It is a difficult problem. I worked at a defense contractor where I can't talk about what I did at all, so interviewing afterwards was tough. One thing I did was write down a bunch of notes for myself, that way I can refresh my memory before future interviews. I don't pass it to the employer. I try to cover the typical questions:
- How big was the team?
- What was your role on the team?
- Project scope / length / budget?
- Did you meet that timeline & budget?
- What kind of work? (Building new features? Maintenance? Replacing legacy project?)
- Major technical challenges?
- Lessons learned?
- Technologies used?
- What would you do differently next time?
If you can speak to all of that, it generally doesn't matter that you can't actually show off the product. In my case I can answer all of those without even telling you what the product was.
The one exception would be if you are doing heavily UI based work. Then I would think recording some screencasts might be good, and putting it in a gallery. That's not the kind of work I do, so it generally doesn't apply for me.
- How big was the team?
- What was your role on the team?
- Project scope / length / budget?
- Did you meet that timeline & budget?
- What kind of work? (Building new features? Maintenance? Replacing legacy project?)
- Major technical challenges?
- Lessons learned?
- Technologies used?
- What would you do differently next time?
If you can speak to all of that, it generally doesn't matter that you can't actually show off the product. In my case I can answer all of those without even telling you what the product was.
The one exception would be if you are doing heavily UI based work. Then I would think recording some screencasts might be good, and putting it in a gallery. That's not the kind of work I do, so it generally doesn't apply for me.