6 Things to Consider When Sprucing Up Your Resume

Even freelancers need a good resume, here’s some tips for making a great one

This article was written by featured guest writer Ashlee Christian

As someone that works in People Operations, and that designs resumes for folks as a freelance gig, I’ve seen a lot of resumes over the years and I can tell you unequivocally, that most of them aren’t great.

The fact of the matter is that most of us have never really thought about what makes a resume good. Most folks just make sure there is the requisite information (usually erring on the side of too much information), and scatter it to the four winds hoping that someone will take interest.

However, we can do better! And we should do better! Especially those of us that freelance either full time or part time, your resume is a part of your brand. It showcases your achievements and skills and is often the first impression that someone will get of your working history. Sure having a portfolio website is important, but at the end of the day there is no substitute for a fine one-page embodiment of your professional experiences.

With more and more of us going freelance either full or part time, resume rules are changing. The future of work is coming whether we are ready for it or not, so let’s ditch the dusty old rules, and make some new ones:

Respect the one page rule

This is the Golden Rule of resumes. Unless you have been specifically asked for a CV (which is more of a detailed dive into your entire career history and can be as long as it needs to be), do not have more than a one pager. Also you might have roles or client work that isn’t relevant for the gig you are applying for, in which case, leave it off.

Ditch the bullet points

As far as I am concerned bullet points have no business on a resume. Trying to sum up any one job into 3–4 succinct bullet points that don’t sound like complete canned bullshit is nearly impossible. So I say, leave them out of your resume. Remember we are abiding by the One Page Rule, and unless you’ve only had one job in your life, adding 3–4 bullets for each is going to send you either into 6 point font territory, or spill over into multiple pages. If you would like to delve deeper into what you did in each role, your LinkedIn profile is a great place to do that in.

Highlight your skills

Just because we ditched the bullet points doesn’t mean we can’t highlight relevant experience. The way that I tend to do this when making resumes is through a list of “skills”. These skills are the things that you can do or particular areas of expertise. For me, I might say that my skills include Employee Relations, Visual Design, and Having Strong Opinions About Resumes. Skills can also include your expertise with particular software, although I tend to break that out into a separate “Technology” section.

Please Don’t Tell Me That You Can Use Microsoft Office

Speaking of technology, Microsoft Office debuted in 1988, and while it is still considered the gold standard for word processing, making spreadsheets, etc… LITERALLY everyone can use it. It’s not impressive. Don’t include it. What is impressive is if you can do advanced things. Can you make pivot tables? V-Lookups? Macros? If you can, and those things are relevant for the role you are applying to, then absolutely include that, however, be specific. Instead of saying “Microsoft Office” you might say, “Advanced Excel Skills”.

Nobody cares about your hobbies

At some point a while back, someone decided that recruiters should give a shit about your hobbies. I think the idea was that it showed that the applicant was a “well-rounded-human” with “interests outside of work”. However, you know what? I don’t care if you are well rounded, I just care if you can do the thing I need you to do. If you are SUPER passionate about ultimate frisbee, or wind surfing, or studying patrons of the Renaissance, that’s great, I too am enthused about many things, however, that stuff can come up in conversation where it belongs.

Three letters: P-D-F

The PDF or Portable Document Format is a magical format that takes a document, and freezes it in time to be opened by a variety of different programs without ever losing its original form. There are SO MANY things that can go wrong with a Word document that hasn’t been saved as a PDF that include: formatting gone wrong, missing fonts, rampant spelling/grammar squiggles, etc. Another great thing that you can do with a PDF is make it interactive by making certain parts link to websites or by using a simple mailto: command to make your email address automatically open an email to you on the recipient’s computer. The future is now! Embrace it!

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