The Company I'm Interviewing With Wants Me To Sign An NDA?

iStock | designer491

Imagine that as you walk into a job interview, before meeting the hiring manager your potential employer asks you to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), and at first glance, it’s a pretty onerous legal document. If you don’t sign, the interview is over, and your candidacy ends. What’s going on? What do you do?

Before going any further, please note that we’re not attorneys, and this in no way constitutes legal advice. For legal guidance, please consult an attorney.

Companies have secrets, and under certain circumstances, NDAs can be pretty common; let’s first discuss some of the reasons a company may require a confidential NDA from their job candidates. Businesses (generally) don’t go through the trouble of putting potential hires in a compromising position that may jeopardize their recruitment efforts for sport, they usually have their reasons, which may include: 

• Trade Secrets. A company may be working on a new product it does not want the competition or the public to know about. Perhaps it is a prototype for a new gizmo that is still a work in progress or a new proprietary technology they need to keep under wraps or risk the information falling into a competitor’s hands.

• Mergers, Acquisitions, IPOs. Sometimes a company is preparing for a major transformation like a merger, acquisition, or an unannounced initial public offering. Often these types of upheavals are only known by a few C-suite-level executives and members of a Board of Directors. You might be an essential hire to help navigate these situations, enter the NDA.

•  Start-Ups and Venture Capital. If you’re interviewing for a position at a start-up that’s either seeking venture capital funding or is the new recipient of seed money you are, by definition, involved in an endeavor that may or may not succeed and a crucial part of that process is being the first to market. A business in its infancy must protect its interests. That may mean having potential new hires sign an NDA during the interview process so their product or business model isn’t compromised.

• Insider Trading. Financial information may be revealed to you during an interview that can put you in legal jeopardy if you illegally profit from anything you learn in the interview.

• Special Circumstances. If you’re interviewing for a government job that’s involved in intelligence and national security, you may be asked to sign an NDA. If you’re interviewing for a position working for a politician, high-net-worth individual, celebrity, entrepreneur, or major investor, you may be asked to sign an NDA. There are a lot of people and companies out there that want to keep things private, including whatever may come up in a job interview.

Whatever the reason for the NDA, it will typically be sprung on you when you arrive for the interview. Suddenly, you’re in a tricky legal situation and under pressure to make a quick decision. If you sign it, there are consequences for breaking the agreement. If you don’t, it’s most likely the end of the road. Don’t panic and keep the following in mind:

• The NDA is the cost of admission. If you want the job, you must sign the NDA. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t read it thoroughly and ask as many questions as you need to feel comfortable giving your signature. The onus is on the company to explain, in detail, every provision of the NDA and why they are asking you to sign it. The onus is on you to honor the agreement if you decide to sign it – and there is no obligation to sign it. If you aren’t comfortable signing an NDA then it’s time to say, “thank you,” and find somewhere else to work.

• Keep in mind that an NDA is a legal document. Companies are interested in protecting themselves, and they likely have more resources than you do to enforce these protections – and if you run afoul of the NDA, their lawyers will. Read the fine print.

• Ask for a copy. If you sign an NDA, request a copy. You never know when you’ll need it, and you’ll want to make sure you remember what you agreed to.

If you want to familiarize yourself with a standard “Employee NDA” (even though you are not yet an employee the basic provisions will be the same for potential new hires), you can find a sample NDA here.

---

Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

Is AI Killing Your Job-Hunting Mojo? Don't Forget The Human Connection

iStockphoto.com | Tippapatt

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential impact on the job market, and humanity, continue to be front pages news. The prognosis oscillates between a semi-utopian world in which AI is a technological collaborator helping people produce their best work and a dystopian view in which the rise of machines dooms us all.

The reality is more nuanced, and when you’re searching for a job, you probably don’t care whether it’s AI or not preventing your resume from getting from point A, you, to point B, a recruiter or hiring manager. Applicant Tracking Systems (or ATS, the software recruiters use to collect resumes) have been around for many years and are already a universal scapegoat for job seekers frustrated by the impersonal labor-intensive process of applying for a job. It’s easy to imagine that you click “send” and your cover letter, resume, hopes, and dreams vanish into a digital abyss.

However, AI’s impact on job hunters is not as extreme as people may believe. Is AI making job recruitment more efficient for the employer at the expense of the candidate? Ask yourself why AI is being used to improve job recruitment.

The way that people find jobs today differs from yesteryear just as dramatically as cars differ from planes. The digital no man’s land is the product of a one-click-to-apply environment. You can access job openings across the world. You can post your resume on many job boards at once. Platforms like LinkedIn give you unprecedented access to company information that would once be impossible to obtain (e.g., employees and their titles). These are just a fraction of the ways the job search has changed.

The result is that employers are forced to manage a deluge of applicants for every job. The sheer volume of people sending in their resumes for jobs – often numbering in the thousands of applicants per position – is too great for overworked recruiters and hiring authorities to manage effectively. Enter ATS and AI. If you apply for a job online it will be filtered and ranked by an ATS, powered by AI or not. In the name of efficiency (and keeping their bosses off their collective backs), recruiters will usually do a quick sort of applicants, pick the five to ten top-ranked resumes, and advance them to the hiring manager, leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of applications unreviewed.

So how do you rise to the top? It's to your advantage to maximize the human aspects of your job search. Before everybody started staring at screens all day every day, everything was person to person. Let’s call it “Job Search Classic.” You can’t game the digital system, but you can own the human elements and put as much, if not more, energy into those areas as you do filling out endless online job applications.

Some quick tips to consider:

• Make sure your resume contains the essential keywords pertaining to your career path. But this, alone, isn’t enough. To get a leg up, you need to also:

• Leverage your human network in person. Spending an hour with someone face-to-face is worth more than 20 emails or texts.

• Send hand-written thank you notes to recruiters and hiring managers by snail mail after an interview.

• Network! Cultivating professional relationships increases your visibility and potential opportunities. 

• If you’re a student, take advantage of your school’s career center. It’s full of people who know lots of other people, and where employers post jobs looking specifically for individuals with a similar profile.

• Be mindful of your professional reputation. You have one whether you realize it or not, so nurture it.

• When you can help somebody else with their job search (e.g., somebody asks you for a referral), do it. What goes around comes around.

• Plan for the short-term, like meeting with professional contacts to advance your job search, and the long-term, like remembering to send “Happy Birthday” greetings to people in your network.

• Join professional organizations and volunteer.

• Go to job fairs, those booths aren’t powered by AI. People are in them and they want to talk to you. Give them a resume. Trust me, the recruiters and hiring managers wouldn’t be there unless they had a job to fill.

---

Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

Job Hunting Strategies For C-Level Executives

iStock | seb_ra

There is a misconception that senior executives (CEO, CFO, CIO, COO, etc.) are immune to the challenges and vagaries of a job hunt. The outsider perspective is the top of the top are masters of their universe and slipping into a new role is an effortless, almost automatic process. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only are there fewer opportunities, but when plum jobs become available, they are hyper-competitive in a way foreign to other exempt employees. It’s indeed a different game played on a different field.

If the letter “C” is in your title, it’s often the Board (or owners) who must be convinced you will bring the greatest return on their investment. For example, in a typical search for a CEO or President of a publicly traded company, the Board of Directors is the hiring party, whereas in private companies, private equity firms, or venture capital, it tends to be the owners. Once that executive is in place, he or she is tasked with building their executive and management teams, but the Board (or owners) still play an advisory and approval role.

That said, while Boards and owners ultimately make the hiring decisions, chances are they are often not involved in the mechanics of the search process, as key decision makers tend to jump in at the end when the slate’s been trimmed to two or three prime candidates.

Many, but not all, Fortune 500 companies have dedicated in-house recruiters who specialize in executive searches. Their contact list is full of executives with whom they’ve built professional relationships, but it’s executive search firms that are on speed dial. Smaller and/or private companies that do not have the resources for recruiters with executive search expertise on their payroll (or choose not to employ them) are beholden to these search firms as well.

What exactly is an executive search firm? In short, the executive search firm is the C-suite’s professional matchmaking service, and executive search firms like Korn-Ferry, Robert Half, and Spencer Stuart have the keys to the entrance. Boards, owners, recruiters, and senior executives know these firms and will answer their phone calls when actively engaged in an executive search. Note: You can find Forbes’s list of Top 100 Executive Recruiting Firms (2023) here.

So, what does this mean for the executive looking for a new role? Here are some tips for the C-level job hunter.

• If you’re a senior executive looking for a new position, dipping your toes in the executive recruiting pool is a great first step. Ideally, executives (or future executives!) take care to nurture relationships with multiple executive recruiting firms throughout their careers and not just when they need a new job. Do the research and leg work to become a known top-tier commodity in the hallowed halls of the top firms so that you’re front of mind when a potential role opens up.

• Executive search firms recruit across industries, but individual recruiters specialize in specific areas. For example, if you’re a CIO it’s great to have general relationships with executive recruiting firms, but it’s more beneficial to go a level deeper by ingratiating yourself to the recruiters who specialize in tech. You may be disappointed if you rely on the person answering the phone to transfer your call to the right person if that person has no idea who you are.

• It is easy to be an island when you’re at the top. Your network may shrink as you climb the ladder. The best thing you can do to accelerate relationships with executive recruiting firms is to be found – pay attention to your existing professional network, be an active and helpful connection to others, and help open doors.

• Nurture a positive public presence. Google yourself. What’s out there? How much positive press do you have? Are there any erroneous characterizations you need to counter or attempt to purge? Recruiters and high-level hiring authorities (like a Board of Directors) want their senior executives to be known as thought leaders in their field (and not potential liabilities). Elevate your profile. Do interviews with leading publications. Nudge your way into giving a TED Talk. Cultivate press releases, which can be personal or company-centric. Create online and traditional media content, or even write a book. Speak at a college graduation. Launch a charity. These types of professional endeavors collectively convey your professional brand and may separate you from the pack. On the other hand, if you have a reputation for playing with companies like they’re toys without regard for people’s livelihoods, you may find yourself in a compromising position of your own making. If you inspire the best in people, the best people will want to work for you.

• Don’t forget the basics. Your LinkedIn profile needs to be flawless. It will be put under a microscope. Don’t underestimate the importance of professional groups and colleague referrals. You’re a big dog. If you have professional referrals from other big dogs it helps. Statistically, LinkedIn has a low content creator-to-subscriber ratio. Be one of them.

---

Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.