Project Details to divulge when interviewing at another company?

Question

If and when I interview for another company how much detail am I expected to provide about my projects at my former (or present) company. Especially, if the projects are sensitive and under NDA (Non disclosure agreement). Would this be violation of any kind? I am sure quite a few of you must have encountered a similar situation. What do you suggest? Is there anything in particular to take care of.

Answer 1

In these cases, I first of all explain that I'm under an NDA and thus will be limited in what I can say...employers should respect this, as they don't want you telling the next company about their secrets either!

Then I will try and explain things in a high level...usually you can explain the kinds of things you did, such as languages you worked with, and most such projects have a publicly known side you can explain you were a part of. If you worked on Microsoft Office, for a popular example, you couldn't say how you did something, but you could likely say "I was the one who worked on the Spell Check" or something along those lines.

(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This advice is for entertainment purposes only.)

Answer 2

If you're under an NDA, you're under an NDA, unfortunately, and subject to all its terms. If your NDA prohibits you from talking about projects to the public at large, then it prohibits you from talking to potential employers. If your company finds out you did it, you could be subject to any disciplinary or legal measures specified in your NDA. On top of that, it could be detrimental to your chances of being offered the job, if the company you interview with knows that you're doing it. I certainly wouldn't want to hire someone who broke their NDA in talking to me; what if they broke my company's NDA talking to someone else?

There are still a couple of things you can do. One iffy one is to talk about your projects in broad terms that don't reveal any details covered by your NDA; this is kind of a grey area, though. A better way to go, if you're leaving your old company on good terms and they know you're interviewing, is to ask for written permission to discuss your projects with the specific companies you're interviewing at.

Also, as bigwoody says, any employer will certainly understand if you tell them you can't discuss something because you're under NDA. This may even raise their opinion of you, since you portray yourself as scrupulous and trustworthy.

NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE.

Answer 3

This is not to be construed as Legal Advice

The specific wording of your NDA with previous companies will dictate exactly how much you can divulge.

Generally speaking, NDAs protect company work-product, including projects you have worked on. You should be able to speak about the technical skills you learned while on those projects - just stay away from the problems you faced and their solutions while under an NDA.

Consider talking about concepts and solutions at a high level and don't refer to specific NDA covered projects. Explaining that you're under an NDA would go far.