> Perhaps they can offer you a year of severance in exchange for the non compete. Negotiating a year of severance pay is extremely unlikely without additional

> Perhaps they can offer you a year of severance in exchange for the non compete. Negotiating a year of severance pay is extremely unlikely without additional conditions (such as requiring 6 years of service, equivalent to 2 months severance for every 1 year of employment). > They will likely tell you “it’s standard” and “there’s nothing they can do” and they will hold that line until they know you are serious. All very true. Keep in mind that their willingness and ability to be flexible varies greatly on the size of the company and how difficult it is to find other candidates with similar skill sets. If you're the only person in their hiring pipeline with a specific skillset, you might have more leverage. If they have 10 other candidates with similar talents in the hiring queue, they might simply choose to move on to the next candidate. It helps to have some leverage.