If you're job searching while still employed — which describes most people, most of the time — there's one setting worth configuring before you run a single job: your blocked-companies list.
Why this matters more than it seems like it should
A referral-outreach agent working on your behalf is, by design, reaching out to people at companies you're targeting. If your current employer is one of the companies your job board surfaces — which happens more often than you'd expect, especially for larger companies with multiple open roles — an automated system with no guardrails could end up messaging someone at your own company about a role somewhere else, on your behalf, without you ever seeing it happen first.
That's not a hypothetical edge case. It's exactly the kind of thing a blocked-companies list exists to prevent categorically, not just discourage.
How the block actually works
Adding a company to your blocked list doesn't just hide it from your job board — it's checked again at the exact moment any outreach would start, specifically to close the gap where a company gets blocked after you've already seen a job listed but before you click to start outreach on it. A block that only works at browse-time and not at send-time isn't really a safety feature, so this check happens both places.
Who else belongs on this list
Your current employer is the obvious one, but it's worth thinking through a few other categories too:
- Close competitors, if word getting back to your current employer through industry channels is a real risk for you.
- Companies where you have an unresolved situation — a past falling-out, a pending reference issue, anywhere contact right now would complicate something else.
- Anywhere you've already decided isn't a fit, so your outreach effort stays focused on companies you'd actually want to hear back from.
The one thing to remember
A blocked-companies list only protects you if you set it up before you start running outreach, not after. It takes about thirty seconds. Do it first.