No Poaching Clause

[DesperateDanny]

A senior colleague of mine left a few months ago to work for another company following the buy-out of our organisation and a general uncertainty around what the future holds. A few weeks ago, I went onto his new company’s careers page and noticed a position I’d be suitable for, not in his team but in the same office.

Having been for an interview and given a verbal offer, the company have now come back and said they can’t offer me the position because my colleague had a “no poaching” clause in his contact with my current employer which bars him from “taking” staff with him for a period of 9 months.

I’m so annoyed at this, I didn’t get poached and I’m not even going to work for him but the new company are cautious and have told me to get back in touch late spring. We work in a specific field with skills/experience etc that aren’t easily transferrable to other sectors and I’ve now heard that someone else senior is moving to the only other organisation within a reasonable commute so that presumably bars me for the next 9 months from applying there too.

I just wanted to see if anyone has any experience of this? It seems completely unfair to prevent staff from legitimately finding new jobs.

Could you write them a letter asking them to reconsider, and telling them that you saw the advertisement completely independently, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with your former colleague? You haven't been headhunted or poached, you have been wanting to leave your current employer for some time, you were looking for a new job, and found their job advert yourself.

Your employer isn't imposing a clause on you preventing you from legitimately finding a job. So you have nothing to challenge as being unreasonable as such.

Obviously you don't specify the wording in your ex colleague's contract but it seems very unlikely your employer would be able to take any action against him in the event someone applies for a job through no poaching involved. So I'd say your new potential employer are being very over-cautious, and they are the ones deciding to withdraw the offer, rather than your current employer preventing you from going.

There's no particular reason to think every employer would be quite so cautious so I would say don't let this experience stop you from applying to different companies where someone happens to already work.