NDA for Job Candidates

When a candidate NDA makes sense

Ask for one when a candidate is about to see something you wouldn’t want a competitor to know. Keep in mind that strong candidates often interview at several companies at once.

• Take-home projects or work samples that use real code, data or customer information
• Late-stage interviews that cover the roadmap, unreleased products or internal metrics
• Executive and senior hires who review financials, board materials or strategy
• Confidential searches, where the opening itself isn’t public

The interview NDA and the employment agreement

This NDA covers the hiring process. If you hire the person, their ongoing confidentiality obligations are usually handled in the offer letter, the employment agreement, or a separate confidentiality and invention assignment agreement, which also deals with who owns the work they create. Use those for employment; they cover things an interview NDA doesn’t.

For screening calls and standard interviews, skip the NDA. Asking every applicant to sign adds friction and protects little, because you shouldn’t be sharing much yet. If you’re hiring someone on contract instead, see NDAs for contractors.

One-way, with a clear purpose

A one-way NDA with your company as the discloser is the usual fit: you share, the candidate receives. Add your company name so the business is the party, and sign as its representative.

For the purpose, “evaluating a potential employment or contractor engagement” works for most hiring. For a take-home project, you can be more specific: “evaluating a potential employment engagement, including completing a take-home exercise.”

What it covers, and what to watch

The candidate may use your information only for the hiring process, and must return or destroy it when you ask. That’s a good request to make when the process ends, whatever the outcome.

• Don’t over-share. Use sample or anonymized data for take-homes where you can, and avoid handing over personal data about customers or employees just to test a skill.
• An NDA doesn’t give you rights to a candidate’s work. If you want to use what they produce, agree on that separately, and consider paying for substantial work.
• It doesn’t restrict where they work next. The template has no non-compete or non-solicitation clause; it only limits use of your information.

Sending it with FastNDA

Create the NDA, choose one-way with you as the party sharing, enter the candidate’s name and email, and pick a confidentiality period and governing law. Read the agreement, sign with your typed name and pay $29. The candidate gets a private link and signs from their inbox in a couple of minutes, with no account. Send the take-home or schedule the deep dive once you have the countersigned PDF.

Each NDA is between you and one other person, so three finalists means three NDAs. That’s another reason to save it for the stage that really needs one.