A freelancer’s life: search for new jobs or gigs every other day. The resume of a freelancer plays a vital role throughout his career. However, most independent consultants use their resumes the same way full-time job seekers do. Today, we shall talk about how to write a great freelance resume, combine your pitch with it and then land jobs that are usually beyond your reach.
The Resume of a Freelance is Beyond Representation..
This is because, as a freelancer, you would have worked at a series of jobs or companies and in fact built your own business from scratch. You won’t be able to fit all your gigs or accomplishments on a sheet of paper. So, what can you do? Here’s what you should focus on:
You can choose one of the two resume writing options. However, you have to keep in mind that most clients prefer ‘traditional’ resume formats. So, keep it simple.
List your top best skills in order (4 – 10) and name the projects/title completed against that skill.
Example: Content Marketing (skill) –developed interactive Facebook captions and generated 1000 views on the website within a month.
List your work history in chronological order, with recent work experience mentioned first.
For freelancers, we suggest going with option 1 as employers here value skills and projects more than a timeline.
You have to be very careful in highlighting your best work experience. Even if you decide to choose Chronological resume style, highlight your best (recent past) work experience first.
You are a business or a brand (just a reminder) and not an employee. If you are a business, then you provide SERVICE, not SKILLS. Clients usually hire freelancers because they don’t know how to do what you do or they don’t know what to do in the first place.
So, they will be least bothered about your skills (mostly) because they themselves aren’t clear about exactly what they are. And so, they’ll show more interest in your services as they need to know how you will help them.
Include the services you provide on the top of your resume (as well as in the cover letter/email). Don’t use too many adjectives, your portfolio should show what they need to see.
Online presence is becoming one of the most important evaluation factors for freelancers, especially for creating jobs.
So while you build your resume, do include the following:
A freelancer’s reference point is his work samples and there are several ways you can include them in your resume. Pointers include
If you have any additional qualifications, business or passion, don’t hesitate to point them in your resume. In fact, your additional skills or business could be a deciding factor for many clients.
For instance, if you are a food photographer who also bakes cakes for small parties in your spare time, it could be a deciding factor for a baking brand who wants to make sure that his product’s photographs get the right vibe.
One thing in your resume that you should not hide about yourself is ‘nothing’. Yes, you have to show both your business self as well as your passion. That’s the biggest plus point for freelancers. They can go off-beat in resume building. At the end of the day, a human (with emotions, likes, and dislikes) will be hiring another human and not a brick and mortar company hiring services.
Include your most uncanny side as a secondary portfolio. It could be anything like comic blogs or a storybook, anything that differentiates you from others drastically.
For example, if you are a web designer but have included a blog that shows your travel photography expertise, chances of getting yourself hired for your creativity will be high, probably 20% more.
Of course, every resume should have an education column, so should yours. But unlike full-time professional’s resume, put your education at the bottom. This is because, like we said, education and experience is least of all worries when it comes to hiring freelancers.
Include testimonial in a small block at the right-hand side corner of your resume page. Along with it, you can also mention two or three client’s name, email address and contact details as a reference. Reference is very important for freelancers.
If you face any kind of glitch in your proposal building, please leave a comment below and we’ll do our best to find a solution. Subscribe for more time-saving tips.