My thought is that it might be illegal to do consulting without your employer's approval in some places (like the US).
Generally you're free to do whatever you wish with your free time outside working hours and the employment contract has no power over it.
Guessing it's not illegal to solicit someone under such a contract, but potentially a new hire could be ordered by a court to stop working at the new company, or a 3rd party could make claims that the outputs of their former employees are owned by said 3rd party.
IANAL