Resume help client confidentiality

Hi,

Whether it is bad or not to reveal client names entirely depends on the agreement / contractual obligation you had with the client and your company's current policy.

For consulting resumes, typically we sanitize the project and client experience such that no one can tell which client you had worked for

• E.g. Developed manufacturing network strategy for a large consumer goods company 

If your defense firm has explicitly said you are not allowed to reveal client names or reveal confidential information about a project, then you are not allowed to so.

• The first thing I would actually do is to understand what exactly is kosher vs non kosher
  • It is pretty clear that what ‘disclosure of client names’ means, but i think ‘project specifics’ are abit more vague and grey
  • I would still expect that you are able to at least describe the high level/basics of your projects or clients in a sanitized way
• The only exception that comes to my mind is if you are working for highly classified departments/units and cannot disclose anything at all - i.e. any of the 3 letter clandestine agencies in the US, or if you worked in any of the SOF units, then that is a different story

All the best!

Hi there,

My strong recommendation is you indeed sanitize the name. Better than large beverage company, you can even say Fortune 500 beverage company. Or, multi-national beverage company.

Hi there,

great question - thanks for sharing.

In general, in CVs there is no need to share client names. No CV screener will ever care what the exact client names were.  
 

Suggest you sanitize the name by giving a generic description (e.g. major mutli-national defense manufacturer, leading European beverage company). In terms of specifics of a project experience it's similar → can just describe the nature of the work you did, rather than giving exact work descriptions + real numbers. In terms of impact, using % improvements is usually a nice way to play it safe. 

Hope this helps.

Regards, Andi

Hi there,

1) I cannot say project specifics or client names. What can I do or what is the advice here?

I would recommend using a generic indication such as “Top 3 / Leading [TYPE OF COMPANY] in [REGION]” assuming that’s feasible based on your confidentiality agreement.

2) If I worked with a large beverage company can I say the name of the company

If there is no confidentiality and the brand is a strong one that can help the CV to stand out, you can include it. If that's not the case or you are not sure, you can use the way to present mentioned in #1.

Best,
Francesco

Hello,

You can just sanitize the client names – e.g., “multinational beverage company”, “CPG company”, “Fortune 500 beverage company”, anything like that. You can use client names if your previous contractual agreement allows you to disclose clients, in which case there will be no repercussions of course. If you are not sure whether your previous employer allowed this, I would just sanitize the names to be safe. Consulting recruiters are very used to seeing those sorts of things on a resume.

Hi there!

I would strongly advise you to not use client names at all. 

MBB and most of the large firms in general don't like this at all. Confidentiality is one of the things they pride themselves with and they don't like it when candidates through client names around with ease. 

Best,
Cristian

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