When you’re building your way up the professional ladder as a freelance programmer, every move that you make counts. And you’ll often have only one chance to make a great first impression or to win yourself a chance to show your professional programmer skills. This is why you need to learn how to make a great first impression on the people in charge of making the decisions. And one of the most important segments of introducing yourself to potential clients or employers is your freelance programmer’s CV.
A CV is an ice-breaker you need to ensure you get a callback, a chance for a live interview, or to seal the deal right away. In order to nail your CV as a freelance programmer, you’ll need to know how to optimize it. Luckily, we’ve got your back.
Keep reading for the ultimate guide for optimizing your CV for a freelance programmer career.
Strong Personal Statement
When you’re writing a CV for a career as a freelance programmer, you never know who’s going to be reading it.
It could be a potential client who has no experience in recruiting programmers. It could also be a professional recruiter from a company’s HR sector, who has a ton of other CVs laying around.
And you need to impress all of them.
This is why you need to open strongly with a powerful personal statement. A personal statement is a short introductory paragraph of text that contains information such as:
- who you are
- what’s your experience
- how you became a programmer
- your strengths
- peculiarities about the way you work
- an anecdote or a fun fact
- etc.
It should contain the information that will make those who are reading memorize you and develop a certain image of you in their minds.
It needs to be original, unique, and non-standard.
That’s the first step toward making them learn more about you and consider hiring you.
Your Experience
As a freelance programmer, you may not have as much experience working at certain companies. But, this doesn’t mean you don’t have valuable experience that your potential clients or employers will love reading about.
Therefore, think about the most important experiences you’ve gained over the years. Then, list them using bullet points and adding:
- the type of experience you’ve gained (e.g., Java programming, app development, software development, etc.)
- the year in which you did it
- the specific tasks you handled (e.g., developed up to 10 mobile apps in 12 months)
- your key achievements (e.g., managed a team of 20+ colleagues, wrote the cybersecurity strategy for an e-commerce app, etc.)
Show off your experience to help potential clients understand just how professional and skilled you are. This will have them like you a bit more.
Specific Projects
If you’ve worked on any major projects that you’re proud of, you should list them in your freelance programmer’s CV.
It’s important to show that you’ve got the skills and resources necessary for taking part in or handling major projects.
Therefore, share your projects information:
- who was your client/employer
- what was the project about
- what were your responsibilities and tasks
- what was the goal of the project, and how did it turn out
Specific projects will give potential clients a bit more perspective over your freelance career and help them decide whether or not you’re the right fit for them.
Programming Skills
Your programming skills might just be the key ingredient you need to make a winning freelance programmer’s CV.
List your strongest programming skills to ensure potential clients have no doubt about your skillset or professionalism. This list should contain skills such as:
- Java
- CSS
- SAS Suite
- C Language
- etc.
You can even add your level of expertise for each of the skills to make the list more realistic. That way, you can say that your Java skills are excellent while your SAS skills are intermediate.
Nobody likes to hire a know-it-all. Your potential clients will appreciate the honesty and transparency of your CV.
Education
The last section of your CV should cover your formal education. Potential clients will want to know where and how you’ve gained your knowledge and skills listed above.
Therefore, make sure that you put together a brief history of your education, in chronological order. Cover everything that matters:
- college education and degree
- certificates
- additional training
- courses
- internships
Create a list that tells a story of your development as a programmer. Include the years and institutions you atteded to share as much important information as possible.
Of course, you should never stop learning and improving your knowledge. You can find brilliant online resources for expanding your knowledge and continuing to learn.
Adapt to Specific Projects
As a freelance programmer, you’re always going to be searching for new projects and clients. That means that you can’t settle for a single generic CV and send it out each time there’s an opening.
On the contrary, you need to adapt your CV for each specific job or project you’re applying for.
Here’s what you need to do:
- read the job/project description thoroughly
- mark the most important details (specific skills they need or type of personality)
- mention these specific details in your CV
- use their exact words
- make your CV suitable for the specific job in question
Your CV needs to speak directly to a specific target audience. And that is your potential client or employer.
By adapting your CV to a specific job opening, you’re increasing your chances of making a great first impression and winning a chance to prove your professionalism and expertise.
Proofread & Edit
Another majorly important factor in the success of your freelance programmer’s CV is the format and accuracy. If your CV isn’t properly written, you’ll risk losing a lot of potential clients.
Therefore, make sure to write it by following this procedure:
- write the initial draft with the information you want to share
- think whether there’s something redundant or unnecessary
- only include valuable, important information
- choose a CV format that is easy to read and scan for specific information
- use bullet points
- write short sentences
Once you cover all of the steps above and go through several stages of editing and formatting, you can say that you have the final draft.
Now all that is left is for you to proofread it for mistakes such as:
- grammar
- punctuation
- spelling
There are writing services that specialize in writing a good thesis but can help you with the process of editing and proofreading.
Make sure to polish your CV to perfection to show that you’re a professional.
Final Thoughts
As a freelance programmer, you’re in constant search of new clients and new projects. And, without an optimized CV, there’s no way for you to succeed in finding a regular workflow.
Hopefully, you’ll find the advice shared above useful and practical. Apply them to your CV for a freelance programmer career, and you’ll seal more deals than you expect.
Dorian Martin is a freelance writer and blogger with years of experience. He focuses on topics related to career advancement and professional development, always providing practical and applicable advice.