Getting into contracting from a conventional job is like embarking on an epic odyssey.

As you embark on this transformational journey, recalibrating your resume to reflect your contracting aspirations and skill set will be a key step. It’s a journey that offers new opportunities and challenges at the same time.

Adapting your resume serves as a beacon to illuminate your expertise and secure contracting endeavours. Whether you find inspiration through top resume examples or with a resume maker, there are some strategic ways to retailor your resume. Let’s take a closer look at a few things to consider when preparing your independent contracting resume.

Understanding the Contractor’s Perspective

Before we dive into the intricacies of refining your resume, let’s understand how potential clients or employers look at you. They’re drawn to your skills, experience, and ability to produce tangible results as a contractor. To match your resume to the contracting role you intend to get, it needs to showcase your key competencies and achievements. It’s important to tailor your resume to the job posting you’re applying for, so be brief, highlight your top skills, and make it easy to read and include only information that’s relevant. If your industry or service is fairly broad, you can create a basic CV and then use your cover letter to customize your application.

Highlighting Your Core Skills

If you’ve done an archetypal resume, you’re probably used to enlisting a long list of duties from your past jobs. As a contractor, you need a strategic shift. You should emphasise the skills correlated to the projects you are working on and showcase those skills directly.

Let’s say you’re a graphic designer who’s switching to contracting. It’s important to highlight skills like “UI/UX Design,” “Adobe Creative Suite,” and “Responsive Web Design.” The key is to use clear, concise language to make it easy to understand for potential clients. Focus on relevant technologies when making your portfolio. Showcase your experience visually, since your portfolio will be the first impression you make on potential clients.

Creating an Engaging Summary

Bid farewell to the customary career objective or summary section. Instead, craft a succinct introduction meticulously tailored for the contracting realm. This preamble should encapsulate your acumen, the distinctive value you infuse, and your unwavering commitment to delivering excellence. Visualise this as your verbal elevator pitch, ingeniously capturing potential clients’ attention in a fleeting moment.

Here’s an example:

In the past eight years, I have gained a wide range of experience in the graphic design field. This has enabled me to develop my skills in creating visually appealing user experiences that drive engagement and conversions. I have a solid track record of delivering designs that exceed client expectations.”

Showcasing Relevant Projects

Your past projects are one of the best ways to prove your abilities. Your resume should have a section dedicated to your ingenuity and good results. Include the project titles, brief descriptions, your role, the challenges you faced, and the creative solutions you came up with.

In the course of building your contracting portfolio, you should emphasise your personal projects, freelance work, and even volunteer work. Make sure you tell us about your freelance work and how many clients you have worked with. Let us know about your volunteer work and what challenges you faced, and how you overcame them. And last but not least, tell us about any personal projects that you have worked on.

Quantifying Your Achievements

If possible, use quantifiable data to show off your accomplishments and accentuate what’s happening. In the dynamic contracting universe, numbers resonate profoundly. Please provide concrete examples of how you’ve contributed to the company’s growth and success, including increased sales figures, reduced operational expenses, or enhanced efficiency. Be sure to highlight specific benefits that your efforts have yielded and demonstrate how they have translated into sustained progress over time.

Tailoring Your Experience

Invest more time in projects, tasks, and responsibilities that are related to the contracting path that you are taking. Do not include roles that do not showcase your specialised skills. If you are taking a contracting path, you should focus on roles that do not align with your contracting goals. Make a point of selecting roles that demonstrate you’re capable of creating, managing, and succeeding in the field. When you are considering roles, you should analyse how they will bolster your portfolio. You can make use of these experiences in the future when you begin your contracting career.

Embracing Flexibility and Adaptability

You need to be flexible and adaptable if you want to get ahead in contracting. Moving from a structured work environment to a schedule that you control can be a challenge. Discipline is essential to a consistent work effort on behalf of your business and customers. Show how you’ve mastered challenging deadlines, embraced multiple roles, or quickly acquired new skills. Being able to navigate fluid scenarios is crucial in this dynamic arena. What makes you stand out in the contracting industry is your ability to adapt to different situations. The contracting industry requires quick thinking skills and the ability to solve unpredictable problems.

Incorporating Testimonials or Recommendations

The bedrock of contracting hinges on trust and credibility. Testimonials or recommendations garnered from previous employers, colleagues, or clients function as tangible testaments to your professional mettle. Ingrain these endorsements into your resume, lending a layer of authenticity and reinforcing your stature as a consummate professional.

There is no doubt that these testimonials are a great way to demonstrate to potential clients how valuable you are. Make sure you include contact information so that employers and clients can get in touch with your references to gain a deeper understanding of your skills and abilities as a professional. As a result, you will have a distinct advantage when competing to win projects in the future.

When transitioning from traditional employment to contracting, it is imperative that you recalibrate your professional resume strategically. By immersing yourself in the contracting perspective, accentuating your core competencies, spotlighting pertinent projects, quantifying achievements, tailoring your professional trajectory, and integrating testimonials, you forge a compelling resume adept at articulating your essence as a contractor.