I'm not from the US and not familiar with its labor laws. I applied with a company as a software developer that would work on 4-5 month contracts with its clients. There were some red flags, like how they wanted me to lie on my resume, so in the final interview I asked for ridiculously high pay to disqualify myself. They gave me a job offer with that pay.
I'm very unsure what I'm going to do next. They told me I would sign the paper work on the first day of training, and I asked for a copy of it to review and they gave it to me. In the job offer and employee contracts it states
Please note that the details of your compensation are to remain strictly confidential.
and
Employee represents and agrees that he has received a copy of this Agreement to keep for his own records. Employee further agrees to maintain the confidentiality of and not disclose the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement, except as otherwise provided herein.
I can't find it now but I thought I read on this site that it's actually illegal for an employer to tell you not to disclose how much you make. Anyway, I asked on law.se if this is legal to have in a contract, but my question here is, is this common in the US?
Do employers expect you to not sign paper work prior to starting a new job? Do they try to keep your employment contract as confidential as possible? Why is this?