Employment Contract Review: 8 Clauses to Read Before You Accept

An offer arrives, the salary is right, and the contract is a formality nobody reads. It is also the document that governs the next several years of your working life, and a handful of its clauses keep applying long after you have left.

Eight things to check, in roughly the order they will matter.

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1. What the job actually is

Check: does the role description match the conversation?

A vague title with “and such other duties as the Company may reasonably require” gives wide latitude to change what you do. That is normal; what is not normal is a description so broad it covers a different job entirely.

Check location too. A mobility clause can require relocation, and remote-work arrangements agreed verbally are worth nothing unless they are in the document.

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2. Pay, and everything around it

Check: which parts are contractual and which are discretionary?

Base salary is contractual. Bonus is usually discretionary — which means it can be zero without breaching anything. If a bonus was part of the negotiation, ask for the terms in writing: how it is calculated, when it is paid, and what happens if you leave before payment.

Look for “no bonus is payable if you are under notice”, which is common and frequently discovered in the same month it applies.

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3. Probation

Check: how long, and what notice applies during it?

A short notice period during probation is normal. A probation period that can be extended indefinitely at the employer’s discretion is not.

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4. Notice — both directions

Check: do the two notice periods match?

One month from you and three months from them is fine. Three months from you and one week from them is a mobility problem: you cannot take a role that needs you in six weeks.

Check for garden leave (paid, not working, still bound by the contract) and payment in lieu of notice (they can end it immediately and pay). Both are normal; both change what your last months look like.

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5. Intellectual property

Check: what does the company own?

Work created for the employer, in working hours, using their resources — theirs, and that is standard. Assignment clauses that also capture anything you create during the employment whatever it relates to and whenever you made it are not standard, and they matter if you have a side project.

If you have one, raise it before signing and get it carved out by name.

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6. Restrictive covenants

Check: what can you not do after you leave?

Three separate things, often bundled:

• Non-compete — you cannot work for a competitor
• Non-solicit — you cannot approach clients or colleagues
• Non-deal — you cannot work with former clients even if they approach you

Enforceability varies by jurisdiction and depends on being reasonable in scope, duration and geography. But “probably unenforceable” is a position you argue from expensively and after a new employer has already withdrawn an offer. Read these as if they will be enforced.

Twelve months, an entire industry, worldwide, is the shape to push back on.

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7. Confidentiality after you leave

Check: is it limited to actual confidential information?

Perpetual confidentiality over genuine trade secrets is reasonable. A clause covering everything you learned, forever, with no exclusion for information that becomes public, is not — and it is the same over-broad drafting covered in spotting a bad clause in an NDA.

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8. What is incorporated by reference

Check: which policies form part of the contract?

Handbooks, expenses policies, disciplinary procedures. Some are contractual and some are not, and the difference decides whether they can be changed without your agreement. If a document is referred to, ask to read it before you sign.

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Check it in half a minute

Upload the contract for a free review — six scores out of ten with the reasoning for each, and a count of the concrete weaknesses found. Free, no account.

Balance of Terms is the score to read first here. Employment contracts are drafted by the employer and are legitimately asymmetric; the question is whether this one is more asymmetric than the market.

If the contract came as a PDF and you want to mark it up, convert it to Word — and send your comments as a PDF, so the version they see is the version you wrote.

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Asking for changes

Employers expect questions on employment contracts and are more flexible than candidates assume, particularly on notice periods, restrictive covenant duration, and IP carve-outs. The worst outcome of asking is a no.

The worst outcome of not asking is discovering the non-compete at the point you have already accepted a different job.

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Next step: review your employment contract → — free, no account.