What is the most common reason an employer would make you sign a non-disclosure agreement?
Because you may become aware of information that the employer regards as commercially sensitive, and they want to be certain that (a) you are aware that you should treat such information carefully; and (b) they have some form of recourse if you do something stupid.I’ve lost count of all the NDAs that I’ve signed over the years: they are so common in the IT industry that our legal department has set up an automated system to generate the necessary documents.
What might I tell a former employer who wants me to sign a separation agreement that I don't want to sign? Though not stated explicitly, my employer is making it sound like my final paycheck is contingent upon my signing.
Asshole Man says "Here's your clear, concise response": "I'm not signing that, and I wouldn't even considering signing it without the advice of my attorney. Now, please give me my final paycheck with a full accounting of hours worked, vacation pay accrued, and any deductions you took from my pay."Your final paycheck is not ever a bargaining chip. It is money that you are legally owed, for work you've already performed on the company's behalf for the company's profit. Period.In the US, the EEOC, Department of Labor, and B.O.L.I. have made this quite clear, quite often. It's legally non-negotiable on the Federal level. State laws are usually very similar and often have harsh penalties for violators.If they actually are foolish enough to withhold your pay for refusing to sign... I know that in Oregon it's worth 2 full days of wages for every day they don't pay me the full amount owed. Many States have similar laws... it's worth checking into.More to the point is that they've already fired you and therefore you owe them nothing at all beyond the return of company owned property. Worse, you have nothing to gain by signing any such agreement; and if they've violated your Rights while you worked for them you may well be signing away your Right to do anything about that. Depending on how this so called agreement is worded you might even be "admitting" to something in the fine print which could bar you from getting unemployment benefits. You may find reading this over a couple of times useful:http://www.twc.state.tx.us/news/...http://www.twc.state.tx.us/news/...
When you are hired, are you considered employed even if you have not started working with them yet?
I’m not sure what the law says about this, but most employers consider you an employee only when you show up to work on the first day.Offers of employment are solid promises—but they can be broken before you start a job, and I don’t think you could ethically tell anyone that you actually worked for that company, honestly, if you didn’t show up on the first day.I’d say a general rule to follow is this: If you produced any level of labor for someone else that resulted in them paying you for your labor, then you’re actually “employed.”Anything short of that is volunteering.(“Hiring” is more accurately thought of as the process leading up to employment. “Employment” is the exchange of labor for compensation.)
Do employers check for references AFTER they hire you?
I already went through the interview process, got hired, received my uniform, filled out the w4, already started working! And 3 days after I start working, some of my friends and acquaintances told me they got a call from my employer. And today the woman that hired me, calls me and asked me about my past employers numbers and references. UM, shouldn't you have done all of this BEFORE you had me working? Is this the norm?
Should I sign a non compete agreement after being hired?
Asking after you are hired and still working is appropriate. If I found someone had slipped through the hiring process without signing one, it would be a condition of continued employment. Reading the comment to an answer, you say you are first being asked one day before your internship ends and they are threatening to withhold pay if you don t sign. There are two issues to consider. First legal. Second career. Legally, in CA, they cannot withhold earned pay if you choose not to sign. Other issues aside (since I have not seen the agreement), they would have to give you something they did not already owe you (consideration) to make the agreement valid. You are calling it a non compete, but given you are young and an intern, I am not sure you are not referring to a confidentiality and inventions assignment, more typical in CA (no, post employment non compete is not legally enforceable in CA).The next issue is career. Obviously, you are not making any friends here and this is only an internship. Sounds like that is too late to repair anyway, so I am not sure it matters. It may have been worth your while to sign to be on good terms, but I haven't seen the agreement and don't know what state you are in.
Can my employer make me repay my signing bonus? I received a $15K signing bonus under the condition I stay for two years at my firm in SF. I stayed for 1 year and 9 months. I want to leave now. They say I have to repay half of it. Is this accurate?
You already have the money - you don't "have to" do anything. That being said, you have several options:Repay the $7500Obviously this is what you're contractually obligated to do and would allow you to sleep at night. When they hired you they of course paid you the bonus with the expectation that you'd stay two years and figured you'd be honest enough to hold up your end of the bargain.Keep the $7500You could do this, and risk the chance that the employer would come after you in court. It would cost them a lot of time and effort to get a lawyer, take the case to court, obtain a judgment, and then execute that judgment against you. Honestly $7500 is probably on the low end of what it would be worth to try to go after through the legal system, and the case would probably end up settling for part of that amount (as about 90% of civil cases do).You'd also of course have burned the bridges at this company if you ever expected a reference from them. That in itself might be enough of a reason to avoid this course of action.On the plus side, you'd have the $7500 in your pocket.Stay another 3 monthsThat way based on the conditions you get to keep the $7500 and you've fulfilled all the requirements - there's no basis for them to come after you and there would be no hard feelings.Negotiate for it in severanceYou can lay out the options for them:"Here are the possibilities:I can stay another 3 months and do nothing because I want to leave anyway to keep the $7500.I can keep the money and you can spend a lot of time and effort trying to recover the money from me, which is likely to net you very little and be a huge hassle at best.Or, as part of my severance, I'll give back part of the sign-on bonus since I've stayed most of the two years - I'll give you back $3000 and we'll call it even.Which sounds best to you?"Negotiate for it from your new companyTell your current company that by taking the job within the next 3 months you'd have to pay back $7500 of your signing bonus at the last company. Ask if they'd be willing to cover that.Personally, I'd try negotiating for it in severance first, and then negotiating for it from the new company, if I wasn't able to stay the remaining 3 months.
Can my employer run a background check after I have been hired?
Can my employer run a background check after I have been hired?Do a background check at checkingrecords.com Have a look at what companies, folks you know, and pretty much any person can easily research concerning you. Research reports consist of general public, court docket, criminal arrest, offender, critical, and various other reports.Can my employer run a background check after I have been hired?Is it legal for an employer to do a background check on an employee months after they have been hired, and fire them if anything is found?Usually, an employer will notify the employee that there may be a background check performed during the employment. Most employers will ask you for written consent to conduct a background check. Your employer should have told you that any negative feedback from the background check would mean that you would be terminated if you have already been hired. In the event that your employer didn’t ask you for written consent to a background check, or explain that negative feedback would result in termination, you should discuss these issues with your employer. There are certain regulations on how the information is to be utilized.How do companies proceed when the employee who they wish to hire cannot verify a degree during a background check?Generally, this choice will be made by the individual employer. Many employers, if they want to hire the applicant, will delay the employee’s start date in order to gather all of the information related to their degree. However, there is the chance that an employer will not hire an employee due to lack of proper information to verify educational degrees. In most cases, an employer can request the information from the schools registar, speeding up the process by having the school fax any information.
What are the signs that an interview went well and that they will hire you later?
When you yourself know that you have answered most of their questions correctly and confidently and that your profile/work experience is matching their Job Description to a great extent.When even the technical manager starts asking you some or most of the HR kind of questions like how soon you can join them, what is your expected and actual CTC, are you fine with the location of job, are you ready to work in shifts.When you ask them about the requirement details, they very happily explain it to you in great detail(not just namesake in short) like the requirements are so and so, so we were looking for a candidate who can do this and this, the way you do.And sometimes they even tell you some topics to brush up before joining the company.I like this approach of interviewers a lot. :)If its your first round, they will say that they will share the feedback with HR and HR will communicate it to you and you will probably have to give one more round of interview. :)