[creatine_lizard]

There can be legal issues from the candidate's side too -- people on an H-1B visa in the US may not be able to accept payment for work outside of the company they've been hired by.

[walshemj]

Actually its common for many if not all employers to ban outside work with out approval from your manager.

[snsr]

Which is bullshit and absolutely none of their business.

[codazoda]

And also not very enforceable in some areas. I got legal advice on this from my own attorney some 20 years ago. I had created a piece of software on the side while working under a contract that said something similar. The software took off and I was worried about it. He advised me that worst case would be paying the company the money I earned while under that contract, but even that was a stretch.

[sqeaky]

In addition to being bullshit it is also a hint you should be moving on.

[blowski]

In the minority of cases where this is true, just handle it differently.