<prompt> Human: UPDATE: I was handed the contract today and it had a considerable pay raise included. I was rather surprised. There is a catch. They increased the mileage of the agreement considerably so I still have somethings to think about. All in all, this thread got me thinking about the right things, motivated me to do my research, and definitely made me more confident going into the meeting today. Thank you all for the help!Hello, looking for a little advice and reality checking on this one. I lead a department of salesmarketing people in a competitive entertainment market. My team is currently on non-compete contracts. I am not. After working for this company 9 years in similar capacity, in which I have never signed any contracts, they are asking me to sign one after 20 months in this specific market. I understand why. One of my managers was not under contract and was recently picked off by the competitor. This caused the SVP to say everyone in marketingsales leadership must now be under contract. Currently we only have the sales employees under contract, not leadership. Our current non-compete for the sales team is discussed upfront at time of hire. Basically it says by signing the contract your salary will be X, if you dont sign your salary will be X - Y. This causes me concern that my contract will have consideration of continued employment at X salary or a decrease if I dont sign. My question to rpersonalfinance is, as a solid department leader who is consistently meeting but not necessarily exceeding goals what type of negotiation should I engage in? Ideally I would like to use this to negotiate a consideration in the likes of a signing bonus or bump in pay for effectively taking myself out of the job market for 2-4 years. I do have opportunity to take my skills to a competitor regularly, but i enjoy my current company and internal advancement opportunity. Any advice or stories about similar situations is much appreciated! Thanks!Edit: Thanks for the feedback so far. This is good. To clarify one thing, I am more interested in negotiation than the actual stipulations of the non-compete. I dont think it is fair for a company to ask me for peace of mind, when I get no additional benefits. They get to rest easy knowing I cannot go across the street, while I am at a disadvantage if I wanted to go across the street.  <response>: Depending on the state you work in, continued employment may not be valid consideration for a NC. CT does not consider continued employment consideration while NY does, so this is a very state dependent question. Consult a friend in the legal field who may have an answer for you or can find the answer via legal search engine. 