One person's working-out of employment restrictive covenants, written down after a job offer arrived with four paragraphs attached that nobody would explain. Nothing here is legal advice for your situation.
The document arrives as a PDF, usually flattened, usually stapled to the end of the offer letter as Exhibit A, and usually with a signature block already bearing a countersignature from someone in HR you have never spoken to. That construction is not accidental. A flattened PDF resists editing, and a document you cannot edit is a document most people sign. The first useful thing a careful reader does is ask for the Word version, because the request is ordinary, it is granted more often than not, and the answer tells you whether anyone on the other side is authorized to change anything at all.
1. The narrowing requests that usually come back approved
Employers hold the line on the existence of a covenant far more stubbornly than on its dimensions, which means the edits that survive are almost always subtractions from scope rather than deletions of the clause. Narrowing a customer non-solicitation from every account in the company database to accounts you personally serviced or learned about in the last twelve months is routine, partly because courts prefer it that way. Shortening a term from eighteen months to twelve is common. Tying a geographic restriction to the territory you actually covered, rather than every state where the company holds a license, is often granted in a single round.
2. Carve-outs for a client you are bringing with you
If you have a relationship that predates the employer, name it in writing and get it excluded, because a covenant that swallows a client you brought through the door is the clause most likely to hurt you and the easiest one to fix beforehand. The mechanism is usually a short schedule attached to the agreement, sometimes titled Permitted Clients or Pre-Existing Relationships, listing entities by legal name. Keep the list generous and specific. A carve-out described in conversation and never written down is worth nothing eighteen months later, when the manager who approved it has moved on and the file contains only the signed document.
3. The requests that almost always come back refused
Deleting the non-compete outright is rare outside of positions where the candidate has genuine leverage, and asking for it as your opening move can burn the goodwill you need for the narrowing edits that would actually help. Confidentiality clauses are rarely time-limited, because trade secret protection conventionally runs as long as the information stays secret. Choice of law and venue are treated as house standards and defended hard. Forfeiture provisions attached to equity or deferred compensation sit with the plan documents rather than the employment agreement, and the person negotiating with you often has no authority over them.
4. How the changes get recorded, and what to keep
Three instruments do this work: a redline of the agreement itself, an amendment or side letter signed by both parties, or handwritten changes initialed in the margin by you and by whoever signs for the company. All three hold up, but only if the version you keep is the version everyone signed, with the same initials and the same attachments in the same order. Ask for a fully countersigned copy as a single PDF, save it somewhere that is not a work laptop, and note the date. The Federal Trade Commission is responsible for federal oversight of competition practices affecting workers, and the shape of these agreements has been moving, which is another reason the dated copy matters.
5. Already signed, and now you want out
Start with the paper, because the paper frequently contains the exit. Check whether the company ever countersigned, whether the covenant was signed at hire or handed to you years later without a raise or promotion attached, whether it was assigned properly if the business was sold, and whether the non-compete falls away when the company terminates you without cause. Many do. Then read the definitions, since a narrow definition of competitive business or restricted customer can do more for you than any argument about reasonableness. Departure is also a negotiation: employers routinely release or shorten covenants in exchange for a clean exit, a signed release, or a short notice period, and asking on the way out is normal.
The practical rule is that scope is negotiable and existence usually is not, so spend your requests on the boundaries, in writing, before the signature page comes back with a date on it.