, and my own departure. One might say I didn't just
burn the bridge, but chopped it down and mined the gap. But this ultimately demonstrates the flaw and
problem with corporatism; there is no individual
accountability.
While the person (technician) had to go into court and hire a lawyer to protect himself against a
groundless suit, the manager instigating this
saw nither any responsibility for the matter nor
any consequences for taking her action, even though she basically used the company to settle
a personal vendetta. In fact, as far as I last have heard, she still enjoys her salery and position in that company. No individual consequences means rediculous actions might be
taken that would otherwise be restrained otherwise. This, then, is where the corporate ethic truelly fails.
It's funny how capitalists protest restrictions on the flow of goods, but they are always trying to restrict labor.
Please. Its not exactly a secret that British youth are just fodder for the poofter peers. Research in American companies is an entirely different matter it brought you one click e-shopping. Show some gratitude, damnit.
If I remember correctly, a master F1 designer Adrian Newey got into legal trouble after terminating his contract with Williams team and moving to McLaren. Williams' claim was that Newey was taking inside information to a competing team. Sure, but how could he ever move to another team if his technical skills were considered "inside information"?
Last January, I Was asked to give over my SIN to my prospective employer, prior to the interview, to do a mandatory "typical credit check".
This company happened to be a little shit place, and of course, not wanting to dissapoint my potential employers (before I really knew what the job involved), I signed and agreed. I ended up not taking that job, and now realize that these fuckers have all my credit information.
Another company I interviewed at, did not require me to do anything out of the ordinary during the interview stage. No credit checks, no NDAs. The only requirement that was infringing on one privacy was a typical physical including a piss (drug) test. I was told that even if I were to be labelled as 'positive' on the drug test, that my candidature would not be denied, but that they would "help me work it out" (whether this is actually true or not, I don't know).
It so happens that I smoked up the weekend before the test, and I still passed. Go figure.
OH yeah, and I am now working for this company, which is so much more grand than the previous one.
Basically, if anyone requests too much information (NDAs, credit checks) before a *basic* interview, don't even bother, and let them know why.
Privacy is on the endangered species list. Let's make sure it doesn't dissapear.
peace.
This was covered on comp.arch.embedded recently: One common comment was to ask if engineering jobs are so hard to get that you really need to go through this?
Look here
my last employer hit me with an non-disclosure/non-solicitation/non-compete agreement after 2 years of loyal service, during which time i had turned DOWN 2 of their customers who offered me work on the side. so much for good will.
:/
i ultimately quit, as they would not budge, which was REALLY stupid on their part because they kept telling me how much they (and their customers) liked me and i KNOW they made money off of me.
to top it off, after i quit they tried to pay me final wages slow (over several months). i was forced to file a claim with the dept of labor.
and that doesn't even complete the story, but needless to say the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth about NDA's and such.
i'm self-employed right now and i hope to never work for anyone but myself again
I've been told that there are sometimes people going to an interview only to get sensitive information for competitors.
I find hard to beleive that a NDA is going to stop this, but maybe this is required by investor to protect their assets in the company.
I feel all this crapy american legal stuff stupid. It will never stop the big bad guys to play badly. It only harms the little ones.
Btw, I would refuse to sign an NDA to get an interview.
Cheers,
--fred
Not too long ago I interviewed with one company where I was told that the suits IN the company weren't so concerned about the NDA, but that their Venture Capital sources required it. I imagine this might be a common situation: VCs probably put a boilerplate require-an-NDA-from-everyone clause into their agreements to protect their investment.
--
--
All material not otherwise attributed is the opinion of the author or a typo.
(I know I will end up somewhere on the bottom of the line of people crying "outrage", but I can not help it.)
Since I work for an free-software company, I'm not fond of NDA-s at all, but I can kind-of understand the "need" for these bestias. You work for a company, they pay you, and they do not want you to run away and produce their next product for the concurence. Fair enough...
However, signing a NDA withouth getting ANYTHING in return (are interviews considered "precious" nowdays?) is one of the most stupendeous ideas I ever heard about.
Also, considering the amount of stupid PATENTS one sees nowdays, I can imagine what kind of common-knowledge informations could a paranoid company consider "propriatery"... Brr, I do not even want to think about it.
Hey, that's an idea! But somewhere in my head suspicion grows that this is exactly the way some big software companies develop their buggy software. Maybe they even have patent on it as a "business method", someyhing like "Means and method to recruit unpaid workforce and make them solve our problems without even knowing they work for us".
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
> Never attribute to malice that which can be
> explained by simple incompitence.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Is this deliberate for the self-referentiality? Or just embarrassing?
Buy Text Processing in Python
During my last interview I was asked to sign an NDA. I don't see any problem with it.
The company ( which I am now a member ) has a very unique hiring process that I cannot discuss, but I think giving out the kind of information about thier company ( ie. financials, clients etc ) was important in my decision process.
I'm sick of interviewing for an hour or two and coming away from a company not really knowing how it worked. You have the skillset they want, they make themselves look as good as possible, but when all is said and done you don't have much of a clue about them.
When I left this interview I knew almost as much as I could, as an interviewee, about the company and it helped my decision process.
I didn't see anything in the NDA about working on project similar. It would be impossible to enforce anyway.
======== In the future, everything will be artificial. ========
must disclose all that information in their quaterly reports.
I'm afraid I disagree. Even with publicly traded companies, interviewers often need to provide details of non-public product plans or types of customers in order to explain the sort of job actually being offered.
NDAs seem like a reasonable preventative there, assuming that they're well-written, IMHO.
--j
I'm a nature photographer.
On the contrary. Where I work, the interviewee being excited about what we're doing behind the scenes, "getting" the value and the point of it, is a real indication of whether we want to hire them. It is perfectly reasonable for a company to want to disclose secrets to interviewees to get their reaction, and still maintain a desire to not have that information given to their competitors.
Again, this is w/regard to NDAs in general for interviewees. There are bad ones, good ones, I've signed some I probably could've avoided signing because both the intent of the interviewers and the wording of the agreement were clear and reasonable, I've turned down signing some that were (to my mind) unreasonable. I run into a lot more of the former than the latter, your mileage may vary.
--j
I'm a nature photographer.
My company released a new handbook. That we had to sign a piece of paper that said we read it and understood it. Well it was a 10 minute meeting and you didn't have time to read it when they wanted you to sign that piece of paper.
Actually, since it sounds like you'd have witnesses to how that document was signed, you'd have an excellent case that the contract was invalid. Of course, IANAL.
--j
I'm a nature photographer.
The "quiet period" is in relation to the companies finances, not its products.
This has been pointed out about a million times.....
I don't know about cars as signing bonuses, but I do know of at least one company in the SF Bay area that will give a car to any employee who stays for 2 years. Kinda tells you something about thier turnover rate, eh?
--
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
Wow. You've completely destroyed my mental image of the Kit-Kat line consisting solely of two giant vats labeled "Kit" and "Kat."
I hate it when drug testing is being advocated by the old, but still false, "if you don't do drugs, you've got no reason not to take a drug test"-argument. I mean, what can you say to that?
I would tell them that it's none of their fscking business what I do on my own time. They pay me to get a job done. I get it done. On time and under budget. I'll follow their rules at the workplace (or quit) but their power over me stops as soon as I walk out the door.
I have a privilege of living in a small country where the public opinion is so much for drug testing at workplace and at school that I wouldn't be suprised if drug testing would become mandatory by law.
Thankfully they can't do that to us here yet (TX, US). But the fight is far from over.
Well, the NDA may or may not be reasonable. If it's the first interview, it seems odd to me. At a first interview, the company and individual should be evaluating the other in general. The company wants to know what you understand and what you've done, and perhaps if you seem like you'd fit into their corporate culture. The individual wants to know the general job description (for programming, something along the lines of the language(s) to be used, platform, etc), what it's like to work there, etc.
There's a lot that can be said without disclosing trade secrets in the initial interview. If, after that, the company and individual want to learn more about each other, and sensitive info may be disclosed, *then* it may make sense. But to have a blanket NDA at the start of an initial interview seems to be asking an awful lot of the interviewee, since he/she doesn't even know the general scope of what may be disclosed. Thus even interviewing with a competitor might put one at legal risk (or maybe it wouldn't, but there's a lot of expense to hire the lawyer to find out, and if you don't hire one then the threat of a lawsuit hanging over your head really sucks).
På inglisch, inte "and I who thought...".
Nå, tur du läser dina svar, så ser du det här.
Christian R. Conrad
My ISP is the Saunalahti company, of Finland.
Christian R. Conrad
mail me at iki.fi ; same user ID as here
This is a cute scenario, but does it have any basis in reality?
I was quite concerned the first time I had an NDA/non-compete shoved at me. I asked my father about it, because he's a lawyer, and he said they're rarely enforced. I don't know how current his information on that is, though, as that area of law is not his specialty.
Any actual corporate lawyers around here, or is that too much to hope for?
--
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
A record of all of it is the best idea I've heard.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I can pretend to be a cop by walking around in uniform. I cannot arrest anyone or act in any offical capacity, or say I'm a cop except to people I know already know I'm not. (Think TV shows here.) Likewise, I can pretend to be a lawyer by walking around in a suit, having people introduce me as a lawyer, and handing out business cards. I cannot actually do any law work, though, or even give off-handed legal advice.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I might be willing to sign a non-disclosure as part of an interview, but I'd be damned if they'd get me to sign a non-compete agreement. This is an unconscionable arrangement, and if the prospective employer ever did bring a lawsuit because I opted to work in a related capacity for someone else, I'd hope that the judge and/or jury would see it for the foolishness that it is - AND impose hefty sanctions for attempting it in the first place.
NDA's are very specific. You're probably thinking of a non-compete agreement, and even in the worst case, those generally expire after a year, and only prevent you from working with direct competitors doing the same job. You couldn't be product manager of company A and turn around and quit only to become prodcut manager of company B which produces clones of company A's products. You could, generally, become CTO or get an HR related position, though, since the experience you had at your previous position would have little relevance...
Well, maybe you'd like to gauge thier interest in what they'll actually be doing. I known companies that will take a slightly less qualified candidate over a more qualified one based on the fact that the less qualified one expresses a lot more interest in what they'll actually be doing.
besides that, I wouldnt' wanto to work for a company unless I knew in detail what my responsibilities and work environment would be. If that means signing an NDA, fine by me.
I would think you'd have to pass a certain portion of the preliminary interview before the company would start passing sensitive information to you. It would be at *THAT* point that an NDA would be warranted. But it's one of those blanket matter-of-course things now, much like some of the silliness contained in the ubiquitous EULAs that come attached to software. It's become a knee-jerk, "just in case," reflex.
NDA. EULA. Sheesh. As if we didn't have enough geek acronyms to begin with. Do we have to start collecting the legal ones too? :^)
--- [DrPsycho] Coping with reality since 1975.
-DrPsycho - Coping with reality since 1975
That makes a little sense for a privately traded company, but publicly trading companies, even eBay, must disclose all that information in their quaterly reports.
And searching harder, it seems obvious to me that customers should know your incompetence or intelligence.
I might buy form you only if you lie to me, because I can't "handle" the truth, which paints you in such a stupid light.
Some people here are getting the two confused. At least the NDA's I have signed only said that I couldn't reveal any "secrets" that I learned while there. It did not say that I couldn't work for their competitors for a certain length of time. In the interview process, being asked to sign the former doesn't seem that unreasonable to me.
That's why we have innocent until proven guilty in the United States at least. You don't have to prove that you didn't break the contract, they have to prove that you did.
That's also why there are separate non-compete agreements.
A nice idea, but let me tell you from experience what really happens..
The company plops down a NDA that is clearly outrageous, and contains clauses that no judge would uphold.. you, and perhaps even quite a few other programmers refuse to sign it, as a matter of principle... Outcome? You and all the others who refuse are summarily fired for "not being a team player" and being a "discipline problem", and the company hires a whole crop of newly graduated Chinese and Indian CS majors to replace you.
Just another reason why we need a union..
Praise the Force Field! Praise the Laser Project! Slackware Loon #19830573
I'm sorry, which part was incorrect?
And no, I am not a lawyer, and if I were, that shouldn't be construed as advice.
But practicing law without a licence is a crime, and it's perpetrating a fraud on the other party, so I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about. You point to nothing, but make vague insulting statements. "Do a bit more studying" does not answer as a retort, merely as an unfounded reply.
Maybe you know something I don't, and hey, that's fine with me. I'm new at this, and was flying off the handle. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong. Have you got an argument, or just a feeling that I can't possibly be right?
I concede that I may be wrong, but the onus is on you to show me how.
Wow, while that's funny advice, it's also mind numbingly stupid.
And in fact, it may be a crime - Fraud. "Mate in a suit" as lawyer, you've perpetrated a fraud on the company upon which they have relied, and if something goes wrong, you're screwed.
My first instict is to say this is an ideal way to eliminate potental employees for a compleating company from the market....
But my second thought on the matter is it's more likely someone uptop has some really hairbrained ideas about how things should be done.
But my third thought is that if your going for an interview for a sinster dark corpration that no one yet knows what they do then they need you to sign an NDA against anything you may learn.
If you are really valuable then that NDA is so they can sell you on the job.
Linus did explain that he signed an NDA with Transmedia before the interview... They were selling him on working there... they knew he had other offers to consider... The other offers probably asked for NDAs as well...
I've never been asked to sign an NDA before an interview. I was asked to take a blood test once. But I'm not valuable. I'm not specal. If anyone trys to sell ME on working for them thats when I go looking elsewhere becouse thats the first sign they are going under.. when they say they need MY skills..
Oh yeah I refused the blood test... they showed me the door..
I don't actually exist.
Having just gone through the job hunting stage for the first time in 4 years I can empathize with the author...but....I would have simply refused to interview in the first place had an NDA or the like been requested. I've signed quite a few NDA's and Non-Compete clauses for the last 2 companies I worked for but I darn sure would not have signed them before employment. Prior to employment there is zero incentive for me to give up any of my rights so why should I?
Bugs Bunny was right.
My company released a new handbook. That we had to sign a piece of paper that said we read it and understood it. Well it was a 10 minute meeting and you didn't have time to read it when they wanted you to sign that piece of paper.
After sign and reading there was a paragraph that said that you have to leave company trade secrets behind. Then it gave examples, one was "Know How".
So any experance you got there you have to leave it with the company.
So I quit.
atto
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Did they tell you anything that they need to keep a secret during the interview? If they didn't, then there was no reason for a NDA. If a 'commercial entity' needs to tell the potential employees something about the new secret product they are developing to find out if the person will want to work there, then there is a reason for a NDA.
It is not a question about how much secrect information the company has access to, it is a question about how much they need to tell you during the interview.
Phobos - Greek word for fear or flight
Not uncommon at all in the Biotech/Pharm areas. And while it is not formalized in the basic science research field, there is a tacit understanding of what shouldn't leave the lab. As long as you do what you feel is morally/ethically corect, then lawsuits shouldn't be a problem in the future (although I guess that depends on your starting point)..
A couple of times I've had to re-invent the wheel because of some proprietary/new technique which wasn't known outside of that lab. It can be a slippery slope, so be cognizent of what you carry over to the next job.
..........FULL STOP.
It's a very tight labor market out there. If you're a highly qualified techie, and the company is reasonably convinced they want you, they've frequently got to sell you on the business/project. If you're getting stock options, you should care a great deal about what the business idea is, and how they're going to make money on it. If you're just looking for a cool project to work on, they've got to sell you on that, but they don't want their competitors to finding out.
David Corbin Promote Freedom - American Liberty Foundation
You just being paranoid. I've signed plenty of NDA's and then not taken the job. Many high tech companies, and almost all ".com" companies will want you to sign a NDA for an interview. If the interview is going well at all, they will want to talk to you about the company, what it does, where it's going, what kind of project or projects they expect to be initially using you for, etc.
:-)
Now days most companies will also tell you quite a bit about their financing situation too. I thought that was a bit strange at first, but I found out that a lot of job applicants ask about that. Everyone seems to what to know when the bit IPO cash out is going to be! (don't get me started on how fucked up that is).
Anyway, don't sweat it. IANAL, but I'm quite certain there is nothing in those NDA's that could keep you from working for a competitor. They just don't want you running out of the interview and telling everyone on Slashdot what their up too!!!!
BTW. If your really worried, I'm certain you *could* ask a lawyer what the impact of signing an NDA in an interview would be.
Ah, but in this market there is no such thing as a second interview for a qualified candidate. (S)He either gets the offer or not. Those who *might* be good enough get called back for the second interview.
But if you shine in the first interview, the job is yours.
--jdp Maintainer of VisEmacs
It was not a pen-base interface that was unique. They had several competitors developing similar products. The implementation was unique though. They were the first (they said) to use a digital camera and digital signal processing to parse text. Or perhaps not the first, but the first to miniaturize it and make it commercially available. Other products used other techniques, which I guess are more similar to photocopying or something. I think they had valid reasons to be secret about this. And at least for me it worked. I told friends I went to this interview, but I did not tell anyone about what they did. 6 months to a year later, when the product was official I could of course tell them.
Hmm, but don't you agree that the more openly you can talk about a job the easier it is to decide if this is something you want to do? I mean, you will spend quite some time on your job. I don't think that I would get anything out of talking with them if I did not know what product I would help develop. At least in my case it was easy to sign the NDA, I did not see it could be used against me as there were no competing companies around that I also wanted to apply for. I don't know if this is a cultural or legal difference, I live in Sweden and I have never heard about a case here when a NDA were used against you during these circumstances. They probably exist, but are very rare. I think it is more an issue about showing how serious they are when they ask the applicant to keep quiet.
<p>
But to be honest I should also say that I am more into software engineering and did not think that this was really my field, so the risk was even smaller. I did not take the job btw.
I know the company I worked for used to do this. We were working on a software product that related to a particular industry. Because we were small and thought we had a fantastic idea, we didn't want it broadcast what we were working on until it was ready for fear of being scooped by a bigger corporation with more coders, etc.
...
Because we wanted to be able to explain the project to perspective new employees, we would ask them to sign a NDA in regards to what we were working on.
I guess I don't understand the big deal?
Granted, we were not sue happy folks
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Light him on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life
I agree this is silly and annoying. Being on the other side right now, though, I understand why this needs to happen.
I am currently involved with a new startup. We have several talented and irreplaceable people, we have other assets, but a lot of what we are is our ideas. A important part of what we are is having these ideas months before anyone else.
The danger with interviewing someone is that we don't want to just gauge their skills...we wouldn't be interviewing them at all if we didn't think they were talented. It's a 'buyers market' out there right now, and the point of the interview is to get them excited about what it is we're doing. So, we want to be able to provide confidential information. If we don't ask the interviewee to sign an NDA, there's the very real danger of losing a strategic advantage, our ideas.
On the other hand, I admit that being asked to sign an NDA is annoying. It's like a shink-wrap license...you're agreeing to something, and you're not quite sure what until after you've agreed to it. Additionally, it creates a perceived lack of trust...we try to avoid that by intentionally making it a routine matter. If everyone does it all the time, there's less reason to feel insulted.
I'm actively involved in hiring people. Sometimes they object to the NDA, in which case we try to say as much as we can, and then give them another opportunity to sign if they're very interested. If it's someone that we know and respect, we'll often let them give us their word to protect what we feel is proprietary information. I wish I could do that for everyone, but modern American society puts very little value on honor and integrity.
My advice: Don't take it personally. The people on the other side probably don't like it either. And when you're in a position to do something different, do what you can to change the situation.
--Jered
In civil court, the legal standard is "preponderance of the evidence" rather than "beyond a reasonable doubt."
In essence, if they have evidence that you broke the NDA, you DO effectively have to prove your innocence.
Most people here are NOT confusing NDA's and non-competes. They are worried that if they chose to go to a competitor instead, they become the target or conduit for legal issues between the themselves or the two companies.
Company A makes widgets. You interview with them under NDA, but go to company B instead. A month later, company B starts making their own widgets (which has nothing to do with you). Company A can put you through the legal blender claiming you violated your NDA.
It was at the final phase of hiring -- after 2 initial phone interviews, I was invited to a weekend long hiring event. When at the hiring event, I was asked to sign an NDA, but it was to protect mainly two things -- at the event, the company discusses financial matters which pertain to the company -- they talk about how much money they're making/have made per quarter since the company's inception. The other thing that they want to try to protect is the hiring event process itself -- they feel it's so unique in the industry that they don't want others trying to do something similar. I must say, the event was very cool, and I did end up coming to the company, who I'm currently still with. But if I didn't, nothing that their NDA protected could have been accidentally asked about by another company when I interview somewhere else.
---
In our company we are in pre-announce mode and require NDAs before we talk to anyone (prospective employees, partners, vendors). No one has ever had any problems with it.
When I graduated from college, there were a couple of "search firms" who told me directly, "We don't do entry-level, but please call us when you have more experience." I didn't like that answer, but at least they had the courtesy to be forthright about what they wouldn't do.
But this was because the company was trying to sell themselves to me and wanted to tell me which contracts they had etc. They couldn't have told me this if I wasn't under NDA and I'd have to sign one if I took the job so I was happy to sign it in the interview.
They were however perfectly happy for me not to sign it -- they just wouldn't have told me some of the stuff that they did.
That's just silly. Excessively broad patents need not concern applicants or employees. If challenged by enforcement of an NDA or Non-Comp, the company loses big when their patent is invalidated (it never should have been granted in the first place). They might drop the cash for a suit with some multi-billion dollar competitor, but they're not risking it because Joe Interviewee start working with ones and zeros at some other company.
Let me guess - you're in St. Louis?? Doesn't matter if you have a B.S. or M.S. in Computer science, they want to slot you in a visual basic job here. It's impossiable to find C++ jobs here.
I realize this is late, but I had posted this question to the Ask the Headhunter board at the Motley Fool site. (Here's the thread). I also noticed today that it made the front page of his primary WWW site. Basically, he agreed with a number of other people - be careful. I thought others here might be interested in knowing what a headhunter thought about this.
That'd be "consideration".
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Now, I just hope that nobody's reading this that was interviewed but not NDA'd... ;-)
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Actually, I worked at the same company and while not under the noncompete provision, I ended up dealing with attorneys for way too long afterwards (at my expense, of course!). Too many folks go into companies thinking everything will work out well - only to end up paying thousands of dollars to a lawyer later on. I guess the lesson I walked away with is that everything is negotiable (including NDAs, noncompetes) and the more valuable you are to a company, the better your negotiating position.
I told the last company I'm at to not even think about a noncompete - they can't afford it. After the little HR dweeb got done ranting (only to be ignored by senior managers who apparently had a similar attitude as mine towards noncompetes), the matter got dropped.
So, to the previous poster who made the observation that failing to sign an NDA would result in one being shuffled into a trivial, low responsibility position, my experience has been the opposite. The only ones who signed the NDAs at my current employer are the clerical and lower-ranking technical people who didn't know better.
Now what we need is an open source NDA that says things like:
Then we can hand out the open source NDA or simply refer to it on the website. "Cost of doing business, Mr. Employer." (BTW, I own a small business on the side that has several full time and part time technical employees and still would be satisfied with such an agreement; but then, your stuffy Fortune 50 with armies of HR and legal drones might balk).
*scoove*
A lifetime employment clause is a good idea, except it leaves the employee's financial dependence upon the viability of the employer.
I had one network engineer friend who was under a noncompete with an Omaha ISP. He got let go when the company blew apart (thanks to a merchant banker that stole both the investment money and the company's assets) but was warned by company attorneys over the next year that he'd be sued if he violated his noncompete terms. His contract specified that he'd be paid for the duration of his noncompete except for commission of a felony leading to his non-employment, but since the company had no money to pay, he was stuck in a non-paying, non-compete.
Since he had brought a suit against the company for payment of the money he was owed (payroll for the noncompete period plus his last two paychecks which were reported to IRS as payroll but never given, plus expenses), he couldn't go get employed or end up breaking the contract and his claim to the money. Took him about a year to wade through the muck.
Lesson learned: Companies that want noncompetes and NDAs that extend post-employment must prepay up front into an escrow account that is yours unless they can prove you were terminated for committing a felony (which is pretty easy: is there a conviction on record? no? fork over the money, bank!).
*scoove*
every company i interviewed with while job hunting (earlier this year) involved two interviews, although in a couple of cases the first interview was a phone interview
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I interviewed with a company, which also required an NDA. During the interview they asked me about some of my experence. I explained some of the things I had done in the past, and they said "Really? That's what we're doing."
So, I asked about the NDA. What was the need for it? Well, it was required to have people sign it to impress would be investors, or for an IPO.
I was offered, but did not take the job.
-- James Dornan -- Teaching plants to grow, and take over!
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Intel is gaining a rep for being especially litigious wrt to former employees leaving for work at other companies. Particularly in the field of vlsi design. In some ways this kind of approach can back-fire, if an engineer thinks he'll be locked into working for Intel (until they lay him off, that is), he may just avoid Intel in the first place.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Regarding the "impossibility" of hiding stuff in the building, any company that feels the need to keep things secure better have a method of "sterlizing" the corporate workplace so that things are safe when JQ Prospective Investor comes for a tour, or someone else comes in.
I mean, they do this all of the time at Fort Mead (NSA). It's just a simple matter of knowing what areas are cool for normal people to walk through, and where they can't.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
http://www.donarmstrong.com
So, bring a doberman in a tie.
God damn w2k bsod'ed on me just as I was about to check the Post Anonymously box. Well, screw you, Redmond - I'm about to put them yggdrasil diskettes to good use!
Probably, but I'm not sure you might need a reason to need it. Companies doing defense contracting pay the government a fee to cover the cost of the FBI investigation needed to approve a security clearance. I believe it runs to around $30,000 or so (maybe up to $60,000) I'm sure a company would let you pay your own way (but why would you want to?).
Even if you get a clearance all it means is that people can talk to you about secure projects and give access to secure files and areas, you don't just get access to everything. However it does improve your hiring prospects when a company can hire you without having to pay for your clearance, and some people will get a job at one of the national labs (LANL for example) to get a clearance so that they can get work with better pay at a contractor or consulting firm working for those lbs or the gov't.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
Yes I guess the part I don't quite get is why it was necessary in a job interview to tell you this information. The skills needed for both implemetations are optics and signal processing so all they really needed to reveal was they were working on a pen based interface and investigated your knowledge of optics and signal processing. If they needed to be more specific than that because of questions you had, then they could ask you to sign an NDA and tell you that the more specific information you wanted is critical to their business and they need to protect it. However if you are already interested in this field the general information seems to be enough to decide, unless you were a real hotshot and knew the flaws of the other designs and wanted to make sure they weren't going that route (although this is information you can give them before signing the NDA and they can just tell you that, no they were going with different technology, and can tell you but you need to sign an NDA.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
And this is a prime example of a company thinking they are the only ones to ever think of an idea which has been discussed in other places in this thread.
Pen based interfaces were being thought about ~5 or more years ago ( Read chapter 6 and note this was written and on the web in 1995) admittedly the company developing the C-pen might not have wanted anyone to know its particular implementation of a pen based interface. However, their idea was hardly unique and they could have discussed that they were developing a pen based computing interface, and not discussed the specific implemetation they were designing.
OTOH maybe they didn't want anyone to know anything about what they were doing, but keeping that kind of secret is extrodinarily difficult even with NDA's, people want to talk to friends etc. about what they are doing. It might not end up in the hands of a competitor, but it probably will if the competitor is actively seeking information.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
hmm... Well yes it would seem to imply that... I've seen companies promise $500 signing bonuses (after 3 months) then make sure your gone before you can try to collect (and it just so happens they then don't have to pay for benefits either, gee aren't they lucky?)... Companies with high turnover suck...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Damn companies give away cars as signing bonuses now? I really live in the wrong part of the country...
But on a more serious note I actually did try to help someone starting a tech union a year or 2 ago... Especially where I live it makes alot of sense...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
There's discussion of this topic in comp.arch.fpga too.
An NDA signed for an interview tends to be intended to protect the information that the company is working on a project at all. This doesn't proclude you from working for another company on the same type of project (as the lead poster is concerned about).
It just means if you take another job you can't say 'oh, we're making widgets? CompanyX just interviewed me because they're doing the same thing!'.
Martin
Scott Adams knows this trick, too. See the DILBERT cartoon for Monday, August 21.
(This may be a more common tactic than I thought.)
"The barbarians are no longer at your gates, they are eating off your best china!"
I have signed similar things before, but I never really thought it was a big deal. I think this sort of thing is largely to make sure that, if one of the interviewers accidentally lets something slip, that there is some recourse if you deflate their hype machine.
:-)
Who am I going to tell though? How much important information could I pick up in a couple of hours that isn't already publicly known or speculated upon? (The amount will vary by company, of course.)
OK, maybe I could have stolen one-click shopping.
sig fault
What seems to make sense to me is that you have the option of signing the NDA and then get the added info.
Like:
"This is how much we can tell you, but if you would like to sign our NDA, I can tell you more about the position."
That does make sense right?
Right?
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
A Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is NOT a non-compete agreement. One says you won't say what you learned. One says you won't work for a compteting company for X amount of time.
A NDA presented during the interview is a clear sign that:
1) The company has little future because the "model" they are attempting to protect is tenuous at best. It is so obvious that they must "legally" protect themselves from intelligent people.
2) The company does not trust prospective employees and probably does not trust employees in general.
3) If you need an NDA for an interview, just imagine what you will be required to sign upon an offer of employment.
4) You are seriously shortchanging your career if you sign such an agreement. No repectable employer would require such a document in an interview. Look for years of possible litigation.
I have been CEO of a technology company for five years and CIO of a current company for almost a year. I would never think of asking a prospective employee to sign an NDA. Employees are intelligent and must be trusted. NDAs are simply excuses for poor business models -- and believe me, there are plenty of poor models out there. I would seriously consider NOT interviewing if the company produces an NDA. If you must interview, tell the emplkoyer that you will have your attorney review the NDA. ALSO, HAVE YOUR ATTORNEY DRAFT YOUR OWN AGREEMENT PROTECTING YOU FROM EMPLOPYERS RIPPING OFF YOUR PRIOR EXPERIENCE. This is becoming more of a problem as employers attempt to lock employees into virtual servitiude.
All of the local interviews I've had have been one-interview jobs. Including my new job, where I walked out with an offer :) For out-of-state dingies, I've had 15-20 minute phone interviews before getting a plane out to wherever I have to go.
Eric ze Kidder
Ive been working for 14 years, Ive been through countless interviews over time and most ask me for NDA's. I usually ask for the mutual NDA just to be safe. When i Interview people I always ask for the NDA. I have a very casual interview style and while I do have a list of questions I ask I often talk about what the company is doing. In most of the cases I treat an interview as a chance to convince someone that the company Im working for is a good company. I dont bring in anyone who I wouldnt hire on the spot provided they can answer my basic nontechnical questions. As an employer I need to make sure the employee is going to be the right fit. I want at least 2 years out of anyone I hire. Believe it or not thats a pretty lofty goal in the IT field. To get a good feeling of wether the person will stay I have to tell and sometimes show the prospect what were working on. That means I need the NDA. I always do a mutual NDA for my interviews because they may be working on some open source project or something and I dont want my staff trying to steal there ideas and profitize them. A NDA is to protect company trade secrets, This is not to say that if im running a firewall with X rules the interviewer cant take the firewall ideas elsewhere. It is to say they cant steal our r&d work. The companys products are protected. Upper management is happy. If you dont want to sign an NDA you dont come in for an interview. I make that clear on the phone interview. I also always interview on fridays after 3 so it can be an interview over beer :)
--- Always remember. 99.36% of all statistics are inaccurate.
Personally, I'm waiting for this whole NDA crap to get seriously abused, and dragged kicking and screaming out into the open. I mean, sooner or later, someone's going to be forced to sign an NDA over something as asinine as simple markup programming; this person will be fired; this person will be hired by another firm (again, for simple markup programming); both the person and his/her new firm will be sued by the original, NDA-wielding company for "IP theft" or another panic-button charge.
Five tons of flax.
If you've got a military security clearance, tell them. It might be enough. Otherwise, find out if it's standard practice with the company for any position above a certain level. They might make it 'routine' specifically so that it doesn't insult individuals.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
ROFL! "Johnson, we need a VB app that does this, that, and the other. But none of our coders know VB. Go put up a job posting for a good VB programmer, and make writing this app part of the interview. Then, don't hire any of them." :-) Just wait until the maintenance requests roll in.....
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Chances are, the only reason this company feels the need to share specific "sensitive" information with you is because they are looking for an exact skill, not your overall ability. They want someone who can sit down and do X right away. And they want someone who won't talk about it to anyone. Just like so many other technology recruiters, they would rather hire a specific skill or specific experience than someone with a good intellect and flexibility. If the project flops, or the technology's demand disappears, you'll get a pink slip.
And if most people don't like it and don't sign, then that company is going to have to change the way it works to get decent employees.
Think of it as educating the company.
I'll tell them, if you inadvertently slip out any real corporate secrets (not those stupid one-click stuff), and still don't hire me, I am unlikely to reveal them to others. Unless I am required to by law or some nasty person threatens to do nasty stuff (in which case I may still ask for permission - I've done this before).
If they can't trust me, then they shouldn't hire me.
Conversely - should I trust a company which needs me to sign multipage fine-print documents so that it can trust me? And to hold me to all that fine print, even though it may not even hire me?
I prefer to keep my promises simple. Keeping simple promises are already difficult enough. Anyone who has very complex promises can't really be trusted. You can say lots of companies have those, well then maybe those companies can't be trusted?
Cheerio,
Link.
Integrity is how you behave without external controls. How you behave to those you have no use for, and how you behave when "nobody will know". Remember you will know, and if that doesn't bother you then what integrity do you have?
Then don't work for a company that makes you sign one. Things like this are necessary because the tech industry is getting more competitive.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
It's probably not, but the idea is still a bit insane.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
If I understand your "recruitment tactic" Company A is trying to force me to join them simply because I have agreed to an interview with them? So I go along to the interview and from that point onwards cannot work for a competitor for fear of legal action? I don't think that would stand up in UK law (I hope it wouldn't!).
The company also needs to convince the prospective employee that they are going to be a good employer, and it will be a good place to work, good atmosphere, etc. etc. Forcing a candidate to sign an NDA just for the interview is not going to achieve that!
Surely a company should not be giving out business/technology sensitive information to a person before they know whether or not they want to employ them?
How if I am not an employee?
I was interviewing with a startup (who hadn't even picked a name yet). They had a process where we would first meet with the 2 founders (one tech, one biz), talk about ourselves, experiences, expectations, etc... Then, if you got called back for a second meeting they get into salary issues. After you work that out, the last step is disclosure (with an NDA). They claim 100% of their candidates who get to this stage sign a contract. I thought it was strange at first but realized that perhaps they are smart about this. Essentially, what is more important, the project (i.e. what languages/platforms/processes you will write) or the company (i.e. the people, financials, vision)?
Yep, it happens!
There was a Silicon Valley company looking to hire people ( I forget the name ) in mid-1999. If you signed (for certain positions), you got a BMW Z3.
-------------------------------------------------
I bent my wookie
The CrapWare Public License Agreement
This software is CrapWare. This means that you're free to use it at ABSOLUTELY
NO COST whatsoever. You also have rights to the source code [the basic make-up
of the program] which should be included with the program. You are free to mod-
ify the program and to port it to different systems, provided all derivative
works fall under this license. If you modify the source for distribution, then
the original author must be made aware of this by sending a copy of the source
code of the modified version to him. If you plan on distributing this or a
derivative for a cost, then the author shall recieve the total sum of one (1)
dollar U.S. for each unit sold, and as mentioned before, the source code will
be available under the CrapWare license to each individual who recieves a copy
of the program.
THERE IS NO WARRANTY IMPLIED OR EXPRESSED OR EVEN AVAILABLE IN REGARDS TO THE
PROGRAM. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. THERE IS NO FUNCTIONALITY GUARANTEED NOR HINTED
AT IN THE RELEASE OF THIS PROGRAM. If you recieve a derivative version of this
software from a source other than that of the original author and do not reci-
eve the source code, contact the author of the derivative work and request a
copy.
Conditions of revocation of licensing:
1: Distribution of this code or derivative works without the source code
2: Useage of the program for purposes of mind control, thought control, or
any control of any species of the animal kingdom
3: Useage of this program in application orally,vaginally,or anally. This is
a topical program only.
4: Useage of this program for the sales, production, or distribution of
narcotics, barbituates, hallucinogens, or other things which may make the
author get jail time.
5: Useage of this program for the sexual molestation of farm animals and/or
wildlife.
6: Useage of this program while listening to the Carpenters on a Tuesday of
any month which contains more than thirty (30) days.
7: Useage of this program while operating heavy machinery unless approved by
a physician.
This program is exportable freely under the conditions of export restrictions
in the United States of America and of Antarctica. By compiling and executing
this program you signify your acceptance of these terms.
NOW enjoy your time with fine print (:
Standard IANAL: Wrong, NDA's would generally be considered under a civil trial, not a criminal trial, and as such follow a different level that must be proved for innocence or guilt. Its simply the preponderance of evidence, as opposed to beyond a reasonable doubt. Basically, in a civil trial, it only has to be reasonable to assume that you did it judging by the evidence, as opposed to criminal where it must be proven that you did it.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
Many startups are having applicants sign non-disclosure before the interview. The reason is that in order to discuss the nature of the job, they have to reveal sensitive information. At many start-ups, everything is sensitive information because they are working on some Next Big Thing and any information leaking out about what they are doing could potentially harm them.
TransMeta did the very same thing, and it has been important to their success. Had anything leaked out about what they were doing, prior to the time when they were ready, it would have meant disaster as IBM and Intel would have easily duplicated their technology and brought it to market faster, then been able to sue transmeta for breaking "their" patents!
It is a cutthroat world out there in IT, as far as business is concerned. Geeks try to avoid bean-counting as a rule and tend to forget that.
They made you sign a non-disclosure agreement, NOT a non-compete. You could work for their main competitor without incident. You just cannot disclose sensitive information, which is not hard to do.
Since you usually have to fill out 25-odd documents, try just not returning one or two (like the NDA, noncompetitive). Theres a reasonable chance it'll slide by the HR department(especially if its a company where every job grade has different forms to fill out) and you can just play dumb if they call you asking about it.
- My password is slashdot
Did these companies do any contract work with the government?
- My password is slashdot
Good Advice.
Anonymous posts are filtered.
True... but my first comment applies to being fired, too... "Okay, we don't want you to work for us any more, we don't ned your services... By the way, if you ever take another job in this field, we'll sue you throught the NDA..."
We don't bring someone in for an interview unless we're already pretty sure that he's got what we want. We make offers to about 65% of those. If you said that you didn't want to sign an NDA yet, we would understand -- you wouldn't be jeopardizing the interview yet. We would do about half the interview, and then if we were pretty sure that things were going well, would bring up the NDA issue again. But we are doing something novel. We aren't going to find people who have done *exactly* this sort of thing before, so we're looking for people who can see what we're doing and figure out how to apply their own experience in an unexpected way. They'll be doing it often :-).
Wow, while that's funny advice, it's also mind numbingly stupid. And in fact, it may be a crime - Fraud. "Mate in a suit" as lawyer, you've perpetrated a fraud on the company upon which they have relied, and if something goes wrong, you're screwed.
Wow, was that what it said on the bar exam you just finished? Did you pass, by the way? Or haven't you heard yet?
I understand that you're really defensive about people diminishing the status of lawyers, you've got a lot wrapped up in the notion that lawyers are special people. But please.
Do a bit more studying before you go off and file a complaint against somebody on these grounds. It would be a bad start for a newbie lawyer.
I don't want to know whether this hot talent I want to hire does a little pot in his spare time. Well, I sure do! How else am I supposed to figure out whether he's going to hang out in the machine room with me and watch the router lights flash while we burn a blunt? Sheeez.
This sounds *exactly* like Goethe's "Faust". :-)
Its a dog eat dog world out there and companys need to protect them selfs. At any case, there HR department needs to be a little more carefull with the information they provides. They never know who there dealing with ...
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
You've got a totally messed up perspective on the interview process. They're not interviewing you, you're interviewing THEM. Along with "Is this someone I would like to work with?" you should also be asking yourself "Is this something I could see myself doing?" If you don't find out anything about what you'll be doing, you can't properly find the answers to these questions, and you shouldn't take the job.
I mean, imagine this: Someone comes up to you and says, "I have a job offer. It pays 90K a year. You're qualified. But I can't tell you what the job is until you commit." If you say yes to something like this, you're insane.
If somebody ever pulls that on me, I would be inclined to ask them to agree to pay me for the duration of the agreement whether I worked for them or not...
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Would you want someone to have a transcript of a meeting if you had them sign a non-disclosure agreement?
Just say "Don't worry... I've signed a little bit of paper that says I won't." then break out laughing uncontrolably for a few minutes. brief your 'lawyer' beforehand on what to do, and have him laugh heartily as well.
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
In my own company we give a possible employee as much information as we can about us wthout making them sign an NDA. If they do want to work for us, then we'll do the NDA thing. In annother place I'm working right now, they really should have NDA-ed me befire the interview, because in the interview they basically gave me the whole business plan and everything. I could easily have gone and mirrored the business without any legal repercusions. Even now (I've been there for a few months) they still haven't made me sign an NDA. They've given me one, but I havent bothered to sign it, and I'm not about to untill they actually stand over me and make me do it! Personally, I think its in a companies best interest to NDA you before an interview, especially in a .com company. The interview NDA however, should not be as strict a document as the actual employee NDA, and the employer should really watch what they tell the person they're interviewing.
The reason for NDAs at the interview stage is the current trend to hire programmers on an independent contractor basis. If you are asked to sign a NDA at the interview stage, you are being hired for a specific project. This means you are looking at short term employment and limited benefits. This is not an interview, but a consultation. If a prospective employer requests a NDA, you should ask for a consultation fee.
The independent, skilled knowledge worker is only an equal in this regard as long as he or she has the financial wherewithal to pay attorneys to defend that independence, on the slight chance that it turns into an ugly legal battle. In that case, the one with the deepest attorney-paying pockets will win. And you know which side that will be. So equality stops at the point where your ability to pay for a legal battle is greater than my ability to do so. Look at all the SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suits in recent years in the US.
I hope that'll NEVER be the case. No employer should EVER ask for a NDA under any circumstances of anyone unless he NEEDS to provide this person with sensitive data/information.
First off: Yes, it is possible to discuss qualifications without giving away business secrets. Like someone pointed out (You said something similar Yourself), possibly through the discussion of previous workexperience, or in case of no experience, then through schoolwork, projects or whatever.
Second: It should NEVER be "policy" to have people sign NDA's just for showing up. By god. It's the COMPANY that's supposed to keep it's stuff secret, not the visitors. Anyone messing around where they shouldn't be and the company WILL have a problem, but surely the COMPANY should be able to keep a leash on it's interviews, not the Interviewee.
Third: I do believe that the NDA should be in place to protect the company in case a CURRENT employee, Government official, business partner or similar leaves the company with sensitive info/data. In this case the NDA should prevent that person from disclosing information that could be damaging to the company, it's profits, brand or public image.
Potential employees should not even be given info of this sort !
I myself have an NDA at my place of work, and I'd have been shocked if my employer would have asked me to sign that without enclosing a work contract (which they did).
The world has become so paranoid that some companies are not even filing patents, but just doing the "patent pending" thing to keep from having to supply the public with it's sensitive business designs/innovations, while still remaining under the protective umrella of a patent (filing a patent means supplying infomation on how to build the patented item, down to the last nail). But think for a moment what this xenophobic behavior can do to a society. It IS after all the free exchange of information and ideas that truly makes the world go 'round. Through joint effort we might NOT have to invent the hot water every time we need to use it.
On the other hand, not all positions in the industry are techincal, even though "us nerds" like to believe that. An HR consultant might need information on the organizational structure, a purchaser might need information on business partners and so on. In some cases the NDA could be seen as a "good thing".
However, if a company cannot bring themselves to trust a potential employee with information he needs to do his job, then I'd seriously consider if this was the company I'D like to work for. But if You must, then insist the NDA contains details on exactly what info You will be given and what parts of it You're not allowed to talk about. (I know some companies would prefer to not even let on that they're hiring!)
Buttom line: Trust goes to ways, an NDA kinda screws up that relationship. Makes ME think twice, should make You do the same.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
Totally out of line! I've interviewed for top security military stuff and they never even required such a thing. These guys are off the wall, be glad you'll never see them again!
Here's how the porocess works at our place.
We get someone's CV.
We like the look, so invite them infor the interview, and ask them to sign an NDA.
The interview is used for us to finalise our opinion of the candidate and (and here is the key part) to "sell" us to the candidate!
THAT is why companies ask interviewees to sign an NDA - how the hell can a company be expected to tell you about the cool stuff they are doing (in order to encourage you to join them) unless they are under NDA?
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
We are not talking here about innocent or guilt.
We are talking about business law. A majority of the jury must consider that what was done was against the NDA. Not 100%.
Most likely, your company would fire you immediately when it found out any way. And settle with company A.
Either way... you are out of a job in both Company A and B, and most likely it will also prevent you form getting one at C, D or E...
NDA in this case is a non-compete.
Take a step back.
:-)
NDA is contract.
A contract is only valid if:
1) Both parties agreeing to the terms, without coercion.
2) A exchange of tangible property. (i.e.: money)
That is why a company has problems with getting a NDA signed after you already have job with them. First, they can not fire you for not signing that would be coercion. Second, they would have to give you some thing in exchange, a raise.
A Company can not get you to sign a NDA when you leave... What you can not leave until you sign? Again coercion and property exchange is required to have a contract.
So remember if asked to sign a NDA, be sure your price is set high enough to cover the time that NDA is in effect and you can not work at a competing company.
:-) Ok, I will stay at home and have a company pay me to sit there.
You are right and wrong...
Wrong part...
If Company A is making a widget and told you about it after a NDA. Then you work for company B and one of their employees on your team comes up with a widget idea after you have were hired 1 week before.
CAN YOU PROVE IN A COURT OF LAW THAT,
1) YOU DID NOT TELL?
2) ANY INFORMATION THAT YOU HAD HEARD AT COMPANY A DID NOT HELP IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF WIDGET?
I am waiting to see on an employment app. right under "are you a felon?", "List all the NDA, you have signed and detail what you can and can not talk about?".
I work as a software engineer at a startup company, and our interview process tends to go like this:
In interview 2, we are getting more information about the candidate's skills, but more importantly we're giving the candidate a chance to interview the company and meet the people they might work with. At this stage, we ask for an NDA. The candidate may refuse, but if so the interview will be completely one-sided: we ask about their experience, they hear nothing solid about what the position entails.
So, if you don't care about the position you're applying for, then tell them where they can put their NDA (in the shredder). But, if you want to know every last detail about what you're getting yourself into, then the NDA is a good thing. An NDA only becomes an asshole thing to do if the interviewers make you sign it, but then still don't tell you anything useful about the company.
Kas.
This signature has eleven vowels.
Jeez, this seems almost as bad as Hershey Chocolates not permitting tour groups to see their Kit-Kat lines.
"We could show you, but then we'd either have to hire you or kill you..."
Hershey Foods Corporation has their own non-disclosure contract. I know of this because my father works as a supervisor on a particular line. Basicly, no one who is not part of Hershey can even see his office. Why? Because he supervises the Kit-Kat line, and apparently, the production of Kit-Kat bars are a BIG secret in the chocolate industry.
I just brought this up because I think alot of companies are paranoid over things that they really shouldn't be.
Anyway, an interesting note about Kit-Kats, when they were originally made, they used to pop and break open without warning. This was due to the fact that they would put the wafers in the chocolate immediately after baking. Now they let the wafers 'age' (read: get stale) before covering them in chocolate.
Ooops, maybe I shouldn't have said that, after all, They're probably watching me now, ready to whisk me off to work in chocolate hell.
Get used to this. I've had friends present me with an NDA just so they could talk to me about their work. In fact, there was an article a few months ago (sorry, I don't recall where I saw it. Perhaps the NY Times Technology section) that said NDAs are becoming so ubiquitous that there have been people on first dates and at cocktail parties that whip them out as soon as they're asked, "So, what do you do?". (I don't know about you, but if someone hands me an NDA on a first date, the date's ending real fast).
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
Surely the company should get you to sign the NDA After you've decided you don't want their employment (whether at interview or termination). One elegant solution which used to be used was termed 'Gardening Leave', where the employee was in effect sent home for a couple of months (with nothing to do but tend the garden) prior to being employed by the competitor. This length of time in the computer industry should be easily sufficient for anything sensitive to become de-sensitised, and any necessary passwords etc to be changed. This I don't beleive will happen any more as the original company would still be paying the wages of someone who isn't doing any work. (That never stopped anyone before though!!!)
- First, when someone asks to interview you, find out a general version of what they're interested in you for. Since this is a pre-NDA disclosure, general technologies/approaches are being publicly disclosed.
- Second, go look over their web site(s) (presuming, of course, that they have one, or have the appropriate info up on one). Any information that you discover there is publicly available - and counts against that NDA.
- Third, make sure you know going in what kind of work/position you're interviewing for.
- Finally, look over their competitors web sites, so you have an idea of what "industry practice" looks like.
What's the point of all this? _IF_ they disclose information to you under the NDA during an interview, and _IF_ you wind up working for someone else, the only thing that the NDA protects is _their_ company confidential data that doesn't fall under one of two exemptions:- It is, or has been in the public domain (can't retroactively classify it).
- It doesn't come under the heading of industry practice (Your app processing XML into an internal data format is an industry practice. How you do it is confidential, and covered by the NDA).
None of this is brain surgery. Most of it is pretty common-sense. That being said, companies that are going to get anal on that kind of thing probably aren't the kind of folks you want to wind up working for. If they're anal there, they're going to be anal elsewhere in the process.Nope. South Carolina. Admittedly, you can live pretty comfortablly on 30K a year here, but still...
Actually, tho, I'm not even doing C/C++ or VB. I'm doing Centura/Gupta and Oracle DB stuff... Which sucks in a completely different way...
NecroPuppy
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Heh... Where I'm at, there are companies looking for people to fill entry level positions who have 3+ years VB experiance, and they only want to pay 30K a year...
WTF is up with that? What happened to entry level being right out of school? I've got three years experiance with C/C++ and a host of other skills, and it took me 8 months to get a new job after I was fired from my old one...
NecroPuppy
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Therefore they may need to go into detail about it in order to make sure that you have the attributes required to fulfil the role.
I do graphic design, and I have great design skills etc but my skills may be more appropriate in one area and not another.
It is also a way for the company to tell you exactly what you will be required to do in order for you to evaluate wether or not you want the position. Im sure that no company wants somebody who doesnt want to work on what they are working on.
You have to remember tasel that anybody who wants to get ahead doesnt want their ideas stolen. Im sure you would do the same if you were in their shoes.
I had an experience with this stuff very recently. I was interviewing with consulting company and they required NDA for interview. I asked if the company requires a potential client to sign an NDA when they sell or market the company. For example, did they make sales calles or go to trade shows to market the companies services (Yes.)? And did every trade show attendee or call recipient sign NDA before they can speak further (No.)? There must be some level of info that can be shared without requiring an NDA from very start. After going through interview process, company presented me with offer and strict non-disclosure, non-compete employment contract. I asked if the agreement could be modified at all and the response was "No." So I declined to consider the offer on its face in light of agreement which I could not possibly sign as is. Surprisingly they came back and said "Oh, well perhaps we CAN modify if you feel that strongly." At end of day, I decided agreement might put me at risk and end up as baggage down the road if things don't work out. So I moved on anyway. I have 2 suggestions to consider: 1) When considering these contracts, always evaluate assuming the worst case scenario might play out. 2) If a company's edge is based on information so susceptible to damage by disclosure during an interview, how sustainable is their competitive advantage?
Well, here's my story. For two years, we've been developing a LGPL, GPL and GFDL product. I've been participating for about one year. Recently a start-up posted to our mailing list and stated, we're interested in paying the core developer team to work full-time on product X. OK, this is our product, we developed it and it's OS. I moved to a foreign country and was then confronted with non-competition and non-disclosure agreements in the contract. I have refused to sign. Unfortunately, I'm still here only because I'm the only person who's willing to do the specific job that I contribute to the project. If someone else was interested or willing, I'm sure I'd be singing the Star Spangled Banner right now. These companies think they've got great ideas. Well, I think an idea is a hill of turds and when you start legally protecting the hill of turds you enter into a realm of abturdity. If ideas are so valuable, I'll take a snapshot of my bathroom wall and put it up for bid. I haven't met anyone that's got more or less ideas than I do . How much work are you willing to invest and in the case of an OS project, can you beat the competition out of the gate and to the finish line? That's the real challange. I've been contracted for my expertise, not so this company can enlighten me with their ideas. They haven't thought of anything unique, especially as the concept "unique" applies to this specific products usefulness. Of course I've hired a lawyer and requested legal representation from the OS community. The OS community in fact responded favorably by providing probono (sic) legal advice. One advised, sign, the other said, don't. Don't take this to mean to much because I'm not including information that lends to a properly built perspective but the OS advice was sign. In my case, signing the contract could mean that I'm one of the only people in the world who can't Freely use an OS product that I've participated in building. A question I've to ask myself is, do I want to help a company that values an idea when I think ideas are worthless? Not really; however, nobody else is putting up any money, I want to be paid, I love the product and the OS community that's involved. I could return home and resume my habit of contributing but I'm exposed to people who are more talented than me and I want to learn from them. This company is willing to invest and do work that I'm not willing or able to do. I actually like these people and this issue aside would enjoy working with them. Especially on a product that I love. I'd have a big problem signing anything just so I can be interviewed. There's lots of businesses out there who need our skills. I've found several in this country who are willing to hire me and I can't even speak the local language. If I were faced with your dilema, I'd probably decline. displaced
This person signed the NDA and off we started working on our ideas of how to create a show like what we had in mind here in Puerto Rico. We almost had it going, till sometime January 2000, he decided to skip the project and leave. He sent me an e-mail where he clearly stated that neither him nor his company, would like to continue with the project and so he leaved me to it completely. He also signed another non-disclosure agreement, and sent me all the project info we had gathered during the time being.
Well that kind of pissed me off, since the production shop I run doesn't specializes in creating technology events. We are a small internet production shop with 4 people working on it. His company does technology marketing and has an employee base of 18 - 25 people. So in sense I would keep doing the activity but it would take a long time to produce.
My company registered the concept into the department of state. And my company went on to code the website etc... we were going to start doing what we know how to do best and then as we gathered publicity we would start planning the activity.
It is not until I attend a Microsoft Technet meeting, where I am speaking to some Compaq people, that I begin explaining to them the concept of the show, and how it would be nice if compaq would participate on it. The compaq guy turns around and tells me "Oh so you are copying your idea from (I will omit the name, but we will call him Mike), Mike's E-Nights? Well it sounds good but Mike is already doing it..."
When I returned home I called Mike (the person whom I had originally made the idea of the e-nights) and he told me that he had meant to call me, that infact he had given the order to call me so I could participate in the production of the event as a co-producer. He told me also that to smoothen this error he would give me a year around VIP pass so I could drink and have fun at the show, etc. I was furious because this show was also my idea. Plus he had signed an NDA that among it's clauses it says that he cannot produce the content or similarities of this show for 5 years from the time the signing went on.
Well I take this cooly... I have his signature in the NDA's so I will just ask a meeting with him. I confronted him with a letter sent to him through e-mail, asking him to sit down with me and talk about this like the "friends" we were supposed to be. I also told him that if we couldn't get anything done in a friendly way that I would not hesitate to find some legal representation on this matter to solve it because I found it very unfair for him to be profiting out of something that both he and I created... specially when he was the one to pull off the activity we had in the first place.
How can I work this? Do I have a point or does a company or a person have the right to steal a project and carry it on without compensating the other side?
------------------------------------------------ -------
------------------------------------------------
For a general technical interview there's no need for an NDA. If I'm trying to see whether a guy knows his stuff, I can do that without an NDA. On the other hand, if I've come to the conclusion that this guy is hot stuff and we want him on board, the best way to get him on board is to give him a briefing on the project and give him the spiel about how revolutionary it will be and how this architecture is going to kick rear and so on and so forth. Otherwise, in today's tight job market, it's like, "okay, I have 5 people who want to hire me, who do I want to work for, none of them have told me about what I'll be doing except 'C Programmer'?". If the guy's really good, I want to give him a reason to choose us rather than some other company -- and some of the info needed to do that may require an NDA.
(Note that the above is a generic "I"... I've never participated in an initial interview, on either side of the table, that required an NDA).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I know that if I were running a business, I sure as hell wouldn't want to give out that info without having an NDA in hand -- if Barnes and Noble were trying to put me out of business, them knowing that I have 12 months of cash on hand means that they know they only have to cut their prices to unprofitability for 12 months and 1 day in order to put me out of business (and they will, believe me, those brick-and-mortar places are absolutely appalled by the dot.com crowd that has the AUDACITY to believe that they can break into the market that these brick-and-mortar places have monopolized in the "real world"!).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
2) Credit record: My credit record is my personal business. Furthermore, it's of dubious legality to use credit record for hiring purposes (that is not one of the enumerated purposes in the Fair Credit Reporting Act). I refuse to work for companies that knowingly and willfully violate the law, though the fact that Microsoft still has employees tells me that my attitude is not universal.
3) Criminal record: May be a worthwhile check for certain positions (I certainly don't want a bookkeeper who was convicted of theft!), but for others, I don't want to know if this hot programmer I want to hire got arrested for pot when he was in college. (Generic "I" here, putting myself into the hiring manager's shoes). The job of engineering management is the job of accumulating and managing talent. Sometimes that talent comes with baggage, but the engineering manager's job is to deal with that baggage and get good work out of the talent.
Interviewing neighbors: I'd much rather run the guy past a dozen employees, take him to lunch, etc. to find out whether he will get along with people. Somebody might fake it for a 40 minute interview, but he's not going to fake it for a 4 hour interview with a dozen people. Nobody's that good, except maybe a few vintage KGB employees :-}.
Medical record: It is of dubious legality to ask for medical records except under certain very limited circumstances (such as when a job requires a large amount of physical labor, or where poor health could present a safety hazard, such as for airline pilots or truck drivers). Under federal law, it is illegal to discriminate against the handicapped for employment purposes, and asking for medical records could be construed as a mechanism for violating the law. I refuse to work for companies that knowingly and willfully violate the law.
Drug tests: I don't want to know whether this hot talent I want to hire does a little pot in his spare time. An engineering manager's job is to accumulate and use talent, and if the guy has talent, and shows that he has the ability to contribute in a positive manner, I want him on my team. What he does on his own time is his own business. If he comes to work stoned that's a different story.
Finally, regarding the amount of risk a company is exposing itself to: There are two kinds of companies in this world -- companies that are interested in Cover Your Ass, and companies that are interested in Getting Things Done. Your logic is the logic of companies interested in CYA. Personally, I don't like working for such companies, because the best things happen when a company dares to take risks in order to Make Things Happen. One of those risks is the engineering talent that it takes to Make Things Happen, which tends to be high-strung and difficult to manage. But that's the job of an engineering manager to manage those people and get the incredible results out of them that they're capable of doing. Sometimes that requires overlooking a few character flaws like, say, occasional pot use (or bad body odor, something that afflicts a key engineer at one company I deal with :-). But you can't Change The World without taking risks, and all Cover Your Ass has ever managed to do was generate paperwork and flat profits (see: Unisys for an example, which went from being the #2 company in the computer business to being an also-ran services business).
_E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
So if you get an interview and they ask you for an NDA halfway through, you know you've passed the idiot screening, and you can hold out for more money!
It doesn't make any difference. If the discussion gets to the point of money (as it MUST eventually for any successful interview), you will know you passed the idiot test anyway.
This is a cute scenario, but does it have any basis in reality?
It's not all that common right now. In general, litigation is becoming more and more common. In particular, the use of litigation as a tactical tool rather than for redress of grievance.
IMHO, just because NDAs are rarely enforced is not a reason to take them lightly. Only one has to be enforced one time to land you in court.
You'd just get your ass sued if you ran over to them and said "look at this hot new tech. from company A!" and they used it...
The problem is, every company thinks they're the first to rub two neurons together and come up with the 'increadible breakthrough' that any engineer spending two seconds on the problem would think of.
In other words, B might have hired you for the same sort of project and for the same reasons A wanted to hire you. The PHBs and legal staff at A will find it an unbelievable coincindince that B could have independantly come up with the very same 'increadible breakthrough' at nearly the same time. (for that matter, so did company C through ZZ). So, you get sued.
OR, perhaps A knows very well that B - ZZ came up with it on their own, but believes that by sueing, they can scare off the competition with their larger legal staff. The NDAs give them the really marginal excuse to sue that they need. You get caught in the middle.
Isn't this like showing a list of addresses to a child molester ...?
That's not a very charitable thing to call the lawyer present, but it pretty much explains the RIAA/MP3 and MPAA/DeCSS sagas, and the whole rotten mess with patents. (:-)
More seriously though, if you're asked to sign an NDA at the interview then I'd say stay well clear of the company, as it's a sure sign that it's totally ruled by its paper pushers.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I work at a consulting company. I, or my company, pretty much signs an NDA before EVERY interview. Look - the NDA is a fact of life in our industry, might as well get that idea fixed in your head early on.
How does the NDA incumber you? It doesn't say you can't go to work for the competitor if you choose does it? Now - an non-COMPETE document is another issue! Obviously you don't sign those - not until you at least have the job, then you'll be asked to sign that too. If and ONLY IF the NDA has a non-compete clause in it do you really need to become concerned. That would significantly incumber you, otherwise, how does it harm you?
That is the REAL quesetion you need to ask.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Yeah, I'd feel suspicious about that too, but it would hardly stand in my way as an employer, especially in this market climate. I can't imagine being the dude in the hiring meeting protesting, "But he hardly skimmed the NDA! How could he trust us that much after just talking to one of us on the phone?"
Also, let me point out that I generally read NDA's as fast as I possibly can to make sure there's nothing odious involved. I could be counted as one of those who didn't "actually read" the NDA even though I've read it to my satisfaction. After all, this is an interview, and the appearance of good faith (even to the point of false naïveté) and an easygoing nature works in my favor...
A properly drafted NDA does not impose any restrictions on you as long as you don't disclose the confidential information. If you come by that information some other legal way, e.g. another company gives it to you, there are no restrictions. At least that's how my company's NDAs work - they are also time limited.
Lots of the most interesting jobs mean that you have to sign an NDA to have a clue what they are doing - or would you rather sign up to the job with no clue other than the skills they want from you?
Being a lawyer I would love to correct you but, unfortunately, I cant figure out how to email you. (emphasis added)
I believe you're more succint than I ever could have hoped to be.
*No lawyers were harmed in the making of this postFree Mac Mini. Yes, I'm
Ten years time, you take a job. If you ever want to leave the company, you're going to need complete retraining in a different field. Anyone who takes a job in the same career ends up breaking NDAs. Pretty soon half the workforce is unemployable in any job they're trained for!
Thankfully, that sort of thing is unenforceable in California, and probably several other states too (but CA is still the 800lb gorilla of the tech industry). Basically, you cannot be kept from practicing your profession, so non-competes are birdcage liner there. NDA's can't keep you from working at another company, it's impossible to NDA your knowledge of C, or microelectronics, or project management.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Also, when hiring for a specific project, companies tend to be very paranoid about making sure they get a good person -- the process is expensive to start with, and firing someone just because they don't quite work out is difficult (not impossible... just time-consuming and expensive, generally) under current labor laws.
Of course, there probably are some of those other reasons that people have been mentioning, too (due to our lawsuit-happy world). I prefer to think of it just as the cluelessness of doing project-based hiring for direct employees.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by simple incompitence.
--
> I agree completely. I am in a startup now, and we routinely make sure someone's not an idiot and that we'd actually consider hiring them before we bother NDA'ing them.
So if you get an interview and they ask you for an NDA halfway through, you know you've passed the idiot screening, and you can hold out for more money!
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No. Union + Tech = bad. We aren't a labour force. We are a technical job... more akin to science than labour. At least, my own career is.
(I find lumping all 'system adminsitrators' together is meaningless, there are SO many levels of competence and sophistication)
Sorry pal. If you came to an interview with me, to work in my department, you would sign an NDA. Why? Because.
a) I'm not going to hire you unless I first get to inform you about exactly how things are working at the shop, so I can see how you feel about it and decide for myself if I want you on the team and
b) I'm not showing you this stuff if you won't sign an NDA
and
c) If you won't sign an NDA, then why the hell should I trust you with anything? WHy would I want to work with you?
Why do people have this big problem with NDAs? They are limited in scope.... companies sign them to cover their ass, not to fuck you over.
What's the big deal with agreeing not to discolse confidential information?
So.. you are right. But..
If you don't get the job, and later work for someone else, and the company tries to sue you fro breach of NDA because they figure you gave information you learned during the interview, information protected by NDA, to the competitor, they have to take you to court.
And if they do so, they have to PROVE that you got this information from them. If you already knew it from somewhere else, what can they do?
Slight problem - it's a 250 mile round trip for this interview... I can definitely use the first one, though.
:)
:)
Maybe I take my phone with me, with the lawyer's number programmed into it
Thanks for the suggestions from all in this thread who I haven't personally replied to, though. Reaffirms my faith in Slashdot
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Thanks. Very helpful. Especially the last point -they'd have a hard time winning it I'd suspect but I don't particularly want to have to fight it out in court...
One quick thing - I assume that isn't official legal advice from you, just to cover you in case of someone getting shirty?
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Hi all!
I'm jobhunting at the moment, too. I've only just graduated (in CS) so I really can't see anything like this coming up as I wouldn't be going senior enough, but...
Quick reminder - I'm in the UK here.
Let's say that an interviewer slaps an NDA in front of me, demanding I sign it before going any further. What would people suggest I do? A blanket answer either way doesn't seem to clever, so what guidelines for when to sign and when not to would people suggest?
(quick, cheeky aside - got through my link and you'll see a button labelled CV. If anyone wants to offer me work...)
Thanks,
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
One thing that a lot of companies strugle with is that during interviews, employees often discuss details of what's going on in the company that are not public. This tactic is probably aimed at closing up such information leeks. I have seen the situation where information reached the wrong company that way, but it's rare.
>If you choose a mate who can type fast, you can ask him to transcript the meeting,
Yeah, right. A lawyer who can type fast. Very believable!
Any technology which is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.
And I who thought that good techies were hard to find for companies. Certainly if companies are so desperate they are willing to give out cars as signing bonuses, they ought to be able to afford treating applicants with an inch of dignity and respect.
Shouldn't it be you out asking the company to sign an NDA not to reveal any personal information they might learn about you during the interview? I hate to sound like the socialist, but maybe the new generation of tech workers are finding out that those stupid union things they have been laughing at have a purpose after all.
No, I guess this European has missed the whole American dream thing again. After all, who needs integrity when you can have an expensive car?
Sure, it's easy enough for a company to interview for a specific skill set without getting into anything of their business. But that's only half of an interview. In any good interview, you are interviewing the company, as well as them interviewing you. And if this is a startup that feels they have some secrets that they don't want getting out until they're ready to announce it, then why shouldn't they have an NDA for you to sign?
I recently took a new position with a startup in Cambridge. When I was interviewing, I had to sign an NDA (really basic document, not full of legalease. Basically just a paragraph that says "please don't tell anyone else about this stuff. There's not much we can do if you choose to, but please don't do it."). I saw nothing wrong with this, since their whole business is based around a system the developed that noone has anything like yet, and they're not ready to announce to the general public.
Sure, go ahead and refuse the NDA. They can either not hire you, or go through the interview without telling you anything. But don't you *want* to know something about the company you're wanting to work for?
-Todd
---
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
Did you know that this can be sung to the tune of "The Beverely Hillbillies"?
I interviewed at a certain large online bookstore back in the spring. They had me sign an NDA. I didn't think that the details of their system included anything special, but as the day dragged on, I gained a perspective about how hosed up their code base was. Maybe they wanted to keep that detail from getting out.
It can happen in cases where you have a certain level of expertise and the questions required to determine your ability to bring value would force the discussion of a company's products would put them at risk(i.e. Transmeta 12 months ago).
They may also feel the need to do this during the "quiet period" of a public offering, where the very nature of company information puts them at risk of disclosure.
Shutup, Eric. The world doesnt need another Kent State.
-- Richard.
Sensitive positions in the defense industy are filled by applicants without a security clearance (although they prefer to hire people who have clearance, because of the cost to clear) without disclosing any sensitive information to the applicant. It seems that a tech company interviewer should be able to determine if a canidate is qualified, and get the canadate interested in the position without revealing any critical secrets about the company. Maybe these companies just don't trust their interviewers not to spill the beans...
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
You can read about my business on my homepage and some helpful information on the consulting business at Market Yourself - Tips for High-Tech Consultants.
I have this word of advice for everyone in the high-tech industries: find an attorney who practices business and intellectual property law. Do this right now, when you're not looking for a job. Most attorneys will spend a reasonable amount of time just chatting with you about stuff without charging you when you first meet them so you can evaluate whether to work with them.
When an employer or client gives you an NDA, tell them you'd like to have your attorney read it and advise you on whether to sign it. Don't even bother to read it, certainly don't read it while the interviewer is hovering over you.
Consider preparing your own NDA that the client or employer will sign, that you have your attorney draft ahead of time. That way you can be prepared with an NDA, and if they want you to sign one, say that you aren't comfortable doing so without legal advice, but if they'd like you have one handy. This is what I'm working on doing - with the help of an excellent attorney.
I may be belaboring an obvious point but most NDA's usually don't obligate the employer to keep your secrets secret. If they won't agree to protect your trade secrets, why should you agree to protect theirs?
It happens that I've signed a lot of NDA's and contracts over the years, but since I had some trouble with a client I've started discussing everything with an attorney up front. Nothing gets my signature unless my lawyer says it's OK with her. Just the conversations I've had with the attorneys I've discussed these things with have been well worth the money I've spent.
Most attorneys will only charge you by the minute for such matters, and it takes them less time to evaluate a contract than it would for you as a programmer to do so (how long would it take an attorney to evaluate your source code?). The attorney fees I've spent in the last year evaluating all the NDA's and contracts I've signed have come to maybe $400.
Considering that you could be taken for tens of thousands if you lose a lawsuit, or you could lose a job opportunity if you signed a non-compete or a potential employer feared you'd expose them to liability because you knew a competitor's trade secrets, isn't it worth it to get an attorney?
If, in the interview, they balk at you getting an attorney to sign an NDA, you should politely point out that it would have been appropriate for them to have sent you the NDA before the interview so you could have it checked out. Then offer to either leave right now and come back later, or keep the discussion limited to non-secret material.
Remember, the labor market is very tight for employers these days. The power is in the hands of the engineers. You don't have to put up with intimidation.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
That's just the kind of unquestioning loyalty I expect in an employee. If I want them to have an opinion or a thought, I'll give them one!
About the time I met the fourth interviewer I was greeted by a small group of people from HR and the director of engineering who terminated the interview and escorted me out of the building.
Fourth interview, you've got to be kidding? That organization moves much too slow. I should have been notified about this trouble maker as soon as he acted up! Do not make decisions people! Call me right away so I can rudely terminate the interview, mobilize security, and be rid of the punk.
Now get back to work.
Bringing a tape recorder to that interview will get you tossed out of the office just as quickly as asking questions or mentioning lawyers. "We own this idea, bitch!", is what that piece of paper says. People like that are not about to change their mind set about, say, internet shopping carts.
If you don't feel comfortable in an interview, leave! Never lie to fit in. You will only make yourself miserable when you find yourself surrounded by people you hold in contempt and bossed around by people you don't like. Move on and find a place you like. Holding your nose is just not worth the time it takes from your life.
Those are common. When you visit Xerox PARC, for example, they want you to sign something like that just to get a visitor's badge.
Of course IANAL, but I play one at cocktail parties. A NDA prevents you from discussing the technology, business practices, etc of the company with witch you signed it. A Non-Comp agreement is what you sign that prevents you from working for a competive business. I work in the casino industry, and non-comps are pretty common for upper level management. Usually with distance and time being the major restrictions (i.e. No working at another casino within 50 miles of where you work currently until a full year has passed from the time you quit/got fired).
Ten years time, you take a job. If you ever want to leave the company, you're going to need complete retraining in a different field. Anyone who takes a job in the same career ends up breaking NDAs. Pretty soon half the workforce is unemployable in any job they're trained for!
This sort of excessive NDA ties you to a contract with a company for life - and the company has no requirement to keep you in employment. Perhaps the workforce should get a "lifetime employment" clause written in to all NDAs... "Use of an NDA guarantees that the company will provide employment for as long as is required by the signee, or until the signee is fully trained in a new career of their choice."
If you're looking for a mind-in-neutral position, then reject all NDAs that you're asked to sign. I mean, if you're just a little cog in a big machine, it really doesn't matter what you know.
Believe it or not, some technical labor want to know and understand the business model that they might join. They want to get excited by what they do, and they want to be able to contribute to strategy and not just to the coding of a product.
If you want to do something exciting and get involved in big way, you'll need to totally understand the opportunity up front. And to do so, you'll have to sign an NDA.
BTW, most NDAs don't have non-compete language... but can become non-compete agreements effectively. Choose your potential employers wisely.
First off, I've easily had well over 100 interviews in my career and have worked at over 15 different companies. In all that time I was never asked to sign a NDA BEFORE the interview. But, I HAVE been required to sign an NDA before starting any of these positions.
In several of the interviews, I could clearly see that information was being provided to me that was NOT common knowledge. I appreciated their candor, and as a professional, recognized and respected their intellectual property.
(Aside: I'm continually amazed at the information that is regularly revealed in help wanted ads. Plenty enough for a knowledegable person to discern changes in corporate direction.)
What could be their motivation for the pre-interview NDA?
Management can ASK the interviewers to not reveal proprietary information, but how many of us REALLY know what is generally known and what is not? It's all too easy for something to slip out. My experience has been that the worker-bees are much more free with proprietary info than are those in management (PHBs notwithstanding). I'm not saying this is so in all cases; just that this has been MY experience.
What I suspect may be a source of this, though, is paranoia about corporate espionage. Corporate fear.
Imagine this: Company A desires some REAL information on what its main competitor, Company B, is doing. So, it sends either one of its employees, or hires out some company to send someone, to an interview at Company B. Picks their brains. Asks leading questions. Gains insider knowledge. And parrots it back to Company A, for a lucrative fee.
With venture capital funds investing vast sums in new companies, what's a, say, $50K payoff for some insider info, when they just kicked in $50 million?
I find such clandestine practices abhorent and would have nothing to do with such a scheme if I were approached. But, I am not so naive to think such things do not happen. This just gives the targetted company some legal recourse should they fall prey to such a maneuver. CYA and all that.
Sad. Whatever happened to professionalism, respect, and honesty?
Let's stop and remember where NDAs came from. In the past, they've been documents exchanged between companies before they would get together to discuss joint ventures, technology sharing, partnerships, mergers, and the like. It's pretty clear that such discussions can't even get started without an NDA, but the real point here is that these are discussions between equals.
So the interesting thing about the practice of requesting an NDA from an interviewee is that it suggests that hiring is a business relationship between equals, between a company offering money for a service and an interviewee, as a provider of that service, trying to evaluate whether he/she wants the company as a customer. The NDA isn't a sign of enslavement - it's a sign of the greater power and independence of skilled knowledge workers in this economy.
Recall that consultants, who are assumed to be independent service providers, have been signing NDAs routinely for years.
Read it, understand it, don't sign it if it's ridiculous,don't talk about what you hear in the interview outside the company - no problem.
Sorry to post this twice, hit the send button too soon ..
When I graduated, I put together a CV (I already had real work experience programming C++, and I was clearly already a very qualified C++ programmer, and had experience programming Linux, Windows (Win32, MFC, DirectX) etc - so I'm not exactly underqualified) and went to a few recruitment agencies, not because I couldn't find a job, but because I wanted a fairly specific type of work.
One of the places I went to, I first thought they'd lost my CV, when I gave it to them they said they'd get back to me to arrange an interview, instead they ignored me. I phoned them a few weeks later ("uh, we'll look at your CV and call you").
Six months later, long after I'd already found a decent job myself, they had the cheek to call me back and nag me to find a job for me. Now that I'd had a bit of fulltime work experience, *now* they suddenly wanted to help me. As if I was going to help them after that.
By this time I was getting lots of calls from various recruitment agencies, who kept calling me at work pestering me. Not one of them took an interest when I went to them to find a job. So I refuse to have the time of day for them. I'm happy with my job.
A friend of mine also had bad experiences with them. He has honors and he has work experience and is also a good C++ programmer ... he went to a recruitment agency the other day (he has just moved, so he is looking for a job where he is now) and was told by the person there, literally: "don't waste my time".
The problem is the headhunters are only interested in recruiting people who already have a good job. They're not willing to take risks on guys who don't have jobs currently. So whats they fucking point, from an employee's perspective?
This brings back bad memories... I once tried installing QuickTime on Windoze. I decided to actually read the agreement, and found it to be one of the most amusing pieces of literature I've ever read. Apple, for example, is not liable for any injuries that I may incur while using their product, or, for that matter - death. How the heck can software kill you? Do they just expect people to keel over and die because the installation is so flawed? ;-)
A bit OT, but I just had to mention how dumb EULAs are.
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
Guys, I work part-time as a recruiter in addition to doing software design work. I don't think it's unreasonable for a company to ask for a NDA when discussing products that are still unannounced and particularly ones in early development. Though, in point of fact, only one of our client companies (out of dozens) feels the NDA is necessary. If you feel it's an imposition, just decline to interview! Though I've never had a candidate do that yet with this particular company.
I've been to interview with GCHQ, one of Britain's largest and most secretive intelligence services. There was no requirement for NDAs, or even signing of the Official Secrets Act until we had been told we had got our jobs and the security vetting had been successful. For commercial entities to ask for NDAs at interview is just plain arrogant and stupid.
I don't see why people think an NDA at the interview is unusual. You, as a candidate, should want to know what you would be doing, what you'd be working on, what technology you would be using, before accepting any kind of job.
The appropriate time for the NDA is just before the intervioew turns from the general (is this guy a homicidal maniac, an idiot, or just not cut out to work within the culture here?) to the specifics of the job.
IANAL, but I don't think that's true...
Co. A makes you sign an NDA and offers you a job.
Co. B offers you a job with higher pay, etc..
Taking the job with the second company wouldn't result in legal action if you just took the job. You'd just get your ass sued if you ran over to them and said "look at this hot new tech. from company A!" and they used it...
The NDA is there precicely because you're getting more than one job offer (if they knew that you'd be working for them, they wouldn't need to protect their secrets from other companies, now would they?). It's just a formality so that they can tell you what you'd be doing, but other companies can't know.
-- Aaron Kimball
Potential businesses and good ideas are a dime a dozen. Unless your idea is patent pending or "truly" innovative, requiring potential employees to sign an NDA should be out of the question. Then, they should be used sparingly and with limited scope. I personally don't want to walk around providing copies of my signed NDAs to every perspective employeer for them to sign in a similar field. Would you?
Interview NDAs are just another good idea being mutilated by the truly business brain dead for the self-serving interest of a business. I wonder if they would actually hold up in court...
The first interview is supposed to see if there is a match between employeer and perspective employee. The second interview (or third), is when details should be discussed. If an NDA is absolutely required, the perspective should know this in advance, prior to walking into the interview. A copy of the NDA should be extended to the perspective as well for review. It should be limited to the scope of the interview and have an expiration period. And, they should not object to someone who brings their lawyer when they are trying to bind someone to a legal contract. Period.
If the employer is sure they have the right person and wish to further interview the perspective or plan to make an offer, they should extend the offer first (with a letter) with the provision an NDA is executed between all concerned parties. That shows intent by the business and leaves the perspective with the decision. Under no circumstance should the perspective be made to sign the agreement on the spot.
In a related situation, I had an interview a few years ago where I asked if I would be required to take any skills competancy tests (it was for a Macintosh/C++ programmer position). And, I was assured I would not. On the day of the interview, the person with whom I was to be interviewed by was not present, the person they did assign had not seen my resume and barely spoke comprehensible English. Then, they gave me the "test". I walked out of the interiew. The company, BTW, is not longer in business yet I am gainfully employeed. My current employer did ask that I sign a scope limited NDA after hire. And, they were upfront with this prior to my hire.
In general, I won't sign an NDA that has a time limit of more than a year on it. That way, you don't have to worry about some problem from the distant past cropping up later.
Essentially, I have been asked to allow them to do the same investigation that the FBI did on me for a security clearance in the military. (They did not, however, ask me if I was gay.) In most cases I have found the requests to be quite unreasonable for the job that I am applying for.
What the fsck does my driving record have to do with a desk job that requires less than 5% travel? What right does a company that proudly loses millions of dollars per year have to my personal financial records? Why does my employer need to know that I broke my arm when I was 12?
Yet this information may not be public knowledge. It might even be a trade secret. What if it's a startup that hasn't gone public with their product yet? Or a manufacturer working on a new, secret version of something?
The only solution in this case is an NDA. How else can you judge the position/job?
Michael J.
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
A lot of companies like to convince themselves they have the "newest thing". They're usually wrong. But they invest so emotionally in it that they become paranoid.
Solution: next time they ask, look incredously at them, then break into raucous laughter, shaking your head as you walk away.
--
Any company with an edge over its rivals will want to protect their own interests.
Equally, the NDA might be seen as a recruitment tactic. Imagine you sign an NDA, take the interview with Company A and get offered the job. You might also be tempted by Company A's main competitor (Company B) who are offering a higher salary or other benefits. Why would you put your own career at risk by taking the job with Company B if it could result in legal action? So you take the job with Company A instead. Rather than using golden handcuffs they could be considered to use legal handcuffs.
If someone feels bound to a particular company because of the legal ramifications of leaving to join a competitor, is that a form of bonded labor?
Rob.
I have never asked a candidate to sign an NDA, and I usually try to give them just enough information to evaluate the job without learning too much.
However, it's important to remember that an interviewer has basically three jobs to do when they interview you:
It can be extraordinarily hard, sometimes, to sell you on how exciting the project will be without telling you some things that you "don't need to know." Often, the more gee-whiz the project, the more difficult it is to give a true representation of what you'll be doing without the NDA.
Should you sign one? Well, that's for you to figure out for yourself, and it probably depends on the project and how much inherent trust you have for the employer. If at this early stage you don't feel enough trust for them to sign an NDA, it may be a sign that they're really not the best match for you.
But remember that although there are definitely employers that throw non-disclosure agreements around as though they had found the location of the holy ark of the covenant, there are always a few who legitimately have something novel and what to share it with you in a safe setting.
"company will provide a writen, specific list of information considered confidential within 7 days of disclosue of such information".
In 99.9% of cases they don't do it.
The clause to watch for is the non-discluse non-use clause where they say you can't use the info - I always put a line through such clauses.
One trend I don't like at all is the NDA visitor badge - when you sign in at reception you sign an NDA - again - put a line through any bit's you don't like and inital the change.
Finally beware any NDA longer then two pages - it can all be said in page or so, more than two is a big red flag
IANAL but I've signed a lot of NDA's in my time
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes
Cliff wrote: "I've always thought that the interview is where an employer and a potential employee feel each other out."
Well, whatever gets you a job...
"The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear." --Herbert Agar
I saw a reverse NDA a couple of years ago that was interesting. An investment bank in NYC had come to the conclusion that it the relevant consideration here was the risk of an interviewee suing the bank after the interview claiming that the bank had misused proprietary information provided by the interviewee during the interview. For example, a candidate could tell the bank something that resembled a product later used by the bank. To counter this threat, the bank required the candidate to pledge not to provide any proprietary information and to warrant that all information provided during the interview was in the public domain. Personally, I agree with this approach. I don't believe it is a useful practice to negotiate and try to enforce NDAs. They are almost impossible to enforce in any meaningful way.
IANAL, but if I were you, I'd take a lawyer along to the meeting and say "You don't mind if my lawyer sits in on the meeting, do you? I have some attractive offers from your competitors and I wouldn't like them being sued because of this NDA". You don't have to have a proper lawyer. Just a mate wearing a nice suit. If you choose a mate who can type fast, you can ask him to transcript the meeting, then at the end, get the transcript signed by all the executives. Or have him record the meeting on a dictaphone, like a police interview.
Either way, get on record what data they give you. If you're going to be sued, you may as well get the disclosure out of it too.
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Basically, if it seems to be saying really outrageous stuff and nailing it down without the slightest room to weasel out, you're in trouble. Contracts are contracts- it's not a simple matter to claim 'this was unreasonable so it's not valid or binding'. In fact, some of them have specific language stating that you've read the contract, understand it and agree that it is valid (another good litmus test- does the 'boilerplate' have you pointedly agreeing that it is valid, or does it just make its points?
Another tactic to look out for might be the traditional music business tactic of the 'deal memo', which could easily be adapted to the dotcom world. Basically, if there's a post-it saying something that seems 'reasonable' but could be used with legal literalness to harm you, and you're asked to sign it, watch out. I think the music biz version might go like this:
X Band will exclusively come to an agreement for a recording contract with XYZ Recording Company
Not many words, but sign it and contract law applies to it- you don't actually have an agreement yet, but you've just pledged to work only for XYZ before they've even set out any terms (the terms will _suck_). This is possible because there are far too many guitar players and always have been ;) however, the potential dotcommer is not forever protected from this kind of treatment just because of current scarcity of tech professionals. That will pass.
In the final analysis, whatever the rationalisation, it's not sensible to be too flippant about signing legal documents that can be used against you. It's all too easy to abuse these things. Ask yourself if the company is willing to sign _your_ little contract in return- and whether you can afford to get a lawyer to enforce your little contract. Signing the NDA is potentially turning over too much power to the company- and this depends entirely on what's set forth in the document. There is no such thing, legally, as 'boilerplate'- it doesn't matter what they say about the relative significance of parts of the contract, every word applies, with the exception of bits marked 'summary, see below for actual conditions': if ever you are given a contract with a 'summary', totally ignore the 'Cliff's Notes' version and pay extra attention to the actual legalese as they _are_ trying to slip something by you :)
Ahem.
.), I'll comment. However, this is not legal advice; if you need that, see an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
I am a lawyer, and I type quite fast, thank you. Enough so that rather than dictation, I typed in drafts for secretaries to finish. I don't know my current speed (not that important now that most of my life is ans an economist), but I used to do over 100wpm on a manual. As fate would have it, I had one of the few legal secretaries in town who typed faster than I do . . .
Anyway, having been involved in this issue from multiple sides (interviewee presented with NDA, interviewor presenting NDA, attorney writing and advising on NDA's . .
An NDA at the initial interview should not be alarming, at least if drawn properly. A non-competition agreement, however, would be another matter. [sidenote: almost all non-competition agreements out there are unenforceable. They must go *no* farther than absolutely necessary to effect the underlying agreement, as they interfere with the fundamental right to practice one's trade or profession, and I've seen very few that meet this requirement.]
Just as an example of appropriate: a consultant being hired to solve a problem. We needed to disclose enough to see how the consultant would react to this particular problem--we had already determined the hard way that knowing the general skills wee needed wasn't enough.
Unless the job is specifically for an area that the company might not be known for, say a new chip company, and they are interviewing you for the skills you have in chip design, then I can't see how they can require one or even need to enforce one during an interview. It would be easier for them to simply discuss your ability in hardware and circuitry design without mentioning how it relates to the position.
You are correct that the interview should be about what kind of employee you are/would be. Your resume should state the facts about your skills. If they need clarification they can simply say, "Tell me more about your experience in X Job or Y job." That way they are discussing your experience in a job, not a field. Too many times interviewers forget that there are two people in the interview with the same agenda. You both want to fill a position, but there is such a thing as a second interview. This would be where I think an NDA would be appropriate as it would show that they like who you are and now they want to know if you would be excited to work on their item.
Good luck on your job hunting.
Myxx
----------
Twisted Little Gnome - The Podcasting Network http://www.twistedlittlegnome.com
As they thought everything they did was secret, I think it would have been very hard to discuss with them if I did not know what they were developing. And the reason for keeping it secret was valid I think. They were the only one doing this, with this technology. In a way similar to the "Transmeta situation". By the way, the product is official since long, and the company is publically traded. They were developing the C-pen, a "pen" with a digital camera inside that can parse text. Very cool!
Exactly! EULAs and other contracts have already suckered many folks into the process of signing away rights without even reading the fine print. NDAs in job interviews represents further encroachment.
However, simply saying "no" puts you into the role of the spoiler in any negotiation. As I've had NDAs and noncompetes (they tend to be bundled these days post-hiring), dropped on my desk as an afterthought (they should have been negotiated up front), I've remained one of the only employees not required to sign one in the past three companies I've been in by simply responding that I'd have my attorney review it and send back responses - of course, I'd need the company to authorize my attorney expenses in writing, in advance. (Keeping this open ended is important - it might only take $200-$300 of his/her time to review the initial document, but by keeping it open ended, you can keep negotiating things until they are satisfactory and this can cost several thousand by the time you're done).
That usually sends the HR types scurrying away, to never be heard from again (e.g. making them go get financial approval, which if obtained, sets a precedent that might just blow their budget, with every employee running up possibly uncapped legal bills! Don't forget, HR isn't exactly a profit center and they don't usually have a lot of power with the money folks in a company).
The best thing is that the response is fully reasonable - in fact, if they don't permit you to review it with counsel, have this documented by them that the respective NDA/noncompete was required and any review was not permitted. (That's about the quickest way to nullify that kind of document). I had peers who were given surprise noncompetes they had to sign to receive their paycheck on payday - no attorney review permitted. "Here's your paycheck - but you have to sign this first. Don't worry about reading it if you want to be paid." Seriously.
One other suggestion: if you're asked for a noncompete, recognize what it means. In many cases, you're being asked to keep yourself and your knowledge off the market for a period after your termination, presumably to protect the company from your knowledge coming back to bite them through competition. My response has been that this protection is insurance, and insurance always costs money; the appropriate cost for this insurance is my salary for the period being purchased in escrow, to be mine upon any termination other than for committing a felony.
In every case, this ended up in the issue being dropped.
*scoove*
I work for a fast-growing startup and when we go to hire people, they want to know all about us. With the nightmares of other .com's out there, they want to know how we are financed, what exactly we have and don't have yet, and where we are headed. We expect them to want to know this, so start with an NDA and then take them through the whole horse and pony show. I haven't found anyone that thought it was strange, and only one person actually read it. We aren't trying to steal them away from competition through a non-compete, but provide our company with legal recourse if we found them mirroring our business. Wouldn't you like to get the big picture at a company rather than just show up first day to find out that you had just boarded a sinking ship?