How to Write an Effective Self-Employed Resume

Updated June 18, 2022344

A self-employed resume is important if most of your work experience is freelance. Here’s what you need to know about writing a self-employed resume.

Self-employed Resume

More and more people nowadays are self-employed workers, taking on freelance and contract jobs. If you’re looking to get back into a more traditional workplace, or are looking for more projects as a self-employed worker, here’s how to best present your skills in a resume.

When Should You Use a Self-employed Resume?

If you have ever worked for yourself, you’ve had experience as a self-employed individual. If most of your employment history has been in working for your own business, especially if you consider yourself a business owner, you can probably benefit from a self-employed resume.

Sections for a Self-employed Resume

Contact information
The resume header of self-employed resume examples will typically be the same as any other resume header. It will include your contact information with your phone number, email address and social media links, including your LinkedIn.

Resume summary
Next is your resume summary. This is a 2-3 sentence paragraph that you put at the very top of your resume that highlights your most important skills and achievements.

Skills
Self-employed skills are just as important as any other job skills, but they can also be incredibly varied. Here are a few of the skills that you may have developed while working for yourself:

SEO knowledge
Web designer experience
Advertising for a small business
Handling budgets
Project management
Time management
In-depth Microsoft Office skills
Creating and market testing new products

When you’re working for yourself full-time, you often have to be a “jack of all trades.” To win over potential employers, showcase specific skills that line up with the requirements of the job you’re applying for.

Work history
When you’re writing your work experience section, you want to lean on two pieces of career advice. First of all, come up with an actual job title and company name to list in your experience section. Secondly, when you list self-employment work, take charge of the work that you’ve done. Use active verbs (e.g., “managed,” “implemented”) to describe your work and your important achievements.

Self-employment is no longer a strange quirk of the job field that employers don’t know how to approach. You can show lots of skills and experience in self-employed work. As long as you can connect your accomplishments and skills to the job you want to do, a hiring manager should have no reason to doubt you.

Education
Finally, you can put any formal education you’ve completed or certifications you hold in your education section. Many people who work for themselves have extensive education in a specific sector, and you can include that knowledge here.

Self-employed Resume Tips

Here are some additional tips to keep in mind as you write your self-employed resume:

Don’t just put “self-employed” when creating your work experience section. Instead, you should come up with a job title you would have held, like “graphic designer,” “small business owner,” or “copywriter.”
Feature specific projects that you worked on over the years. One of the best pieces of career advice for a self-employed resume is that your successful projects should show your most important, pertinent skills.
Directly connect your skills and knowledge to the job or project you’re applying for. It’s vitally important to convince the hiring manager that you’re the right fit for what the job needs.

FAQ: Self-employed Resume

What does self-employed mean?

Self-employed is a general term that can have many different definitions. Most people define it as either freelance work or independent contracting. As a freelancer, you’re the person who seeks out jobs. In contrast, as an independent contractor, you aren’t a full-time employee, but you do have a working relationship. If you have either of these experiences in your job history, you can put self-employed resume samples to work for you.

Is self-employed work experience different from other types of work experience?

It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. When you’re using a resume builder, for example, you can list self-employed work experience just like you would work experience as an employee. Think about how you would describe your work experience if you were doing it as a salaried employee, then describe your work experience in similar terms.

Which job titles should I use if I created a startup?

If you created a startup company, it can be difficult to come up with job titles that you can use to list this business. The job titles business owner, entrepreneur and CEO can all be helpful depending on the context. Additionally, if you also worked in the business itself and not just on the executive side, you can put many of those experiences and skills on your resume as well.

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About The Author

Cindi Cervone Carlson

Cindi Cervone Carlson is a Senior Vice President for Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. Cindi is responsible for developing, delivering, and implementing a dynamic, world-class organization dedicated to delivering outplacement consulting, training, support, and executive coaching. Cindi started her career at Challenger as a client who had lost her job. Over the past nine years, she has risen from an entry-level, part-time professional to Senior Vice President.

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How to Write an Effective Self-Employed Resume

Self-employed Resume

When Should You Use a Self-employed Resume?

Sections for a Self-employed Resume

Self-employed Resume Tips

Don’t just put “self-employed” when creating your work experience section. Instead, you should come up with a job title you would have held, like “graphic designer,” “small business owner,” or “copywriter.”

Feature specific projects that you worked on over the years. One of the best pieces of career advice for a self-employed resume is that your successful projects should show your most important, pertinent skills.

Directly connect your skills and knowledge to the job or project you’re applying for. It’s vitally important to convince the hiring manager that you’re the right fit for what the job needs.

FAQ: Self-employed Resume

About The Author

Cindi Cervone Carlson

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How to Write an Effective Self-Employed Resume

Self-employed Resume

When Should You Use a Self-employed Resume?

Sections for a Self-employed Resume

Self-employed Resume Tips

Don’t just put “self-employed” when creating your work experience section. Instead, you should come up with a job title you would have held, like “graphic designer,” “small business owner,” or “copywriter.”

Feature specific projects that you worked on over the years. One of the best pieces of career advice for a self-employed resume is that your successful projects should show your most important, pertinent skills.

Directly connect your skills and knowledge to the job or project you’re applying for. It’s vitally important to convince the hiring manager that you’re the right fit for what the job needs.

FAQ: Self-employed Resume

About The Author

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