Last week, we’ve released an article on writing freelance experience on your resume. We’ve introduced the concept of freelancing, as well as the easy ways to include freelance experience in your resume while job-hunting.
This time, we are exploring the “Don’ts” when it comes to writing a freelance resume. If you’re trying to create a freelance resume instead of just including your freelancing experience in a resume, keep reading.
6 Freelance Resume Mistakes You Should Avoid
1. Getting the Basics Wrong
A freelance resume should contain these basic items:
- Your contact information
- Your availability
- List your experience
- Include skills to support your experience
- Add metrics, results, achievements
- Your portfolio link(s)
As you are not just including your freelance experience as part of your full-time resume, you must consider the resume format and incorporate your resume contact information because you are creating a specialised resume from scratch.
Getting the basics wrong is not acceptable. These are crucial parts that make up a good freelance resume and will be important for your potential clients to get to know you better.
Missing out on just one of these parts may be detrimental to your professionalism.
2. Not Focusing on Your Marketable Skills
The reason why you are creating a freelance resume is to look for freelancing opportunities. Doing freelance work shows that you possess marketable skills good enough to produce side income.
Therefore, your freelance resume must naturally focus on highlighting your skills. Not focusing on your skills in your freelance resume is essentially making the resume useless.
Include relevant skills to show that you are the perfect freelancer for particular clients or projects. Only then will you shine amongst hundreds of other freelancers out there.
3. Zero Metrics and Achievements
Even if you list down your marketable skills in your freelance resume, you should not forget to show HOW good your skills are.
Most beginners make the rookie mistake of not including metrics and achievements along with the skills they mention in their freelance resume. How should your potential clients know how good you are without some impressive numbers?
Aside from that, you should not forget any notable achievement(s) you’ve accomplished. For example, don’t be shy to mention that you have “increased website traffic by 70% in just 3 months”!
Including numbers that are advantageous to you will be useful for employers to visualise the value proposition you can bring to them, further boosting your chances of getting hired.
4. No Portfolio Attached
The freelancing world is extremely realistic and unforgiving. Potential clients will not be easily swayed by impressive words on your freelance resume. You’ll need to seal the deal by showing them your real works or products.
You should not ever forget to include your portfolio links in your freelance resume, be it the websites you’ve created, articles you’ve written or games you’ve developed. Remember that “seeing is believing” when it comes to attracting new clients.
5. Lengthy Freelance Resume
Like any other resume out there, it’s best to keep your resume short, simple, and concise. Similarly, a freelance resume should not be 5-pages long.
Keep your freelance resume to 2 pages max. No need to include big words to impress your readers and do NOT disclose how much you’ve charged for your part works.
Remember that hiring managers only need around 7 seconds to scan through a resume. No point in writing a resume that is too long when it goes to the “Rejection” section.
6. Not Proofreading Your Freelance Resume
A simple, but deadly mistake you should definitely avoid. Imagine applying for a freelance copywriter role and sending in a resume full of grammatical errors, yikes.
Always proofread your freelance resume before submitting it to potential clients. Get your friends and family to glance through your resume. You may be surprised by the careless mistakes you may have made.
Conclusion
We hope that by now you’d have a good idea about the freelancing concept, as well as the Dos and Don’ts when it comes to writing freelancing experience and creating a freelance resume to land your dream job(s).
Interested to learn more about the nitty-gritty details when it comes to finding jobs in Malaysia or need help with more interview guidance? The Job Majestic blog has the best HR resources for you.
Quick Access – Find out the best ways to answer family-planning related interview questions.
