Freelancer: How to create a curriculum vitae successfully?
Posted by Andres Aguerrevere on
Creating a the perfect Freelancer Curriculum Vitae can be a hard task, there is a myriad of factors to take into account during the process; trying to put all your necessary information in a page or two requires effort and dedication.
For some people, the Freelancer CV is an extremely important document while for some others it doesn't mean anything at all; yet better to have and not need than to need and not to have.
Moreover, putting the exact words is vital; this single piece of paper can determine the opportunities you may have to get a new job or not even having the chance to get to the personal interview.
However, the use of the Curriculum Vitae was mainly related to professional or traditional workers; yet, with the appearance and rush freelancer workers caused to the world, the doubt about freelancers in the need of having or not a perfectly written CV born.
People nowadays are conscious that having freelancers or remote workers to get things done is an incredible way to bring their business to another level.
Freelancers: to have or not to have
In this world where every day many more things become automatized, working as freelancers gets constantly easier, they are solving business problems from anywhere. An Internet connection, a computer, and valuable skills enable people to work remotely, in this type of work, location is not important, yet quality and efficiency is.
Even when this type of working was useful to few occupations at first moment; in these days, there are hundreds of positions and roles that can be perfectly performed remotely or without having contracts or other types of commitments.
Yet, with the number of professionals that have decided to change the classic 9 to 5 office work to the freelance modality, the competition gets harder, with thousands of people offering their skills to potential clients on the Internet. Here is when having and using an appealing Freelance CV became necessary.
What can a well developed CV do for you?
As stated in a post on Freelancer Curriculum Vitae by Rikke Dam, “A CV is a great way of explaining your expertise to a would-be client. Those who do use one will tell you that it’s a great way of explaining complex information to potential clients and partners without long speeches”.
It is important to keep in mind that the main difference between the CV paper from a professional is to convince recruiters to select him while the goal of a freelancer CV is to attract potential customers to pick him for his services.
While professionals do emphasis in their studies and experience in order to catch the attention from recruiters, it is possible to say that freelancers do completely the opposite, they go straight to clients, telling them not what they know how to do but what they have already done for other clients.
Freelancers adopted the traditional structure of the Curriculum Vitae but the time passed by and they began to use their own form, more direct and simple; as they work differently, the information each group needed to include has variances and freelancers needed to do some changes.
A key in this process is the shorter, the better; while looking for someone to get things for you, clients do not want to waste hours reading a long CV full of useless information. The best technique is going straight to the point and being honest.
Actually, the Freelancer Curriculum Vitae should not be longer than a page, two pages as exceptions. Picture this situation: you are a recruiter or a customer searching for someone to work for you; then you have a huge mountain of CV documents on your desk or many files in your computer to read, would you read the ones made of a single page or the larger ones? Yes, short is the key.
Also, writing a short freelance CV also means having to think a lot, compiling all the necessary information in a brief page is a complex task, it means having to analyze what is important and what can be deleted, and so on.
Designing a good quality CV takes time, yet it is the first opportunity every worker has to show his skills, clients pay attention to everything which is into that page. In some enterprises, they even have psychologists to analyze patterns seen in these CVs; things like color, font, writing style, template, and order can tell the person more than they think.
As we care about our readers, here are our tips to create an acute curriculum, everything that should be included; yet, keep in mind that we will talk about information but not about style, it is all up to you.
Personal Profile
It is kind of obvious yet it cannot miss in this article. All the necessary information about you, name, age, profession, address, contact information and a brief introduction will work great. An acute way to know what to write in this section is to answer: Who am I? And What I do?
Keep in mind this section is not to tell the entire story of your life yet the information a potential customer should know about the person he is going to hire, in here keep it short and formal, do not add much details, remember this type of relationship is kind of impersonal; you can work for months for a person and never seeing his face.
Also, if you are a freelancer, you may have determined the target in which your potential clients may be, write the information in order to match with the necessities and likes of your target and the outcome will be more likable to impact in that market.
List of skills
This section is one that requires intelligence from the worker. First of all, honesty is vital in here, write down a short list –between 5 and 10 skills- that you really manage. Once again, focus on the skills you own and you know potential customers are looking for.
Creating a long list may lead to the wrong impression, it may mean you are arrogant or too desperate to find a job, which is exactly the opposite a freelancer want a customer to think about him or her.
Also, pick wisely the group of skills you are going to show; the most unique they are, the most relevant they will seem to clients. For example, saying you have abilities in design graphic may be a little bit silly, almost every person who has access to a computer knows how to use it.
Unless one of these obvious programs such as MS package is extremely important to the work you perform, do not mention it. Once again, be completely sure you are skilled enough to write it down; in freelancer’s world, saying it is not so important but doing it is and a lot! Do not offer something you will not be able to do when being contacted by a customer.
Work Experience
This section can be confusing for freelancers doing their Curriculum Vitae from scratch; in traditional CV, including working experiences that lasted just months equals failing, yet in the freelance area, it does not work in the same way.
Freelance tasks are relatively short, some of the can be just for a project, some others for a week or month, so there is nothing to be ashamed when writing down your working history. Moreover, there are three different ways to write this section.
Chronologically: This one is very useful if the person is new in this area, starting with the oldest job to end with the most recent ones; do not forget to add a short description about the tasks you performed.
Best experiences: in case the person have had lots of jobs before, it is not necessary to list them all –remember, the shorter the better-, an acute idea is to describe the best experiences the person had, maybe related with time, relevance of the task or the client.
By skill: for those who offer services in multiple areas, they can separate the experience based on those areas. For example, a job working with Photoshop, other with Prezi and the next one with AutoCAD, just to mention an example.
An excellent tip we can suggest in this section is to keep in mind that sometimes you will not be able to proportionate much information about the client you were working for –some freelance tasks are done anonymously- so, the best option is to focus on the task.
Social Media
There is something that not all freelancers have in mind, being a freelancer is not just being a person offering services through Internet, it is deeper than that; actually, a freelancer is its own brand and, as any other brand in the market, social media is extremely important.
For some potential clients, being able to check some of the candidate profiles before contacting him is a good plus.
Why? Well, in social media people tend to be honest and creative, they do not inhibit themselves when expressing opinions, thoughts, even memes can tell a lot from you! Also, there are other details a person can see from social media, the political or religious orientation, your humor, likes, writing style and some other matters that can be determining when choosing a person to work for you.
Add your personal touch
There is not a specific structure to create the killer Freelance Curriculum Vitae, yet the information explained above will boost your presentation and make you very attractive to potential customers; just do not forget to express yourself in every possible detail.
Pick a template that represents your likes (or create one from scratch), select the colors, font, and structure that fit in your likes, take your time to pick the best profile picture and be extremely careful with typos and grammar spellings.
What not to miss
- Clients expect 100% from you; do not offer something you cannot do.
- Study your market, knowing details about the brands or people you are intending to reach will help you to create an appealing CV. Maybe, having two or more different templates will work really well, change certain details on them and send the one that fits better with the target.
- Give yourself a title: it does not matter if you are able to do a hundred of different jobs, “handyman” does not work in here. Set one of your many skills as the main one, that in which you feel confident, skilled and have experience. Once again, it can be changed from one template to another to reach different targets.
- Clean up your social media: as we explained before, it is important to share your social media in here; yet, be sure you do not have anything you do not want the next boss to see.
- Extra files: in some cases or areas, the use of extra information is well received. For example, photographers, designers, architects and many others can send a portfolio, while writers, editors, journalists can send an article and so on. It will work to show a piece of your work and what you can do for them.
- K.I.S.S.: not kissing or the band, yet Keep It Short and Simple, remember there is no need of using a million words to give a good impression, take your time to design the perfect freelance CV and go out to find your new job!
There is a myriad of services a remote worker can supply to clients, and incredible agencies such as Wegacha have the very best freelancers ready to work for you; in here, we are your very own team!
