Before You Leave: 
What You Need To Know
In a nutshell, the restrictions on you before you leave Federal service are more stringent than those after you leave Federal service. Your additional ethics obligations begin when you start looking for a job.
BASIC RULE: You can't participate personally and substantially in official matters that will have a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of any person or entity with whom you are seeking employment.
KEY POINT: We look at whether the matter will have an effect on the employer's financial interest, NOT whether what you do will have an effect.
No participation means exactly what it says. You can't participate in the matter at all. Just because someone hides the name of the entity but still asks you to respond to the substantive issue is not good enough. You have to be sure that you do not participate AT ALL in any particular matter than involves the entity with which you are seeking employment. You have to stop participating fully and completely. You can't "write a few notes" on a matter and pass it along for someone else to deal with. No participation means that this matter is essentially dead to you.
Let's examine exactly what we mean by "seeking employment."
