Which company to mention in LinkedIn or resume: Actual Employer or the Client

Question

I had been employed by company X but after couple of months I had been shifted to client location at company Y and I worked there for almost 2 years before resigning. Also, Company Y is more renowned than original employer. I am tempted to mention Company Y in my resume and also in LinkedIn profile as all my project work is also related to the client I worked with i.e, company Y. So is it okey to mention Client Y on the resume and LinkedIn or I should keep just Company X (Original Employer).

P.S: Can I put both. In that case how can I mention that in LinkedIn as it allows only one company per work experience and that sounds obvious too. help needed.

Answer 1

If you are a permanent employee: list your employer as your employer. Anything else is lying. But, in the description of that employment, it is normal to write what sort of work you were doing - this is the perfect place to mention the famous client.

If you are a temporary employee or contractor then often you will have an employer (such as a recruitment firm) who is different to the company who you are actually working for. In this case nobody is really interested in your actual employer, but as they are still your actual employer they really should be listed as such. One way around this is to list it as Staffing Company Name contracted to Big Impressive Employer.

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Credit to @RubberChickenLeader for the second paragraph

Answer 2

My dad did a lot of these type of contracts, with NDA's attached, so he was actually prohibited from naming the Big Name Client. What he always did on his résumé was to list his actual employer's name in the employer field, then in the first bullet point describing his responsibilities, he'd put something like:

• Provide on-site consulting services to a Bloomington, IL based insurance company

Any HR person in central Illinois knows what company that is, without him putting their name down.

Answer 3

I would not list Company Y as your employee, because you were never really employed there. What you could do, though, is list projects done at Company Y while employed at Company X. My direct colleagues work for the large global food and beverage companies, but they don't list them as their employer - they merely did projects for them (whether it be in our office, on-site, or from home).

Answer 4

There are several ways to handle this depending on the situation.

When working for one company at another company who is the client, generally you list your actual employer and then mention the client in the work description unless you have an NDA prohibiting the mention. If you end up working for multiple major clients, you might give each a bullet point.

If you end up being hired by the same company later though, I would reverse it. Mention the final company you worked for and then the contracting company in () after with the dates. For instance I worked for Lockheed but the first 6 months I worked for Westaff - so the entry is something like Lockheed Apr 2012-May 2014 (Weststaf contract to hire Apr2012-Nov 2012) Generally you only want to do this if you worked less than a year on a contract to hire basis.

If it goes in reverse order, hired by one copmany then laid off and rehired by the contracting company with the first client as the client, I would put both companies in but make sure to mention the first company in the description for the second.

Answer 5

Answers here are OVERLOOKING this important detail-

LinkedIn asks for the "Company" name, not your employer name so if you are working as a long term contractor you can go either way. You ARE working for your long term client b/c you are working within the bounds set by that organization, following their procedures, security protocols, working with their sensitive data, etc.

In this day and age there are a lot contractors working many years totally integrated to a client company. Their employer only hands them the check.

Answer 6

Depends.. whatever that adds more weight to your profile mention it.

For me, I always mention the client in the profile followed by consultancy in resume as they are big guys that it increased views.

As an example I worked for ABC client through XYZ employer.

In resume, I mentioned it as -> As for ABC through XYZ from to

As given in 1st answer, please mention the project or work done at the client place.