This is where the thinking comes in. I've had these contracts before. Fresh out of school, my choices were sign this and take a position in the career I want and studied for or continue bussing tables. The employer loads the contract with enough ominous legal mumbo-jumbo that it can be dangerous for you but not so dangerous that a court would take one look at it and toss it for being very one-sided.

Most people aren't rockstars, they take a job because they need it and it might be the only offer they've received in weeks if not months. There is a huge world of difference between your typical entry level job and your typical C-level, Mark Papermaster type of position. Most people don't have a company like Apple going to bat for them over NCAs.

Like you I've also questioned NCAs and you can make small adjustments if you need to. And if the company wants you bad enough they can strip entire sections. But your typical job just wants a warm body in a world of interchangable warm bodies, make too many waves and they might think it's better to replace you with another warm body.

However, by asking long before ever being offered a job of time it puts me in a much stronger negotiating position when the time comes. Thus far, I've refused every single contract preventing me from working in my field and/or preventing hobby projects related to my work. Unfortunately, that sometimes means leaving promising companies.

An edit to the above: I tried negotiating in a respectful manner but didn't have much leverage after quitting my previous job and being told "What are you, a lawyer?"

It's a very nasty situation. I had incurred what was significant expense for me at the time moving and my previous position had been filled. It was very early in my career, so getting a job would have taken longer than the meager savings I had time to accumulate by that time.

So I signed it. I consider having savings enough to be without work for a year, at minimum, over crap like this is a high priority for me. So also is not being at the arbitrary whims of the employer in a fairly one-sided power dynamic.

Iffy in your case, but it's not uncommon for companies to e.g. get new financing from not so clue-full investors who want to [ fill in the blank ] the employees.

Of course, if you sign it anyway under those conditions the mere threat of a lawsuit can prevent you from getting hired (keeping a low profile helps a lot there) or starting up a new business.

Or you could just move to California.

Sorry about the no cite on that, I think it was from a Time magazine article a few years ago.

Rather like slavery, come to think of it, the big issue of the status of a slave who escaped to a free state. Dred Scott is not considered to be one of the finer moments in US Supreme Court history.

Are you sure you're not remembering a case that falls under the exceptions to California law?

http://lawzilla.com/content/noncompete.shtml

"Who wins often depends upon a race to the courthouse. For multi-state employers it is often a rush to the courthouse to determine if a non-compete agreement is valid. The employer's strategy is to get an order outside of California in their favor. The employee or California prospective employer's strategy is to get an order within California in their favor. In the face of dueling, and opposing orders, the first to the courthouse may win because states often must give effect to orders from other courts."

The article I recall probably was about someone in california who was bound by a non-compete, but it wasn't the california courts that did it?

Anyway, my lack of expertise is really showing here, so I should probably stop. All I really wanted to say is yeah, I had that wrong.

That's an incredibly long time.

That she chose to stay in the same industry was her fault

I consider my mind and my skill set as a tool of my trade. If I can't use it freely, I'm a serf. Presumably she wouldn't be allowed to /start/ a company, either.

A cow-orker of mine came to (large software company) from (another large software company), and had expertise in a certain sensitive area. We only found out about this when we asked him the reason he would go silent in meetings on certain subjects. He was under a funky trade-secret non-compete that had been worked out by lawyers, and was gagged for (I believe) five years from having technical input on stuff he was an expert in at the other company.

I don't agree with any of it.

No, she couldn't start a competing company.

I signed a noncompete, and am now starting a company. The only thing the noncompete prevents me from doing is a certain kind of high frequency trading.

Employers have reacted more favorably to addendums rather than crossing out clauses, even if the addendum practically neuters the entire document.

  > it's only that 1 industry