Project Experience - Company or Individual

[kylesito]

Does project experience follow the company or the individual who performed the work? This is in the context of listing project experience for marketing purposes.

For instance, take this scenario. As part of company A, an employee carves a niche out as a historic renovation expert and gets several notable projects completed for the company. The employee leaves Company A and begins to work at company B. Company B hired the employee for their notoriety in historic renovation and wants to advertise their experience including these notable projects. Where does the experience stop being the employee's and start being the company's?

Note...obviously any issues regarding confidentiality would confuse this. For this example, assume all of these are public projects where there isn't a non-disclosure about the nature of the project or anything.



PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

 

[ajack1]

I do not know the legal side for the US but would think it remains the property of the company.

If the chief designer for Ford went and joined GM, would they have claim to all Fords designed during that period?

 

[MacGyverS2000]

The experience goes with the person... I don't think any sane person would argue that. Your real question is more towards the advertising side of things... you are advertising the person who did the design work seen in project 'X', but not project 'X' itself, per se. It's a muddied line.

In such a case, you have to push the person first, listing his prior accomplishments, rather than the other way around... "We employ Joe Shmoe for our designs. He's known for such projects as 'X' and 'Y'." would be preferable to "Did you see building 'X'? Yeah, our guy did that." The first highlights the project, funded by another company, which you took talent from. The second highlights the talent in house, and then provides examples of why his talent is highly regarded in the industry.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[MrHershey]

We usually include projects from employees' previous firms in our material indicating their expertise. But just the person.

Say Person A is involved with the design and construction of Building B at previous firm. While we would include Building B in their firm resume that we'd hand out to clients to show off our key personnel, we wouldn't include Building B in our company portfolio of projects we've performed.

If that makes sense. Person gets credit. Company does not.

 

[SLTA]

Lots of single-person firms use their previous projects at other firms as experience on their websites, with a note about "work performed at XYZ Company". This way, they give credit to the company where the work was done, but have something to show as experience when just starting out on their own. The goal would be to replace all those previous projects with work performed at the single-person firm ASAP (unless the project was super cool).

 

[racookpe1978]

List the projects with the consulting engineer or architect. But list them separately from your company's work.

Your company's work.
A
B
C
D
E
F

Other projects
P. Paul M. (New London, CT)
Q. Mary G. (Atlanta, GA)
R. George M. (Mayberry, CA)
S. George M and Martin B. (Williamsburg, VA)
T. Mary G and Martin B. (Old Town, CT)

 

[kylesito]

Great answers...was looking for some good discussion and seems like I got it!

Racooke - I like this format. May change our company resumes to something like this.



PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

 

[brandonbw]

I worked on some super cool projects at previous companies and never thought to list them on my company website. I do mention them while meeting new clients as some of the past things are very interesting jobs and relevant. But these have nothing to do with my company. We had no list when starting out.

I guess someone could search for my resume and see my past experience. And yes some clients tell me how they researched me beforehand.

B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer

http://bwengr.com

 

[glass99]

I think the key to taking credit is that the person really "owned" the project at their old company, and wasn't just a junior or something. Also crediting the old firm is key. I have seen this a bunch of times.

 

[Electic]

Interesting topic that I am recently aware of being on the losing end of.

I have lost several bids to another firm recently, on basis of that firm having longer experience. But the founder of that firm, the fellow who accumulated the previous 40 year's of history, retired a few years ago and the remaining talent has about 10 year's experience. They will do a good job, and I don't favor counting length of years as a qualifier, but ironic in both these cases that was the criteria utilized. (both government projects, ha, ha!).