A Guide for Freelance Writers: How to Write an Outstanding Resume

Freelance writers need to know how to write themselves a great resume, not just write one for someone else.

• Keep Track of Your Accomplishments

It’s easy after you’ve been working as a freelance writer for awhile to forget jobs for which you were once very proud of the writing you did. This is why it is a good idea to keep a freelancing resume on hand and update it every one month to every two weeks. Also, keep track of where your blogs and articles are being posted so that you can include the web addresses of all your best projects. While you may not be really proud of your “Finding the Best Work Boots,” articles, there will be gigs for which you are particularly proud that you’ll want to mention especially with a link to them so the reviewing agency can view your live post.

• Highlight Your Best Experience—Not All Your Experience

You might have been freelancing for years and never thought of actually creating a resume, because you didn’t need to. Consequently, you’ll want to sift back through your files and titles, hoping these will trigger memories. Likely you were working for a freelance site, and you can browse back through your completed jobs and gather them this way.

Now, you may have written hundreds of articles. So, do not feel you have to mention all of them. Mention your best work—especially anything on the web that has your name on it, and mention those articles for websites that you are most proud. You’ll also have to seek out your work on the web so that you can provide the website where it’s linked.

• Choose Your Method of Organization


• By Category of Article

Unlike most resumes and CVs, freelance resumes can vary in their forms of organization. You might want to organize them by category. Fashion work:, medical articles, academic articles, and so forth. In this way, if a freelancing agency is reviewing your work that needs articles for a specific area, you’ll have them all laid out for them with links.

• By Chronology

You can also organize your projects by date or month and year. For example, you could list projects under “July 2014,” and so forth.

• You’ll Want a Zip File of Your Best Work as Well

Don’t overwhelm them, however. You don’t want to give them a thousand samples to wade through. Ask them, perhaps, what kind of work they’d like to see. This way, they’ll understand that a. you can and have written about anything and everything and b. that you have a large body of work to choose from and they can take their pick.