I was contacted by a company for a "Job" that was a good fit...

[Anonymous]

I was not actively looking, but said I would be willing to talk. Job is in a lower cost of living area, and they are willing to pay more money. It is a small community...I know the project very well.

I found out that the purpose of the solicitation was not to offer me a job, but to use my Resume to have the work set aside for small business -- I found out through a friend at the customer site.

The thing is I did not give them permission, nor would I have allowed it; my current company is trying to keep the work as a non-setaside. If word got out that my Resume was used by my company, it could get ugly at my company.

Do I have any recourse?

[Anonymous]

Too many things about your post don't make sense. Please take another stab at describing the situation. For example, if you think the job offer is a sham then there's no reason to provide information about the details of the job offer.

I don't understand how your resume could be used to shift a piece of scope into a set-aside (I assume for a small/minority/woman/veteran-owned business) unless you were being given some kind of ownership interest in the entity getting the set-aside or are being held out as such an entity yourself.

[Anonymous]

OP I understand what you are saying. I'm not a lawyer but I believe the only way the small business (or any company) could use your resume is if 1) they made you an offer contingent on winning the work and you accepted or 2) they made you an offer in general and you accepted. If you are not employed by them or do not have an offer in hand they should not be able to use your resume.

Can your contact get any more details on whether or not they are using your resume? If they are and you have no intention of moving to the new company (which I'm inferring from your post) I would probably bring it up to someone at your current company. You have done nothing wrong by talking to a recruiter - now if you actually accepted a contingent offer that's another story and I'm not sure what to tell you. It's a pretty common tactic with small business government contractors.

[Anonymous]

Your post is confusing. Some other company contacted you about a job and in their proposal for the work, used your resume?

Second, if this is for a government solicitation, other companies' proposals are not public knowledge. The person who told you might have just violated the whole procurement integrity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your post is confusing. Some other company contacted you about a job and in their proposal for the work, used your resume?

Second, if this is for a government solicitation, other companies' proposals are not public knowledge. The person who told you might have just violated the whole procurement integrity.

The person who told me this told me he did not know I was changing companies...He was also suspicious that I changed, as I would have mentioned it to him. I spent much of the morning with legal in my company after I explained what happened to my manager. They are crafting a response. It seems that this company posted jobs with the explicit attempt to obtain resumes for the RFI response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I understand what you are saying. I'm not a lawyer but I believe the only way the small business (or any company) could use your resume is if 1) they made you an offer contingent on winning the work and you accepted or 2) they made you an offer in general and you accepted. If you are not employed by them or do not have an offer in hand they should not be able to use your resume.

Can your contact get any more details on whether or not they are using your resume? If they are and you have no intention of moving to the new company (which I'm inferring from your post) I would probably bring it up to someone at your current company. You have done nothing wrong by talking to a recruiter - now if you actually accepted a contingent offer that's another story and I'm not sure what to tell you. It's a pretty common tactic with small business government contractors.

The timing of when the RFI was used suggests they may have lifted my resume from Linkedin, before I spoke to them. I am not really sure. As I mentioned in another post, I talked to my manager, and they got legal involved. That is when I found out the RFI was due about 3 days before I sent my resume.

My manager was actually happy to hear this, because he thinks he can get the small company's response invalidated, which makes it more likely that we can bid as prime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your post is confusing. Some other company contacted you about a job and in their proposal for the work, used your resume?

Second, if this is for a government solicitation, other companies' proposals are not public knowledge. The person who told you might have just violated the whole procurement integrity.

The person who told me this told me he did not know I was changing companies...He was also suspicious that I changed, as I would have mentioned it to him. I spent much of the morning with legal in my company after I explained what happened to my manager. They are crafting a response. It seems that this company posted jobs with the explicit attempt to obtain resumes for the RFI response.

wow so they don't really want to hire and now your current employer knows you are applying.
That is massively $hitty. Name and shame.

[Anonymous]

Rather not....it is a small community. I showed the email chain to my manager -- which started with me saying I am not looking, am happy where I am, but I will always listen. Manager did not have a problem with anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I understand what you are saying. I'm not a lawyer but I believe the only way the small business (or any company) could use your resume is if 1) they made you an offer contingent on winning the work and you accepted or 2) they made you an offer in general and you accepted. If you are not employed by them or do not have an offer in hand they should not be able to use your resume.

Can your contact get any more details on whether or not they are using your resume? If they are and you have no intention of moving to the new company (which I'm inferring from your post) I would probably bring it up to someone at your current company. You have done nothing wrong by talking to a recruiter - now if you actually accepted a contingent offer that's another story and I'm not sure what to tell you. It's a pretty common tactic with small business government contractors.

The timing of when the RFI was used suggests they may have lifted my resume from Linkedin, before I spoke to them. I am not really sure. As I mentioned in another post, I talked to my manager, and they got legal involved. That is when I found out the RFI was due about 3 days before I sent my resume.

My manager was actually happy to hear this, because he thinks he can get the small company's response invalidated, which makes it more likely that we can bid as prime.

8:28 again. I've heard some shady stuff in government contracting but this is by far the worst and only validates my concerns about some of these small businesses (and my father and grandfather were small business owners - I totally support small businesses in theory but some of the ones I've seen in contracting are so unscrupulous). I'm glad you were able to talk to someone at your company and that you started the email chain with "not actively looking." Thanks for sharing your story and the updates