What Is A Freelancer Resume? (And How To Create One)

Updated 19 January 2023

When you freelance, you gain experience and develop new skills that can augment your resume. Whether freelancing is your primary source of income or just an element in your diversified career, you may be able to include it on your resume to highlight your skills. Learning to include freelance work on your resume may enable you to distinguish yourself from other candidates in a hiring situation. In this article, we answer what a freelancer resume is, explain how to create one, and also look at a template and example.

What Is A Freelancer Resume?

A freelancer resume focuses on the experience you gain as part of freelance engagements. Whether you freelance part-time alongside a full-time job or work as a full-time freelancer, you may be able to highlight your employability and skills by listing projects on your resume. If you are searching for a permanent role or trying to sign your next freelance contract, you may benefit from showcasing your core competencies in your resume through your freelance work.

How To Create A Freelancer Resume

Create an effective freelancer resume that accurately portrays your career history and goals, to increase your employability chances. Follow these steps to create a freelancer resume:

1. Model your resume

You can catch the attention of employers by adding keywords from the job description to your resume. Many job descriptions list requirements and priorities, which you may be able to use as a template to feature your competency for the available position. Once you review the job description, make a list of skills and qualifications the employer requires in a candidate. If you are not creating a resume for a job application and simply want to highlight your freelance work and competencies, you may not require modeling your resume in a general fashion.

2. Find a template that is best suited for your professional practice

Organize the contents of your freelancing resume to best convey your work history. A conventional resume lists experience in chronological order, but this might not be appropriate for your freelancing work. It is the best practice to incorporate a reverse chronological order in your resume, especially if you have had jobs that overlap or worked multiple contracts within a small period of time. Consider a functional format for your resume, which organizes your skills and experience by category.

3. Add your contact information and portfolio links

Add your contact information at the top of your resume, so it is convenient for hiring managers to pick your resume out of a collection of similar resumes. List your name, address, telephone number, and email address. If you have got an expert networking platform or website that has samples of your freelance work, include links along with the names of the web platforms. This allows recruiters to see your work without having to send an additional request for the same.

4. Use a summary to highlight the most relevant information

Below your contact details, consider providing a summary. You may use a career summary to share your professional goals and show how they align with a client's or employer's vision. Add a brief description of your work experience to your summary. Use it to describe your most marketable skills relating to the job you are applying for. Try to limit your summary to one to three sentences.

5. Describe your skills in an engaging manner

If you are planning to use an unconventional resume format, you may use an alternative to a regular bulleted list of skills. For example, you can use an infographic to rate the extent of your experience in each skill and organize skills by theme. You can also share work samples to support each skill list item.

Freelancing requires a selection of skills that may not always directly relate to the actual work you do. Freelancers may take pleasure in managing their own time effectively, marketing their services to potential clients, communicating their work requirements accurately, managing their billing and expenses, and maintaining their own financial records. Including these skills on your resume shows recruiters that you have a spread of hard and soft skills that you can easily bring back to the role.

6. List your freelance work experience comprehensively

Here are some things to keep in mind when you list your freelance work experience:

Prioritize what you wish to incorporate

You may have completed several contracts and may have developed a range of hard and soft skills as part of your professional journey. It is important that you focus the content of your resume on the most important aspects of your professional journey. Include a link to your portfolio or web profile, so that a recruiter or potential client can access the entirety of your work history if they wish to do so.

Provide adequate spacing between key pieces of information

A recruiter might process hundreds of applications in a day, so you would benefit from making yours different from the rest. A combination of well-spaced text, professional fonts, and well-organized information can make your resume visually appealing and, in turn, enable a reader to isolate the most important elements at a glance. Try to include important information at the top of the resume.

Use facts and figures

While writing about the specifics of a contractual assignment and the duties associated with it, try to show an immediate link between your services and a positive outcome for the client. You can use figures and percentages to quantify the extent of your expertise in a particular domain. For example, a contract web designer can list something like Used visual design skills to enhance user functionality, increasing click-through rate by 15%.

Tips For Creating An Effective Freelancer Resume

Here are some tips for creating an effective freelancer resume:

Use action words like plan won and improved to describe your achievements.
Tailor your resume to meet the requirements of the particular job that you are applying for.
Try to research the quality of resumes in your industry to get industry-specific direction and advice.
Focus on your most relevant and marketable strengths.
List excerpts of positive reviews from previous contracts.

Resume Template For Freelancing

Here is a sample freelancer resume template, based on which you can model your own:

[Name]
[Address]
[Phone number]
[Email address]
[Link to professional networking profile or website]

Summary

[Two to three brief statements to describe your career goals or experience. List your achievements and experience to show how your professional aspirations could benefit a potential employer]

Work experience

[Designation]
[Company or client name]
[Duration of employment]
[Bullet list of responsibilities]

Qualifications

[List relevant qualifications, including details of awarding body with date]

Education

[Name of degree, diploma, or certification]
[Name of the institution]
[Duration of academic engagement]

Skills

[Use bullet points to list skills or infographics to show your level of expertise in your most relevant skills]

Example Resume For Freelancing

This is an example of a resume for a freelancer, based on which you can model your own:

Sera Agarwal
Chinchwad, Pune
+91 90113 49325
seraagarwal@email.com
www.serawrites.com

Summary

Methodical and result-oriented social media marketing professional seeking an opportunity to leverage exceptional conversion skills in a fast-paced marketing environment.

Experience

Freelance social media marketer
Spectrum Ltd
November 2015–Present

Managed social media accounts, posting across a range of platforms
Generated shareable content to increase interaction with the site
Increased likes and followers by 35% over the first six months
Created a successful campaign that generated a 12% increase in sales
Created and promoted a blog with information about issues most likely to engage potential customers
Liaised regularly with the marketing team to coordinate campaigns

Social media account manager
Autoside Engineering
July 2011–November 2015

Met regularly with clients to gain an understanding of their work culture and requirements
Created engaging content for the company website and shared it on social media
Reviewed website analytics to ascertain the most effective campaign strategies
Monitored competitor activity for opportunities to increase market share
Maintained a working knowledge of social media trends and tools

Qualifications

Certified Professional Marketer

Education

Bachelor of Arts in Marketing
College of Pune
September 2007–July 2011

Skills

Time-management skills
Self-motivation
Copywriting
Content curation
Search engine optimization
Project management skills

Hobbies and interests

Volunteering with a local charity, helping them to promote fundraisers and increase awareness for collection drives and seasonal donation campaigns.

Volunteering with orphanages to help children with special needs.

The model shown is for illustration purposes only and may require additional formatting to meet accepted standards.

What Is A Freelancer Resume? (And How To Create One)