Slashdot Mirror
Of NDAs and Resumes?
TheFuzzy asks: "I was just updating my resume, and came to the sudden realization that over half of the projects I've worked on in the last 3 years are under ironclad non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and I can't list them. This leaves me with either a slacker's resume, or makes me insert vague statements like "advised 3 Fortune 500 companies on database performance issues" which sounds rather fictional. Attempts to get clearance from these clients to use them as references get forwarded to their legal departments, never to return. Have other Slashdot readers encountered this issue? How did you deal with it? Is it particular to the database field, or is it common for other specialties as well?"
When asked, say you are bound by an NDA and can't divulge any information about the projects except in the broadest terms.
You will be hired for being able to keep a secret. It's an asset that companies find very valuable.
Describe the project in terms of technologies, size and, if possible, objectives. People reading resumes don't need to know exactly the project. If you need to reveal anything more to a potential employer, your letters to previous employer's legal departments will be much more focused (permission to reveal data X,Y and Z to individual W in the scenario of prospective employment).
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
You could reveal details of your past work experience, but then you'd have to kill them.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
I personally don't have that problem. The NDAs that I've signed were limited in time and have expired.
/.) about similar cases where american companies stop ex-employees from working at competitive firms, but that just doesn't work here...
That's in Europe of course, where the rules are more strict than in the US. Another example is if you sign an NDA which stops you from working within your profession. It is either illegal (beacuse it takes away your right to work), or, the company has to continue to pay your salary whether you work for them or not.
I've heard (on
"vague statements like "advised 3 Fortune 500 companies on database performance issues""
Ok, now we all know that you're a really smart guy.
"Is it particular to the database field, or is it common for other specialties as well?"
No, this only happens in the database field. Just like every smart guy, you're probably aware that people working for national security networks, anti-terrorism information systems or other stuff like this, don't have Non Disclosure Agreements.
____
nico
Nico-Live
"By reading this Resume you indicate your acceptance of the terms of the attached NDA."
I am planning on listing the work I did for your company on my resume in relation to project ABC which I worked as a contractor for during the period somedate to someotherdate. The exact text I am planning on using is this: ...
:)
Please have your legal department check that this does not violate the NDA I signed. Let me know within 14/21/30/60/whatever days if you would object to me including this on my resume.
etc.
i doubt it would be legal if you have clearly violated the terms of the NDA but you might actually get a response
In essence, write up your resume however you like, ignoring the NDA. (My suspicion, is that either, your NDA is uninforceable if you can violate it in less then the 3 bullet points, and 1 paragraph description of what your job is, or you are writting your Resume incorrectly). If what you do is standard industry practice, nearly every NDA I've ever seen says "anything that is standard industry practice is not covered by this NDA". It's completely uninforceable otherwise. They pay you to tell them common knowledge, the then hold you hostage to never give up that information again for the term of your NDA.
No mister roofer, you put shingles on my roof. For the next 3 years, every roof you build can't have shingles, otherwise I get to sue the bejesus out of you. You can't even tell the next guy you work for, that you know how to apply wooden squares to a angled board to keep water from hitting you. Nope, I've got an iron clad NDA right here. Uh-huh. Judge would throw you out on your ear withing 15 minutes of hearing the arguments for doing that.
For goodness sakes, your describing what's already known to the general population in the industry. No offense, but your not doing anything terrible secret in the area of RDBM's database optimation. Most of the really cool stuff was figured out 15 years ago, and they've been waiting around for the hardware to catch up. Lets see, schema layout, indexing, denormalizing data, princepal of locality (temporial and spacial), and instrumentation/profiling. Everything else probably came straight out of the vendor documentation, and was applied to a particular database. Optimation comes down to "time this, change param A, time again, change A some more, lather, rinse, repeat. Move to parameter B". Maybe you've figured some cool stuff out about ODBM's or something. However, even most of that is just following the bouncing ball after reading the documentation from the Vendor.
If they come after you, just explain to them, you'll take your six figure settlement now, or you'll find a nice attorney who'll work on contingency for 1/3 of the 7 figure settlement after the trial.
I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice. However, they can't compel you to give up your right to earn a living. Barring a matter of national security at least.
Kirby
Ask yourself, is there anything you can't say about your job (for example) at Goldman Sachs that you couldn't say about "one of the top 3 investment banks"? Just write up your resume with the names on, then do a quick search and replace to "anonymize" it.
Also ask yourself why you really need to mention these names... are you hoping some of the "prestige" of these companies will rub off on you? What you did is far more important than who you did it for, especially in technology. I'd be as impressed by a DBA from Walmart or McDonalds as I would by a DBA from GS - both can talk about their experience in high-volume mission-critical OLTP, for example.
Quit being a pussy and just put down the name of the company and a vague description of your job responsibilities. I seriously doubt they're going to haul anyone into court to sue over their resume.
You did the work, you have the right to list the company and a non-too-specific description of your job function.
I'll assume that you got to keep copies of your NDA agreements. Find a lawyer who can go over the NDAs and advise you on what you can do. Make sure the lawyer is bonded and insured so that if you get faulty advice that puts you in legal hot water it can get traced back to the lawyer and keep you out of it.
While you may not eventually be able to disclose which companies, you may be able to describe your duties and the scale of the company, and disclosue that additional details are covered under an NDA, for which verification can be obtained by your legal counsel, preferably in a notarised letter from your counsel.
So far, most of the NDAs I've signed have covered mostly the business practices contained for a certain period of time. They also be written under European laws which focus far more on ethics in consideration as well. (At least in my experience.)
Of course, things brings up another issue. We really do need to start having better organisations for technical professional in which our work history can be verfied as being worthwhile, even when our work is wrapped in an NDA.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
All of the NDA's I've signed in the past covered secrets that could cost the company a competitive edge, not that the actual employment took place. Why would Morgan Stanley be harmed if Goldman Sachs knew you had been in their building? Check the terms of the NDA carefully, first by yourself then with a lawyer. An NDA is not a gag order.
And secondly, if you are prohibited from revealing any of the details from the project including the employer name, list the goals and the results in way that a manager would understand. "Reduced total database spending by 40% through the use of custom human-centric software at one of America's top 5 financial institutions." The HR person will love it, but you haven't really said anything.
The ______ Agenda
A friend of mine work on a number of "deeply embedded, hard realtime" applications, where he was able to clarify that "deeply embedded" meant there was absolutely no user-interface or even user-access to the device, and "hard realtime" in this case meant that any operations not completed in their alloted time window would be aborted due to the hardware they were running on no longer existing. He was also able to name his employer (a known defense contractor).
While he couldn't tell people the nature of the product, he could tell them what his duties on the project included, as the parent poster suggested. Overall, he was able to drill down enough on the non-classified details to satisfy any interviewer that he knew what he was talking about without breaking any rules.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. Some interviewers also look for the ability to respect previous NDAs as a major hireing criterion, so handling this issue properly (respect the NDAs without acting freaked by them) could be a strong point in your favour.
If you were an employee of these companies, then they must have a) paid you and b) withheld state and federal income tax, social security, etc. The IRS likely didn't sign an NDA before taking your money, and the NDA you signed very probably does not cover your own personal tax return. Ergo, the fact of your employment by these companies would seem to be public knowledge not covered by the NDA you signed.
What's more, if I'm not mistaken, the companies you worked for are pretty much obligated to verify the dates of your employment.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Go find one if you're really that worried about this, and pay 'em a hundred bucks for 15 minutes that will put your mind at ease.
I have also had some company's that their security policy only allows them to confirm that you were under their employ, and nothing more.
People working on defense and national secuirity (black) projects have been getting jobs for years with no problems, how secret can your database be???? There are usually on a couple of unique features which you hand wave about and 99% of the work is generally pretty simillar to whatever the competition is working on so there is no secret. NDAs are ussually most interested in devluging info to competitors. "I worked on next gen databases" is good enough for listing in a resume. You need to get the interview before this is a real issue anyway. Once at the interview discuss the 99% of what you did and if they ask questions about the other 1% explain that it is covered by NDA. When push comes to shove, you need to get a job and NDAs can't restrict you from getting a job. NDAs have proven to be pretty worthless in court, you don't have an option but to sign thier terms, so it is not really a valid contract and what are they going to do anyway, how will they find out what has been discussed??? You need a job, make some effort to protect thier IP, but don't go overboard, if you're looking for work they didn't take care of you.
I've been consulting for about 20 years, and before that I did classified work for one of those customers, so I've dealt with the same problem extensively. It's really not that big a problem.
First, it's not an unknown issue for the people reading your resume -- they know about NDAs, and probably are under one themselves. So they'll understand, in general at least.
Second, being in an NDA doesn't mean you can't say anything. Quantifiy what you did in terms that will matter to a potential employer ("improved transaction rate to 500 tps, a 75 percent improvement") without associating the information with an identifiable employer ("In a project under non-disclosure for a Fortune 50 firm"). List the firms you've worked for as "Consulting clients include" so that people know who you've worked for in general, without making that association. Or, if the very fact that you worked with a firm is under NDA (betcha it isn't), then list the company that was paying you your paycheck, and say "Working for Big Deal Consulting, Inc.; Consulted to Fortune 50 clients...."
(Notice, by the way, that if you were working independently, the fact that you were working for a client is public record; you deposited the checks which had a name and account number on them. Even if you were working for a DoD agency, the check says DoD, or "Maryland Procurement Office", or something.)
Third, be prepared to talk about the tasks you did in the interview. Again, what you did as an engineer isn't all that sensitive -- it's the association between the specfifics of the problem and the company that's sensitive.
IANAL ... but I don't think that an NDA can prohibit you from listing the project. It can prevent you from disclosing information about the project, but that's it.
mm
3. Post to the correct thread
Resume expert.
Find someone who does HR consulting, and have them give you a resume structure for your type of work experience, including NDAs. You may have to disassociate actual projects with the employers, but I don't see why you couldn't list your employers in one section, and general project details in another. Again, an HR/Resume consultant can help you structure this much better than Slashdot.
The fact that you signed an NDA for XYZ corporation can't be hidden. After all, let's say that Microsoft asked you to sign a non-disclosure. If you refused, you could legally say that Microsoft asked you to sign a non-disclosure.
Given this, they can't prevent you from mentioning who you worked for. The exception to this might be if you worked for a contracting company who then sent you to a specific site. You could then say you worked for the contracting company but perhaps not the end-client.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Rather than asking we techies, why don't you contact an attorney and get an answer specific to your jurisdiction? Another reader commented that the ability to respect an NDA may be important to the prospective employer. When I read that I thought: "what if it is legal? Then is would not be a respect to the NDA, but paranoia." So, ask a lawyer what you can say, and don't say any more.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
How do you show what you are capable of to a perspective employeer when everything you have written at a high techinical level is property of the companies you have worked for, and for internal use only...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
[wait for you to finish reading]
That's what you agreed to. Does it say that you can't mention your tasks, or just that you can't disclose your ideas? Does it say that you cannot discuss ANY work done with the company with ANYBODY who isn't under NDA, or does it have provisions for discussing your work with people not under NDA under a 'need to know' basis? Does it have a time limit? [If not specified, courts have ruled that non-compete agreements expire after a reasonable time, such as 2 or 3 years. Talk to a lawyer and see if it applies in your case for an NDA.] Does it have limitations to 'core business practices' not being disclosed? Did you work as a contractor for an accounting company or in another strictly-regulated field?
Nolo has a good summary of the five key elements in an NDA
Depending on your answers, you might be limited to responses to "Improved database response time by 270%" or you might be able to give good juicy details. If you were working on an external project, you are ethically bound (and possibly legally bound, in some cases) to keep your clients private unless you received permission to talk about them.
You should respect your agreements, and that implies that you should have been very careful about what you agree too. (Did you just sign the NDA's without thought?)
story time
My current company gave me an NDA, release of ideas, and non-compete agreement to sign as terms of employment. As normal, I didn't want to sign it and I visited a lawyer. (except this time he was my friend who was finishing law school and preparing for the bar exam.) He read through it with me, we crossed out about half of the NDA, nearly all of the assignment of ideas agreement, and a few lines of the non-compete agreement. We added an addendum with exceptions for all three, including a huge list of other projects that I have worked on or might have interest in working on. We added an exception for incidental use of company equipment and resources for personal projects.
When the employer saw it, he balked. I talked him through the reasoning for just about everything. The company probably doesn't want to own everything I produce, I argued, because there is [my now lawyer friend told me about it, but I can't find it online] a court case where a disgrundled employee produced human waste and distributed it to the customers as an example of company products. The company fired him and sued, the employee defended their case based on their draconian employment agreements, and the eventaully company settled the lawsuit for a bunch of money, rather than owing the employee a lot more money for wrongful termination and back pay.
After giving that example, my current boss agreed that some of the agreement was 'never going to be enforced that way', but he allowed me to cross off nearly all the items.
Three jobs ago [dot-com era] after going between their lawyers and my lawyers a few times, the company just gave up. In the end we agreed that I would simply not disclose any trade secrets, and no confidential information until three years after termination.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
The NDAs that I've signed were limited in time and have expired.
I thought "limited Times" in the European Union meant life plus 70 years. At least this is the case for copyrights; trade secrets (the subject of NDAs) are probably different.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Most of them also have clauses releasing you when the NDA-covered topic becomes public knowledge.
In-house software never becomes public knowledge. The source code of proprietary software never becomes public knowledge. Thus, waiting for a trade secret to become "public knowledge" doesn't always work.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I believe both you and the parent poster are confusing "Non-Disclousure Agreements", which covers the disclosure of technologies worked on, and "Non-Compete Agreements", which make some attempt to forbid you from working in the same field in the same area.
The inevitable disclosure doctrine creates heavy overlap between non-disclosure agreements and non-compete agreements. There is a presumption that an employee moving from one employer to a competitor will inevitably carry at least some trade secrets with him.
Will I retire or break 10K?
why don't you contact an attorney
The rationale surrounding legal questions in Ask Slashdot can be summed up: "To those who have been in this situation and talked to an attorney, what has (s)he told you?" Secondhand legal advice is often useful for preparing oneself in order not to waste billable time making a fool of oneself in front of an attorney.
Will I retire or break 10K?
A: Half an hour later, you're horny again!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The best policy, I think, is to describe the kind of work you are doing, but also mention that NDA prevents you from saying much more. You can impart a fair bit about what you did without giving away the important details.
Often times, honesty will win you points with a potential employer (particularly one is as honest a scrupulous as you are).
told me i'd have to sign and NDA and a no-compete agreement, but after 3 months here i haven't seen either one....
so i should keep my mouth shut maybe?
but what about after i leave, on good terms. can i outline what i did without offending anyone? if i use the "well, i never signed it" line, will i get a bad ref? hmm...
gets sued for your former boss giving purposefully vendictive references. i.e. the company ACTUALLY lying in an offical capacity. Hence, simply state the facts ma'am!
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