2x NDA's just so the agency can talk to me about a role.....

[FarmerPalmer]

NDAs are a fact of life for certain commercial entities, needing to protect their business.

Current client is requesting certain potential suppliers sign one before talking due to nature of business.

I have had to sign for previous clients and worked on products that are yet to come to market, and some that are now on the high street, but client needed to protect their IP, and quite right, if they spend a lot of money on R&D.

They don't want you spouting off to a competitor, especially as a short-term contract supplier if you move around the industry.

[Wanderer]

Was contacted last night about a role in Scandinavia but before their director (!) can talk to me at a high-level about the gig I need to sign an NDA. For them to then talk to me in more detail about the role, I'll need to sign a second NDA.

Nothing wrong with that. I've signed NDAs lots of times before, it's a standard term of business in a lot of areas. You're being a bit precious, I think.

Generally it turns out that company X is doing a deal with company Y and terminating it's relationship with company Z. The deal is worth a lot of money and the companies are PLC listed so you have to sign a NDA before you are given details of the deal which isn't finalised so it was commercially sensitive rather than secret business processes.

Even with secret business processes, I don't have a problem with it because it's usually not my line of business. For example, they run a factory producing widgets and they have a very clever process to speed up production. They want me to work on some systems that manage the production line so I would become aware of their production techniques. The only restriction is that I can't go to a competitor and help them replicate the company's secret widget techniques that I saw in action. As I don't manufacture widgets, it makes no difference to me.

If the NDA relates to something actually related to my skillset, then I could generally do some research and find that it's been done before anyway so once again, there is no problem.