wondering about borders of confidentiality

[OliverJDragon]

My first professional mentor now works for a company that is not currently hiring.

One of his competitors wants to hire me, though, and I would like to talk this over with a trusted party. If I discuss this with said mentor, am I revealing information I shouldn't to his competition?

Logically, I'd say no. Other companies advertise jobs and anyone who cares to look can tell who's hiring for what. Mr. Mentor had suggested another of his competitors I might apply to, and I talked to him about those prospects. So why do I feel like I can't talk about this one?

Part of it might be that unlike Mr. Mentor's company, and the other competitor, this current prospect is a firm I've dealt with in my current capacity, and I've been thoroughly trained not to reveal anything about the workings of the companies we deal with to anyone else. Is it just that? Or is my gut telling me something else that my brain is missing?

OJD

 

[apsix]

Unless you made an agreement with the company looking to hire you, any information you have is yours to share.

As your Mentor is a trusted party you can ask and expect any discussion to remain in confidence.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Unless you made an agreement with the company looking to hire you, any information you have is yours to share.

I'll add the hiring company would have been stupid to share confidential information with you before a signed agreement, but if they did, it would be in poor taste to share such information, even if not necessarily unethical.

Just a clarification...

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[OliverJDragon]

All the information I have that maybe no one else does, and that I would like to be able to talk about, is that they're looking to hire engineers (which they haven't done much of before), and that specifically they're looking to hire me.

It shouldn't be a highly confidential bit of information. I can't put my finger on why it feels like I shouldn't tell Mr. Mentor. It is perhaps the conditioning I mentioned before, that I'm just not supposed to talk about what the companies we deal with are doing, period. If it's just that, I don't need to worry about it. But it's just such a strong gut feeling that I didn't want to just brush it off without a sanity check.

OJD

 

[MacGyverS2000]

I see nothing wrong with sharing...

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[kelowna]

I have worked with a number of younger engineers and engineering students, and they seem to trust me enough to ask for advice (another issue would be to follow it). I see no problem with the scenario you present.

In fact I have had the same situation. An engineer who worked with me while studing, graduated and had two offers from firms competing with my current employer. As a matter of fact, one of the offers was through my contacts in that firm. He talked to me several times about it before choosing one of them. I never saw a problem.

 

[OliverJDragon]

Cool. Thanks, folks. I shall stop twitching.

OJD