How to Ask Whether They Have Done Similar Work

Ask for a case, and an industry name comes first. Three logos pass. The owner nods. The screens look familiar. The industry matches. The pen is down again.

The last piece said a yes needs one case attached. Even when the case arrives, “similar” is still wide. The same industry name can hide a different budget, calendar, user, and old system, and then the work is a different job. People who hire well do not stop at the logo. They split the conditions.

An industry name is a wide answer

“Have you worked in our industry” is a fast question. A fast question calls a fast example. The example may be true. A true example and a matching constraint are not the same thing. The same kind of shop can be a catalog with no stock, or a move of a store that is taking payments. Those are different jobs.

A wide answer makes the room comfortable. A comfortable room folds the differences away. A folded difference enters the quote as an assumption. “This industry is usually done like this.” Usual is not the name of our constraint.

People who hire well use the industry only as a door. After the door they ask problem, constraint, user, and role. If those four cells are empty, the experience is still an image. An image can be a reference. It is not evidence of how the work will run.

A strong first screen in the portfolio is the same. Strength shows a result. The constraint that produced the result sits outside the screen. If we do not ask outside the screen, we expect that result inside our constraint.

Split similar into four cells

The first cell is the problem. What were they trying to change then. Not “make it pretty,” but who could not do what. When the problem comes out as a sentence, the industry name steps back.

The second cell is the constraint. Budget, weeks left, the old system, the work they decided not to do. Without a constraint, only the result remains. A case that is only a result has nowhere to sit on our calendar.

The third cell is people. Who used it, and who operated it. If the visitor’s job and the operator’s job differ, a similar screen is a different handover. The fourth cell is role. How far did this person actually go. Being on a team slide and making the file are different.

Hear the four cells, and “similar” splits in two. Similar as an impression, or similar as a condition. People who hire well bring only the second one in front of the contract. The first stays as a reference image.

One case, and the depth is the change and the file

Hear several cases quickly, and the four cells stay shallow. Pick one. Ask what condition changed in the middle, which decision was hard, and which file was handed over at the end. If the answer arrives as a scene, the range of the experience shows.

The changed condition matters most. If the scope at the start and the scope at the end differ, how that gap was written is the collaboration. If the gap lives only in memory, our job can turn into memory too.

Ask the format of the last file as well. Web images only, or a source file that can still be edited, and whose name the account closed under. If the deliverable is blurry, there may be a similar result and still no similar handover.

People who hire well do not score by the number of cases. They look at the knot of one case. If the knot is concrete, the next question opens. Who makes our file, and what gets revised how many times. That question is the next piece.

When the logos make the room nod

The room loosens at the third logo. A loosened room asks fewer questions. Fewer questions look like manners. A constraint folded away as manners is not written on the quote. The unwritten constraint is not our budget and our old system. It is that logo’s budget and that logo’s old system.

People who hire well add one sentence after the nod. “What did you decide not to do on that job.” When the answer about the cut arrives, similar suddenly narrows. Then we see whether the narrowed similar overlaps our job. A vendor chosen before the overlap is a screen we chose.

Choose the screen, and the system is different in the first week. No stock, three approvers, no photos. That logo’s world did not have those three. We called it similar anyway, so the difference walks in wearing the face of an extra. It was a different problem from the start.

So the four cells deliberately slow the back half of the meeting. A slow back half looks like a late contract. That time pulls the extra weeks from after kickoff forward onto the quote. A week pulled forward sits in the assumption cell. A week that cannot sit gets billed later as a feeling in chat.

Keep only one case’s knot

Five logos in the notes look like care. The care can still leave the constraint cell empty. An empty constraint cell lets five images pass as experience. Quote against that mistaken experience, and the quote’s assumptions belong to those images. Our old system is not in that world.

People who hire well cross four of them out. On the one that remains they write problem, constraint, user, and the file this person owned. The four lines do not need to fill half a page. Even so, that one sheet is closer to a contract than five logos. A contract does not buy a count of admiration. It buys an overlapping constraint.

If crossing four out feels wasteful, drop them into a reference list. Reference is direction. The one that remains is evidence. Use evidence as direction, and the difference becomes an extra in the first week. Do not use direction as evidence, and the difference is already spoken in the meeting. A spoken difference can sit in the exclusion cell of the quote.

It does not have to be the same, if the difference is named

The only right answer is not someone who has done this exact project. If they name the difference clearly, and they offer the line to check again on our job, the experience is usable. “This is not the same as then. So we should look at the payment permission first.” That sentence is the skill.

Hide the difference and call it the same, and yes comes back. The place that was called the same becomes a later extra quote. The reason for the extra is usually a constraint that was different from the start. Say the other constraint in the meeting, and the extra is a scope, not a surprise.

The question does not have to feel like an attack. “What was the largest constraint then.” “How far did the file you owned go.” Both sentences are polite, and both shrink the width. Shrink the width, and the quote’s assumptions shrink too.

People who hire well do not relax at a similar screen. A similar problem, a similar constraint, the role they held, the file they handed over. When those four lines exist, the portfolio becomes the language of working together. Without the four lines, the next page is still logos.