I haven't experienced it but one thing this non compete agreement mention mostly is that you have to pay certain amount of money to the company if you want to break the agreement But if you really impress the other company for which you are willing to work with they have this special lawyer that goes through the non compete agreement who have expertise to go find flaws into the agreement or ways to break it.

I had to sign a non compete agreement when I started my job but I have not changed jobs yet so I can't speak to this. However, one of my colleagues is going through this. He recently came over to us from a competitor, and his former company is giving him a very difficult time. He is not allowed to be on certain projects and he had to wait for the green light from his lawyer before he could work on the project that I am working on.

I believe when you move from one medical device company to another, as part of the application or on-boarding process they ask "Have you worked for a company in which you are legally non-competing or restricting you from applying". It is usually something along those lines. I believe most people usually just say No. For those that say YES, I'm interested in hearing if the company even pays any mind to it.

I have not personally had this experience as it is early on in my career. However, I do have a colleague who interned at Zimmer Biomet, and as a result, the non-compete agreement had barred him from applying and working for Stryker for at least a 6 month period. This is understandable as their products are very similar.

In my line of work, I had extensive experience in the manufacturing and testing of high throughput, immunoassay, analytical instruments that are used in many hospitals around the world. Having this experience and knowledge, if I were to apply to Roche which is a rival company with a similar (yet inferior) instrument on the market, my Non-Compete Agreement may bar me for a period of time. This would definitely affect my chances of landing a job at Roche (because I would have to check off the box that says I am non-competing) and I would definitely have to think twice if going through all the trouble would be worth changing companies. However, I have not had the desire to switch yet so I personally cannot speak on the terms of how much they would care as Scott mentioned above. I too am also curious if anyone HAS made the switch and the trouble they had to go through both legally and timewise.

For both the companies I interned at, had me sign non compete agreements. I had to agree that I would not work at a competing company for at least a year I was done interning with this company. This was not an issue for me since I had worked during the summer for both companies and I had a year break. But I do remember a co-worker who had gotten trouble because of this. This was when I was interning at Chemaid Laboratory. She has gotten a job offer at a competing company and took the offer. After Chemaid found out she was leaving for that company, they had actually sued her. She had been working here for many years so I guess she forgot that she signed a non compete agreement. I believe that was the reason she gotten sued.

I have sign a non compete agreement before and did not affected me from getting another job that I want. To my knowledge, non compete agreement is an agreement not to enter into or start a similar company or go into competition against the company you're currently working. The agreement usually lasted for about three to five years after one left the company. But it doesn't stop you from leaving for another job you are interested in.

In my personal experience, I also had to sign a non-compete during on boarding which restricts me from working at certain companies. I have witnessed cases where my client wanted to hire an employee where we had a non-compete with. In many cases if the client and upper management come to agreeable terms and then it is possible. Although, these cases are seldom and require the employee to prove himself very valuable but they are possible.

There are many states that do not recognize the non-compete or the agreement is not enforceable in that state like California, Florida and etc. The reason for it is that it can be severe restrictions on competition and might make finding work impossible. For example, it is enforceable in New Jersey if the agreement pass the 3 tests specified by the NJ Courts.

I have not experienced this but there is an article on NJ. com that really dives into non compete agreements. It talks about the impact of these agreements on people who are seeking to switch jobs. “One-third of the engineers who changed jobs left their industry altogether, often taking pay cuts, to comply with the agreement” Or employees may seek a new job with a bigger company that promises to indemnify them in case of litigation. The article goes on to says that non competes presented to employees are typically legally unenforceable and are judged based on the vague legal concept of reasonableness, and subject to judge-made interpretations of this reasonableness test.

www.nj. com/jobadvice/2015/04/non-compete_agreements_under_m. html

I never directly dealt with a non-compete agreement but my brother in law has. He signed the agreement two years ago and found out recently the consequences of it. When he decided to defer his contract, he was obligated to pay the company 3 months of his salary. He also needed a lawyer to complete documentation to allow him to leave the company and for the company to allow him to work for another company. Mind you, he works in Dubai, so the non-compete regulations might be slightly different over there than the United States. It was a huge headache for him, so I wouldn’t suggest someone to sign a non-compete unless they are confident that they do not want to work for another company within a certain time frame.

Thanks for starting up this discussion. I really had no experience of this. But these posts made me to look through what is happening with respect to the Non Compete Agreement. In contract law, a non-compete clause (often NCC), or covenant not to compete (CNC), is a clause under which one party (usually an employee) agrees not to enter into or start a similar profession or trade in competition against another party (usually the employer). Some courts refer to these as "restrictive covenants." Various discussions is going on with respect to this clause. Even enforcing this clause is like really a argumentative at present.

Depending upon the states even the law enforcement differs. Each and every state has its own policies with Non Compete enforcement. The court expects a valid reason for this. If the entire business or part of it is getting some issues then they can consider the situation. I don't think there will be a major issues with respect to changing a job from one company to another. This link gives the brief explanation of non compete clause enforcement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause

I think that its not fair to have a non-compete agreement that will last a long time, e.g. 6+ months, especially for the newly graduated people because its not as if the company is gonna sustain you when you leave or get fired. You are basically on your own and not having a job for that long can be rough. It'll also affect one's chances of getting his/her next job because this will cause an employment history gap on their resume; and this is usually a red flag for most recruiters. However, I see how this is needed for the company because there are things that are confidential and kept within the company. And, this is needed to protect the company. But, as I've mentioned a lengthy non-compete agreement is not fair.

At the previous company for which I worked, I was required to sign a non-compete agreement. While I generally believe that very restrictive non-compete agreements are very unfair to employees, especially recent graduates, I did understand it from the perspective of my previous employer. They were a niche medical device company, with a relatively small market cap and a large market share. They did not have many direct competitors for the products they produced, but the products they made were superior to their competitors in many ways. Should I have left the company for one of their competitors, I could've caused them significant damage with the knowledge I had gained concerning their processes and formulations. While it would not be something I would do explicitly, I understand the need to have protection in the form of a non-compete agreement.