An interesting one my wife ran into lately as she left an engineering director position is a non-solicit agreement. While this makes some sense from the employer wanting to be sure a severed employee doesn’t poach employees from them I always felt that it was daft because you should focus on making your company so great that it’d be really hard for an ex-employee to poach your talent.
This one was a bit weird though as she asked their legal counsel for clarification and he said that she would not be allowed to engage employees at the company period… whether they approached her on their own or even simply asked for a letter of recommendation for a new position.
A big danger with a non solicit is that it is more expensive to defend yourself again the charge that you solicited than it is to pay what your former employer is seeking.
Never sign anything that has similiar characteristics.
An interesting one my wife ran into lately as she left an engineering director position is a non-solicit agreement. While this makes some sense from the employer wanting to be sure a severed employee doesn’t poach employees from them I always felt that it was daft because you should focus on making your company so great that it’d be really hard for an ex-employee to poach your talent.
This one was a bit weird though as she asked their legal counsel for clarification and he said that she would not be allowed to engage employees at the company period… whether they approached her on their own or even simply asked for a letter of recommendation for a new position.
A big danger with a non solicit is that it is more expensive to defend yourself again the charge that you solicited than it is to pay what your former employer is seeking.
Never sign anything that has similiar characteristics.