Part of the ritual of starting a new job is signing all the paperwork: the acceptance letter, I-9, W-4, insurance forms, direct deposit.
Oh, and the non-compete and confidentiality agreements.
When we accept an offer for a new job, signing a non-compete agreement as a condition of employment seems like a footnote at the end of a long chapter… something that surely we don’t need to actually read. Non-competes are ubiquitous — and, we assume, mostly harmless. However, these agreements are so common (and so one-sided) that I wanted to spend a few minutes describing how they really work in practice. Continue reading “How Non-Compete Agreements Really Work”