What do I say about my previous company during the job interview?

My first job out of college (2005) was for a hedge fund that was one of the larger ABS RMBS CDO managers. I left in 2009 when the company started going down, since then I have been working as a software developer. Right now I work for a large company in a healthcare field. I see a lot of jobs postings where they require someone with finance skills and programming skills/experience, I feel like I could compete for those jobs. I have the skills they look for and done both of those types of jobs.

My question is what do I say about my hedge fund job? The problem is that since then they had SEC investigate them, and numerous lawsuits against them by investors, counter parties etc etc. Basically when you Google the name of the company the first 2 pages are articles about the fines they had levied against them, lawsuit information, all ugly stuff. So what do I say? Do I just trash them, or say what a great place it was to work? I thought the rule is to not talk badly about previous jobs, but I don't know if it applies there. Also, its very important for me to convey that this was my first job out of college, I was a junior employee, and I didn't do anything illegal my whole time there.

3 Comments
 

IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING GOOD TO SAY, DON'T SAY ANYTHING!

Sorry to use caps but in all these situations, there is only one answer. The have asked you for an interview, if the two companies are in the same space, they already know about all of the stuff. If you asked directly, tell them that you were a junior and if they don't just stick to how much you learned and that some people you really liked but needed a change.

No-one wants to hire a complainer, so don't be that guy

1percentblog.com
 

There are good things I can say, it was a nice place to work as far as money and atmosphere. I am more worried that if I say good things about that company it would be seen like I am condoning the illegal activities, or that I turned a blind eye to them while I worked there.

 
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