What the Freelancer’s Resume Should Include

The resume (or “CV” - curriculum vitae) you produce as a freelancer is different in its orientation from the one you produced as an employee. The traditional employment resume typically lists your jobs in reverse chronological order and often focuses on titles and employer.

With the freelancer’s resume, it’s more important to focus on your skills, capabilities and depth of knowledge because that is what you are being hired for. This orientation is sometimes called the functional resume.

Here are the sections to consider including on your freelancer’s resume:

• Contact Information - Your name is typically featured prominently at the top of the document, along with your address, telephone number(s), email address, and (optionally) your picture.
• Professional Profile - This is a brief summary of what you’re all about, to give the potential client a feel for where you’re coming from. An example:

“Over thirty years of consultative, managerial, and technical expertise in corporate training and documentation environments. Extensive experience in the areas of needs assessment, course and content development, training and documentation management, and providing employees with the information needed to meet company goals and objectives. Accomplished and results-oriented self-starter with exceptional research, analysis, and communication skills and a demonstrated record of developing and delivering on-target, cost effective training and documentation.”

• Skills Summary - Here, you can list the laundry list of things you’ve done. Use buzzwords, tools, techniques, software, platforms, titles, “insider” words, terms, and acronyms common for your industry. Examples: PHP web design, technical writing, HTML coding, proofreading, TCP/IP, C++, copy editing, Internet research, graphic design, ISO certification, Microsoft Project, SAP, etc.
• Recent Freelance Experience - List client, time frame, and what you did.
• Professional Experience - If your employee job function is relevant to the type of freelance work you’re doing now, you can list your work experience here. If it isn’t, you can elect to leave it out.
• Education - List college and university degrees obtained as well as any specialized training that you’ve had or certifications earned that are relevant.
• Professional Affiliations - If you are a member of an organization that reflects your expertise or an association that represents the industry of your potential clients, it will serve you well to list them here.
• Awards and Recognitions - Again, if they’re relevant and promote your expertise to your prospective audience, include them if you have room.

It’s a good idea to tailor your resume to the type of assignment you are seeking and have several versions available when you need them. You can cut your resume down to one page, because you will be partnering it with your portfolio, which is covered in the next section.

Building Your Freelance Portfolio

In service work, it’s common for customers who are unfamiliar with who you are to request samples of your work so that they can get a feel for your talent. It happens in all industries. If you are looking for a painting contractor, you naturally want to see what kind of jobs they’ve done, what their specialty is, and get a feel for how they do business before you give them yours. Likewise for an event planner. How large scale an event have they planned? Do they do weddings or are they more concentrated on corporate events? A writer will always be asked for samples of their writing before an editor will commit to awarding them a piece in their publication. This evidence of their work that the freelancer attractively puts together to present to prospective clients is called the portfolio.

The kind of portfolio you assemble will depend upon the type of work you do. Some may be actual samples, such as a user manual from a technical writer or a magazine advertisement from a graphic artist or copywriter. Some may be photos, as the painting contractor may present in an album, or a video from a party that the event planner arranged. Whatever media communicates best the outcome of the work you do should be in your portfolio.

If you’ve been at your craft awhile, then you should be able to come up with samples of your work. If you didn’t save samples while you were engaged on a project, you can often go back to the client and request them. In some cases, it may just be a case of taking some photos, or grabbing some screen shots from a web site. Most freelancers are proud of their work and will usually keep “samples” as a remembrance of the project.

But what happens if you are just starting out? How do you create a portfolio to show prospective clients? Here are some ideas:

• Chances are that you have done some sort of work that is relevant to whatever type of freelancing in which you are planning on specialize. See if you can adapt that to your needs or expand upon it.
• If you’re a writer, assemble some articles on areas that interest you and try to take a different slant to the piece to show your creativity.
• Use one of the job board sites to get some quick gigs. If you bid low, you should be able to get some takers who aren’t looking for a lot of experience, and from that you can start to build your portfolio.
• Volunteer to do work in your expertise for a non-profit or charitable organization. Not only will you be able to add assignments to your portfolio, but you’re likely to establish some valuable contacts too, as people of influence are often affiliated with such organizations.

But what should your portfolio include? Besides samples of your work, include your resume, maybe a bio, and perhaps a brochure that you put together to hand out at networking events. Put together a “why my clients hire me” story. Talk about your experience, skill level, and give examples of problems you’ve solved or results you’ve generated in the process of conducting your services. A powerful way to do this is through the use of testimonials. Make it easy for your prospects to contact you via mail, phone, or email.

Your portfolio can be on paper, but more and more, freelancers are leveraging the power of the web to present their credentials. All serious freelancers should have an attractive web site and some even have a blog. If you use the web, provide a form that your prospect can fill out to provide details of their need and to request a quote from you. If you don’t want to go the full-blown web site route right now, an easy way to create just an online portfolio is to use a service such as Carbonmade.

Finally, no matter which format you use, have a call to action. This means ask for their business and provide them an incentive in the form of a freebie, discount, white paper, or other reason to “act now”. By being personable and showing genuine concern for their needs, a well put together portfolio will help seal the deal with your prospects.

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