The terms feel fairly benign but I’m also inclined to kindly reject to sign it. I am a California resident.
What do you think, how should I approach this issue?
Earlier this year I was interviewed by a company that I approached since I really had the perfect background for them. Two interviews, the first one went really smooth, we had a good time and they saw I was, indeed, a solid candidate for what they were looking for.
Before the second one they wanted me to sign an NDA. I thought that was ridiculous and refused politely. We hadn't even discussed salary, lol.
After that they just sent me their generic "sorry but you're not a good fit for us, wish you the best" email.
Since I didn't sign anything, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, during the interview their CTO was telling me that their churn rate was abysmal and that had investors truly worried; also a couple engineers before me had quit (quit, not fired), one during its first week at the job. So, in the end, it wasn't a good gig anyway.
Anyway, asking for an NDA (in almost any context) is kind of like a rookie thing to do. I think you dodged a bullet as you stated in your update.
The only exception was a company that asked me to sign a NDA just for an informal chat. Normally I don't mind a simple NDA, but this company NDA was VERY draconic, it was pretty much full non compete rather than the typical "dont leak your interview questions, dont spy on us". Obviously I refused to sign the NDA and stopped my conversations with this company.
Wow, your intuition was correct, what a mess. Surprised to see this from a highly valued YC portfolio company. They asked me to prepare for a presentation as part of an interview and cancelled that just now (a few days before the scheduled interview).
On top of this poorly constructed NDA issue…really feel like I dodged a bullet.
Instead of refusing to sign it, I asked for 20k compensation instead. They refused so that was that.
If they can't interview you without an NDA, they're not worth working for
The CIA doesn't require an NDA to interview - there's no reason some random YC startup should
NDA for a private job? They need to pay for a lawyer to review it for you, so you don't end up in a silly non-compete situation.
I've interviewed for a few different types of gov't jobs ... none have ever had NDAs
If that’s deemed unreasonable, it might be a tell regarding how the company views employees since they expect something for nothing.
Good luck.
The basic tell is whether a company has a bias toward exploiting candidates' desperation.
Or a bias toward treating candidates how we all would prefer to be treated.
Of course I am assuming that both of us would prefer a request to sign an NDA + a check for legal expenses to a request to sign an NDA without a check.
See what I did there? I assumed things about this NDA just like you did. I think we both shouldn't.
The NDAs I have seen were reasonable to me. They basically just put into writing what I would think should be normal during interviews anyway but apparently isn't always the case. Maybe someone has been burnt before and is trying to protect themselves.
The NDAs I signed basically said that they will share some company internal information during the interview in order to conduct it and I am not allowed to share those company secrets with anyone. Basically what any contract would say about company secrets if I were to be hired in the end. Same the other way around about me not sharing any other company's info with them and if I did its not on them but on me.
Duh.
Now the OPs NDA might say something different but we don't know. An NDA just by itself isn't bad though.
The cost of legal review of an NDA is an expense the company should cover in the same way it covers travel expenses associated with an interview.
Not covering it is on the same level as expecting a candidate to foot the cost of airfare, hotels, etc. associated with an interview.
It is no more unreasonable for a candidate to want to protect their interests than for the company to want to protect its own.
Not covering legal fees suggests the company doesn’t see the world that way.
The interview is the honeymoon. This is as good as it will probably get.
If a company cannot interview you without sharing "company secrets", they don't know how to interview
Assumptions are usually bad. At least the ones that don't get verified. I doubt we would be able to verify this particular one so I would choose to simply not assume in the first place.
I don't hold it against them and wonder why I should.
They can
In fact, there is absolutely no reason to need to divulge "company secrets" during an interview
I was saying that you said
If a company cannot interview you without sharing "company secrets", they don't know how to interview
You can always choose to share company secrets in an interview
But if a company doesn't understand they don't have to to interview successfully, I seriously doubt their ability to understand how to do pretty much anything else successfully
An interview is advanced marketing - you don't sign and NDA to read a billboard or press release. There's no reason to need to sign one to interview :)
Here are some rules for what to expect, based on every interview NDA I've ever signed: It shouldn't cover anything but non-public info you get during the interview, and it should be stated so simply that you don't need legal review.[0] You should only be asked to sign one before you go into an interview in which you're going to get non-public info - so, probably not before tech screens or behavioral screens. Don't expect to learn the 12 secret ingredients just because you've signed an NDA; it's more to protect any info to which you may be accidentally exposed. And... nope, I can't think of anything else actually. It's that simple.
[0] Admittedly I'd be wary of signing even a simple NDA in an unfamiliar jurisdiction, but that may just be an issue you'd have to absorb when doing cross-jurisdictional job seeking. You might in theory seek out legal advice on what a simple interview NDA should look like and any pitfalls to watch out for that differ from your own familiar jurisdiction. Definitely don't sign anything in a language in which you aren't completely fluent.
In this particular case the NDA was not scoped to non-public information (but rather proprietary information) and had no duration clause.
Also this NDA was provided prior to me (in theory) conducting a presentation to the prospective employer. Not the other way around.
Sorry, but just because something in your experience is "normal, routine, and banal" doesn't make it right
That you think an NDA is the only way to find something "non-senior" tells me you have either an exceptionally-high view of yourself, or you don't understand how to conduct an interview (from either side) without an NDA
Non-negotiable - the NDA must be both tightly time-limited and narrow in scope.
Much-desired - they tell you enough (in writing) about the compensation, responsibilities, hours, etc. - before you sign - that there's little chance of "why did I sign an NDA for a 'meh' job?" regret.
Ideally - the burden of proof (if they come after you, claiming that you blabbed) should be on them.
Maybe worth validating.
If a company wants me to sign an NDA to interview, they're not worth working for
Pure and simple
Edit: I changed my mind; signing an NDA blindly is less smart because there's more chance of legal issue. So if it was just a binary choice between signing blindly or rejecting every company asking for an NDA outright, the latter would be smarter.
Luckily, it isn't a binary choice. Absolutely refusing any notion of an NDA during the interview process is then cutting out potentially interesting information one can use in their decision about the role (or just in their personal knowledge bank, even if they don't proceed). Proprietary information does not get any less proprietary in the interview stage than after you accept an offer, so why does it make any less sense for a company to ask for for an NDA if they intend on sharing that information with a candidate?
Because if a company doesn't know how to do an interview without the use of an NDA, they're not worth working for
It's quite possible to conduct very productive interviews without them - indeed, everywhere I've ever seen that requires them does nothing "interesting", and they're a waste of time to even talk to
Personally, I'd much rather my interviewers be able to speak plainly about what they're building. As an interviewer it is less stressful and as an interviewee I've found it more interesting. Since I don't particularly crave going out and telling the world about proprietary information I might learn from an interview anyway, an NDA is no skin off my back. Rjecting a company outright just by nature of them wanting an NDA doesn't seem like a "smarter" default option at all.
Easy - if you think you have to divulge "company secrets" to do an interview, you're blatantly incompetent
I've been at this a long time - >20y
I never need to divulge "company secrets" (or "customer secrets", given I'm in professional services) to perform an interview on either side of the equation
I'm not totally sure how your reply relates to my comment, since my first sentence says: "Of course it's possible to conduct interviews without giving out sensitive info..."
Nobody's arguing that anybody absolutely _needs_ to divulge "company secrets". I'm simply saying freedom to say and show more rather than less can make for a more interesting interview.
That's functionally akin to the aphorism "if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to hide"
I'd put real money down that you don't want everything you've ever done (or will ever do) made public
Yet you can manage to have depthy conversations with others without making your experiences totally public, right?
Sorry you feel that way - truly, I feel sorry for you
You've succumbed to the idea that the company is more important than you
I'm not sure why you made three different replies to my comment; could we keep it to one cohesive thread if you'd like to keep discussing this? I didn't realize they were all from you until after I replied to two of them, and am not replying to the third to avoid sharding the discussion further. Happy to keep talking via email as well if you'd like, since from what I understand HN kind of discourages long nested threads.
If they want to bind you to a contract then they should pay for it.
Unless you actively use the interview to steal trade secrets and then take them to a competitor, there is basically nothing they can do.