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An interview non-disclosure agreement is a short contract signed by a job candidate before or at an interview, committing them to keep confidential anything they learn during the process.
Interviews reveal more than most employers realise. Candidates hear about unreleased products, hiring plans, restructures, financial position, and technical architecture, often within the first twenty minutes.
The document is deliberately narrow. It covers the recruitment process rather than an ongoing working relationship, and it ends without ever becoming an employment document if the candidate is not hired.
It is most common where the process itself is sensitive: confidential searches, unannounced roles, or interviews that involve showing a candidate something genuinely proprietary.
Most interviews do not need one. Reach for an interview non-disclosure agreement where there is something specific to protect:
Asking routinely for ordinary roles has a cost. It slows scheduling, it signals distrust before a relationship exists, and strong candidates with options sometimes simply decline.
How you handle the request matters as much as the drafting, because the candidate is assessing you too.
Send it ahead of time. Presenting a contract at the start of an interview leaves someone choosing between reading it properly and appearing difficult, which is unfair and produces a worse signature than a considered one.
Keep it to one page. A candidate should be able to read and understand it in two minutes without needing advice.
Limit it to confidentiality. An interview agreement is not the place for assignment of ideas, non-competes, or anything about future employment, and including them raises fair questions about what is really being asked.
Say what happens to their materials. If the candidate submits a portfolio, code, or a written exercise, tell them how it will be used, who sees it, and when it is deleted.
Tip: Have someone outside the hiring team read your standard form as if they were a candidate. Anything that reads as overreaching at that stage will cost you candidates who have alternatives.
Some restrictions are inappropriate at the interview stage, and a few may be unenforceable.
Do not restrict their job search. A candidate must remain free to interview elsewhere, accept another role, and continue their career. An agreement that limits that is a serious restraint imposed on someone you have not hired.
Do not try to prevent them discussing the process itself. Candidates talk about interviews, and attempting to prohibit any mention of having interviewed with you is both unrealistic and poorly received.
Do not claim their ideas. If a candidate is asked to solve a problem or present a plan, be clear that you are not acquiring rights in it, and think carefully before asking for substantial unpaid work at all.
Do not restrict discussion of pay and conditions. In many places employees and applicants have protected rights to discuss compensation and working conditions, and clauses cutting across those may be invalid.
An NDA also cannot prevent anyone reporting unlawful conduct, discrimination, or harassment experienced or observed during a recruitment process.
An interview non-disclosure agreement should be one page and plainly worded.
The company and the candidate, with the date.
A line stating that the candidate is participating in a recruitment process.
Specific categories: unreleased products, financial information, technical details, and the existence of the role where relevant.
Public information, anything the candidate already knew, and anything independently obtained.
That information is used only to evaluate the opportunity.
A defined period rather than an indefinite obligation.
An express statement that signing creates no offer, no obligation to hire, and no employment relationship.
How anything they submit will be handled and when it is destroyed.
Both parties sign and the candidate keeps a copy.
An interview non-disclosure agreement takes minutes to prepare and should take minutes to read. Document Genius walks you through each section with simple questions.
Identify what specifically would be disclosed.
Leave employment terms out entirely.
Name what is protected rather than claiming everything.
Match it to how long the information stays sensitive.
Give the candidate time to read it.
Both sides keep a record. Start yours now and have it ready today.
Being asked to sign one is normal in some sectors, and reasonable in the right circumstances.
Read it before the interview. If it arrives on the day, it is fair to ask for a few minutes, and a reasonable employer will give them.
Check the scope. Confidentiality about their unreleased product is reasonable; anything restricting where you may work, what you may say about the process, or claiming rights in your ideas is not.
Watch for anything about pay. Clauses restricting your ability to discuss compensation deserve scrutiny, and in many places such restrictions are limited by law.
Ask what happens to your work. If you are asked to complete an exercise, ask who will see it, whether it will be used, and when it is deleted.
Take advice if something concerns you and the role matters to you. Nothing here is legal advice, and no rule on enforceability, protected disclosures, or applicant rights is stated anywhere on this page.
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