Resume writing for self employment is never easy. When professionals first start down the path of becoming self employed and want to create a resume that shines, some might have trouble finding items to put on the self employed resume. This is to be expected. After all, everyone starts somewhere.
Resume Writing for Self Employment
So you don’t have a lot of experience in self employment. Professionals can still learn how to create a self employed resume that shines to potential clients, highlighting skills and existing experience. Many people don’t know how to write self employment into a resume, because just finding a way to describe self employed status and various jobs can seem overwhelming.
The secret to resume writing for self employment is in learning how to make everything look (and sound) more professional. For instance, the self employment in question revolves around running a dog walking business. The same professional maintains a blog for dog lovers when not on the job. On the self employed resume, make this shine as a special skill. List the blog under “experience” as though it were a job, including the date the blog started. The professional should include the Web address and describe it as something like "maintaining a blog describing the proper care and maintenance of canines, for canine lovers." Anything -anything- that relates to self employment at all should be put on the self employed resume.
How to Make Self Employment Shine
The good news is, there are no specific rules self employed professionals must follow – no set guidelines for how to write about self employment on a resume. Include educational background and special skills to provide “filler” and make the self employed resume look longer. But, even if a professional has a truckload of experience, never make a resume longer than one page.
Want to know how to make a self employed resume shine? Any related experience a professional may have should be included. If self employment goals center around freelance photography and you worked on the High School yearbook, include it on the self employed resume. If you’re running a dog walking business and you own three dogs of your own, include the information. If you’re a fast typer, great with computers, or have customer service skills and you think these things are useful in your self employment, list those things as well. Almost anything can relate to your self employment if you think about the connection (and make a strong effort to find one).
The key in knowing how to write a self employed resume that will shine is in making it look professional. Don’t include clip art, highly stylized fonts, or colors. A clean, precise, and simple resume is far more eye-catching than a document cluttered with cutesie sayings and borders. Provide information, not artwork.
KC Morgan - KC Morgan has been the featured writer in Self-Employment since 2006, using personal experience to create guides to being self-employed.
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