4 ms·

Before"standing your ground", try negotiating first. I've used conversations along the lines of "You're offering me this role at least partly because I have $x

Before"standing your ground", try negotiating first. I've used conversations along the lines of "You're offering me this role at least partly because I have $x years experience in $relevantSubjectMatter. When, in future, we are no longer in an employment relationship for whatever reason, I will take that experience to my next employer as well. While 'm perfectly happy to sign a non-compete that limits me from taking any new experience gained while working here to any of your direct competitors (possible add "or clients"), I cannot sign a contract that prohibits me from making a living in my field of expertise after working with you. If you need me to sign a supremely broad 1 year 'will not engage in my chosen career' non-compete, we'll also need to add a 1 year's salary payout clause." I've twice had employers pretty much say "Oh yeah, that's a standard thing we put in all contracts, but we only really apply it to salespeople. Here, let's just delete it all for your development role". As much as anything, their response there will let you clearly know whether this is a molehill or a mountain.

WalterBright 6y ago
> try negotiating first Absolutely right. It's amazing what you can get if you simply have the nerve to ask for it.
bigiain 6y ago
Oh, and amusing anecdote... I accepted a gig where I used that line and got their boilerplate non-compete crossed out and replaced with just "you will not work for $majorClient or any subsidiary of theirs for 6 months", but most of my cow orkers had not done that and just signed what they were offered. 12 months later, $majorClient, who was over 80% of the billings, left. Company called an all-hands, announcing they were going into receivership and weren't making payroll for the previous month that had been due the day before. Followed somehow with am straight face by "Oh, and remember you all signed a non compete that prohibits you from working for $majorClient!". They were somewhat unhappy when someone raised their hand and asked "So that means you'll be holding up your side of my employment contract and paying last night's salary, and all our leave and other entitlements?" At least 6 or 8 people were back working on that project either directly at $client or at their new agency within a week.
muzani 6y ago
I've negotiated it from my contract before - it was a CTO role for a fashion e-commerce app. I was in the position to make use of their R&D costs and ran off with the idea. I just brought up that the wording is too broad, and signing that would prevent me from taking any job related to e-commerce as well. So they narrowed it down to apps that utilize (fashion && e-commerce && social networking). "any business in competition with the Company's business" is way too broad so you have to talk that through. I also had another contract, where they were selling our expertise to the client and the client could have cut through the company and hired me directly at a quarter of the cost. It had similarly vague wording, like "not allowed to do business with any clients engaged by Company". So I renegotiated that to "not allowed to business with Client X" because "clients engaged by Company" could mean some other client I've never met.

WalterBright 6y ago

> try negotiating first Absolutely right. It's amazing what you can get if you simply have the nerve to ask for it.

bigiain 6y ago

Oh, and amusing anecdote... I accepted a gig where I used that line and got their boilerplate non-compete crossed out and replaced with just "you will not work for $majorClient or any subsidiary of theirs for 6 months", but most of my cow orkers had not done that and just signed what they were offered. 12 months later, $majorClient, who was over 80% of the billings, left. Company called an all-hands, announcing they were going into receivership and weren't making payroll for the previous month that had been due the day before. Followed somehow with am straight face by "Oh, and remember you all signed a non compete that prohibits you from working for $majorClient!". They were somewhat unhappy when someone raised their hand and asked "So that means you'll be holding up your side of my employment contract and paying last night's salary, and all our leave and other entitlements?" At least 6 or 8 people were back working on that project either directly at $client or at their new agency within a week.

muzani 6y ago

I've negotiated it from my contract before - it was a CTO role for a fashion e-commerce app. I was in the position to make use of their R&D costs and ran off with the idea. I just brought up that the wording is too broad, and signing that would prevent me from taking any job related to e-commerce as well. So they narrowed it down to apps that utilize (fashion && e-commerce && social networking). "any business in competition with the Company's business" is way too broad so you have to talk that through. I also had another contract, where they were selling our expertise to the client and the client could have cut through the company and hired me directly at a quarter of the cost. It had similarly vague wording, like "not allowed to do business with any clients engaged by Company". So I renegotiated that to "not allowed to business with Client X" because "clients engaged by Company" could mean some other client I've never met.