Need Advice re references and NDA

Verruckt

Short and simple. What would you do?

Scenario: You worked in the past for a company as an employee (as a sysadmin), and that company also contracted out another IT company for software dev, additional hands, etc. You signed an NDA when you were employed by this company that you would not give out any names / information of contractors, etc.

You go to an interview 2 years down the road and everything goes well - one sticking point... the prospective employer wants to call the contractor that you worked with.

What do you do? You signed a NDA not to give out such information... They also are not your previous employer (more like a coworker)...

What do you do if they keep pressing the issue?

tpatt100

I always remembered signing stuff that said I was not allowed to disclose information on projects I worked on specifically but people who did it?

MiikeB

Did you explain to the prospective employer that you signed an NDA? I would assume they would respect that and leave it alone.

Verruckt

Yep, they were told and it was left at that.

Here's the kicker though, the job was found and interview landed through a recruiter. The client told the recruiter the interview went great, and just mentioned that they would like to contact the contractor.

Now the recruiter is pushing the same thing to me, even though they were told that an NDA was signed (and company policy is to not give out such info).

There's no bad reason I can't give out the info, it's just because I'm under an NDA, and it is company policy not to give it out. I believe it is because people have tried to poach on this contractor before (competition), and because he himself cannot speak for the company.

I dunno, I feel like the recruiter is making a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be or is.

Hypntick

Verruckt wrote: »

Yep, they were told and it was left at that.

Here's the kicker though, the job was found and interview landed through a recruiter. The client told the recruiter the interview went great, and just mentioned that they would like to contact the contractor.

Now the recruiter is pushing the same thing to me, even though they were told that an NDA was signed (and company policy is to not give out such info).

There's no bad reason I can't give out the info, it's just because I'm under an NDA, and it is company policy not to give it out. I believe it is because people have tried to poach on this contractor before (competition), and because he himself cannot speak for the company.

I dunno, I feel like the recruiter is making a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be or is.

Stick to your guns on it. It could be a test really to see if you're trustworthy. That may not be the case, but people can be sneaky.

apr911

My question at this point would be why they want to contact the contractor specifically.

The NDA you signed is far over reaching but then again I never specify where my references come from.

i.e. I worked for Manager/Reference A at company B but when providing Reference A as a reference its just his name and number. Not company affiliation. In this situation, you arent providing contact details of an employee, you are providing contact details of a friend who agreed to be a personal reference...

Something seems fishy though that they are requesting to specifically speak to the contractor.

They arent contacting a reference in this situation, they are contacting a previous employer in which case I would refer them to the employers general phone number and explain that you can not provide the names and contact information of anyone you worked with or details of any project that you worked on but they are more than welcome to contact the company to see if they would be willing to provide the information.

Heero

It really depends on the situation, but you should probably stick to your guns and not give them the name(s). Specifically ask them what information they want from the contractor that you worked with and tell them you would be willing to work with them to provide the information and/or address any concerns they have as long as you don't have to violate the NDA.

Kinda a shitty situation, a good example of why over-aggressive NDAs should NOT be taken for granted.