How to Collect Subconsultant Resumes for a Proposal

To collect subconsultant resumes for a proposal, send each partner one written data call as soon as the team is set. It should name the people you need, the role each will fill, your resume template, the page limit and a due date. Then check every resume against the RFQ and your org chart before it goes in.

That's the short version. The longer version is that the subconsultant data call is where proposal schedules often slip. The prime controls its own staff. It doesn't control a partner firm's marketing coordinator, who is working three other pursuits that week and will send whatever resume they have on hand.

What Does the RFQ Require From Subconsultants?

Most qualifications packages treat a subconsultant's key people the same way they treat yours. If a sub's engineer is named as key personnel, the agency expects a resume, in the same format, under the same rules. The details change from one solicitation to the next, so read three places before you send anything: the submittal instructions, the page limits and every addendum.

Three real examples show how much the rules can vary:

Two patterns hold across most of what you'll see:

1. Key personnel need resumes, no matter which firm employs them. Some agencies go further and want every proposed person, as Caltrans does.
2. Addenda change the rules. Questions about where sub resumes go, whether they count toward the page limit and how many references each one needs get answered in the Q&A, not the original RFQ. Prince William Water answered all three in a single addendum.

If the RFQ is silent on any of these, ask during the question period. The answer becomes part of the solicitation for everyone, and you won't be guessing the night before.

What Should a Subconsultant Data Call Include?

A data call is a single written request to each teaming partner for everything you need from them. One email with an attachment list works better than five separate asks spread over two weeks.

Ask for these items:

1. Resumes for the named people only. List each person by name and give the role they'll fill on the org chart. "Send us your water resources folks" gets you six resumes and none of them in the right shape.
2. Project descriptions for the projects you plan to show. Name the projects if you know them. Ask for the client, a reference contact, the dates, the fee or construction cost, and the sub's exact role on the work.
3. Firm information. Legal name, office address, licenses and registrations in the client's state, and any DBE, SBE or WBE certification with its number and expiration date.
4. A commitment letter, if the RFQ wants one. Caltrans asks each sub to state its commitment to the prime and the portion of work it will perform. Send the sub the exact language the RFQ requires.
5. Their piece of the org chart. Who reports to whom inside their team, and who their lead is.
6. Forms and signatures. Reference forms, certifications and anything that needs an original signature. Prince William Water required originals of sub forms in the "ORIGINAL" package, so a scanned signature would not have been enough.

Put the due date at the top of the email, not the bottom. Then add one line that says what happens if it slips: "If we don't have it by Thursday, we'll use the resume we have on file from the last pursuit." That gives the sub a reason to send a fresh one.

When Should You Send the Data Call?

Send it the day the team is confirmed. Every day you wait comes straight out of the sub's time to respond, and their marketing staff are juggling their own deadlines.

Here is a schedule that works for a typical three-week SOQ response:

The fix round matters. If sub content arrives on day 18, there's no time to send it back, so the prime's team ends up rewriting it. That's a cost that rarely shows up in the schedule: someone on your staff quietly rebuilding another firm's resumes at 10 p.m.

On shorter turnarounds, compress the same steps. Don't skip the fix round. Shorten everything around it.

What Should You Send With the Request?

The more you specify up front, the less you rewrite at the end. Send these with the data call:

• Your resume template, in Word. Not a PDF of a finished resume. A blank, editable file with the sections, fonts and order you use. If the RFQ requires its own form, such as an agency resume form or SF330 Section E, send that instead.
• The page or length limit. Per resume, and for the sub's section if the RFQ sets one. Caltrans gives each sub two pages of additional information while the prime gets four.
• The role title as it will appear on the org chart. If the org chart says "Drainage Lead," the resume should say "Drainage Lead," not "Senior Hydraulic Engineer."
• What the evaluators will score. If the RFQ scores experience with the client, or work on similar corridors, say so. The sub knows their people's projects better than you do and can pick the right ones.
• The projects you plan to feature. If a sub's engineer worked on one of your example projects, ask them to list it. Evaluators notice when a resume and a project sheet tell different stories about the same job.

Consistent formatting across the whole team is worth asking for directly. When one firm's resumes use a different layout than the prime's, evaluators notice, and it reads as a team that hasn't worked together.

How Do You Check Subconsultant Resumes Before Submittal?

Treat sub content the way you'd treat your own: assume it needs a review. Check each resume against this list:

1. The role matches the org chart. Same title, same reporting line.
2. Registrations meet the RFQ. If the client requires a license in its state for key staff, as Prince William Water did for Virginia PE and LS registrations, confirm each sub key person holds it and that it hasn't lapsed.
3. Years of experience add up. Total years and years with the current firm should make sense against the career history.
4. Projects describe the sub's actual role. A drainage subconsultant on a highway job did drainage design, not the whole project. Inflated roles are an attribution problem, and evaluators who know the work will catch it.
5. The resume fits the page limit. In your template, at your font size, with the role and projects you asked for.
6. Nothing contradicts the rest of the package. The resume, the project sheets, the org chart and any participation matrix should agree on who did what.

Send all fixes back in one list, by the date in your schedule. Five separate emails over three days teach a sub that your deadlines are soft.

A compliance matrix helps here. Add a row for each sub requirement, such as resumes, commitment letters, certifications and original signatures, so they get checked with everything else.

Can You Use a Subconsultant's Project Experience?

Yes, when the solicitation evaluates the whole team's experience and not just the prime's. Label it clearly. Name the subconsultant, describe its role on the project, and don't present the work as yours.

The SF330 builds this in. Block 25 of Section F lists each firm from Section C that was involved in the project, with its role. Many state and local SOQs don't have a block for it, so the project experience sheet has to say it in words: "Prime: XYZ Engineers. Our team member ABC Consulting performed the geotechnical investigation."

Two cautions:

• Ask before you use it. A sub's project is the sub's to describe. Confirm they're comfortable with how you've written it, and that the client reference they gave you is still current.
• Watch the teaming history. If the sub was teamed with a competitor on that project, the description should reflect the actual contract structure. Teaming relationships shift, especially after a merger, and an old description can name the wrong prime.

How Do You Keep Subconsultant Resumes for the Next Pursuit?

Firms tend to team with the same few partners again and again. Yet the data call often starts from zero, because last pursuit's sub resumes are buried in a folder named after the old RFQ number.

A few habits make the next data call faster:

1. Keep one folder or record per partner firm, not per pursuit. Put each person's latest resume there, with the date it was received.
2. Note who was committed to what. If a sub's lead engineer is already named on two other pursuits, you want to know that before you name them on a third.
3. Send the old resume with the new data call. "Here's what we have from March. Please update it for this role." Editing is faster than writing, and it shows the sub what format you expect.
4. Track certifications with their expiration dates. A DBE certification that lapsed since the last pursuit can make a submittal non-responsive on a contract with a DBE goal.
5. Keep the project descriptions too. The same partner projects come up again. Store them with the role the sub played, in words you've already agreed on.

This is the same logic as keeping your own staff in a reusable qualifications library, applied to the firms you team with. In RFPM, each project record lists its subconsultants and their roles, so the project sheet names them the same way every time the project is used.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who formats subconsultant resumes, the prime or the sub?

Ask the sub to do it, in your template. The prime usually does the final pass for consistency. If you send the template, the role title and the page limit with the data call, that last pass is a quick check. Without them, your team will rebuild every resume.

Do subconsultant resumes count toward the page limit?

Often, but the RFQ decides. Some solicitations exclude resumes from the page count, and some count every page. If the RFQ doesn't say, ask in the question period. The answer goes into an addendum, and it then applies to every firm submitting.

Do I need a resume for every subconsultant staff member?

Usually only for key personnel, the people named on the org chart in a defined role. Some agencies want more. The Caltrans SOQ checklist asks for resumes of all proposed personnel, key and non-key, grouped by firm. Check the submittal instructions and every addendum.

What if a subconsultant's key person leaves before award?

Tell the client and propose a replacement. Public A/E contracts commonly require the client's written approval first, and the replacement has to be at least as qualified. A sub's key person counts the same as yours. See what happens when key personnel leave after award for how agencies handle it.