Work Samples and the Non-Disclosure Agreement?

ahowl asks: "At my previous employer, I signed a traditional NDA, and when I was laid off, I signed another agreement stating I wasn't taking anything with me that belonged to the company. This included all the scripts, stored procedures, and anything else that I had created while employed. However, most of the subsequent jobs that I was looking at wanted work samples. If this continues I could have a ton of work I've done that I can't show anyone, so what can I do?"

Comments

Easy

[HavokDevNull]

Start an open source project! Help yourself as well as help the community.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never been asked for "work samples." I seriously doubt they are even asking for examples of work done at previous companies. That would be insane (releasing another companies IP?!).

Usually they go by the interview and stuff like that.

They probably are asking for code samples that you have written outside of work. If you haven't written any... well, write some! Especially if you're not working anyway, you have plenty of time available, no? Consider it part of the job searching process.

Still seems a little bizarre to even be asked for code sample in the first place though. I have to think that this only happened at one specific company and now you think all companies are like that.

Re:What?

[Scarblac]

I was asked to bring code samples from my previous experience to the job interview for my current job. They basically want an idea of your coding style, they're not going to steal any IP. I had permission from my previous job to show code samples for this sort of thing.

Speak nicely to your old boss

[turgid]

Speak nicely to your old boss and ask permission to show samples to your new prospective employer. Let old employer and new employer work out the legal details between them (and in the mean time they might both learn a thing or two about the ludicrous nature of "intellectual property" laws). The fact that you've shown the initiative might count for something, and also might demonstrate that your inablity to produce said evidence is not due to its non-existence, but rather beurocracy not of your making.

Re:Speak nicely to your old boss

[platos_beard]

As someone you might be dealing with to find that new job, I find it absurd that your prospective employer would presume to see work you've done which is owned by another company (I have asked if it would be possible on rare occasions, but never assumed it would be). Maybe someone who requests such samples will post a response, but I would hesitate to work for such an employer because I think asking for those samples is (borderline? I'm not sure) unethical.

That said, the knowledge in your head is yours, not your employers, and if you were to suggest a programming "test" to your prospective employer that bears a striking similarity to tasks you done for a previous employer, and if your test "answers" bear a remarkable similarity to the work you can't show the prospective employer, you might be able to finesse the legal (if not the ethical) issues.

I've done it in reverse...

[ConceptJunkie]

I've gotten several employees to use _my_ code, while making sure beforehand to establish that while they can do what they want with it, so can I. Kind of a simplified version of the LGPL, under which I license the code.

Of course, I haven't worked for jerks, at least in this regard, that there was never a problem over it. The license is clearly stated and the code (or at least a really old version... gotta update that) is available on Sourceforge.

If you are confident in your skills

[jessecurry]

...I would request that they give you a programming challenge. Maybe some application that could be written in a day or two. Even if this company decides not to hire you, you'll have some sample code for the next company you apply at.
Or you could ask them if they have some code laying around that you could work with, you could then spend a little time improving or adding to a project that they are working on, there's nothing like actually demonstrating your usefulness.