10 Tips To Create Your Writer's Resume Before Applying To Freelance Jobs

by Laura Garbers

Today, our world has matured into a digital one. And the evidence is in the availability of jobs such as freelancing. The ability to be able to work independently and from anywhere in the world is an opportunity the world won’t want to deviate from.

That being said, you will agree that freelance jobs are getting saturated and organizations or platforms need to find a means of taking only the best, hence the need for a resume. It is important to note here that not every freelancing job requires a resume, but some of the high paying ones do.

Foreword

Now, a freelance writer’s resume is nothing less than a resume that speaks about your skills, previous clients, results you achieved on assigned projects and how you can be of benefits to the project of the hiring individual or organization. The resume also includes your educational background, areas of expertise and other sections deemed relevant. You can write the resume yourself if you are confident enough. However, if you are not exactly sure, there is no crime in letting professionals help you. There are many of them around these days, one of such is CraftResumes, which is the most professional resume writing service among others.

There are many of such high paying platforms where organizations looking for freelance writers pitch their projects. If you are looking for such, you should check out some of the best sites to look for jobs online.

An exceptional resume that is carefully crafted is what will help you to stand out and secure the job. To do that, there are a few tips that you must consider.

1.   Short and sweet

As examined in recent times, recruiters are not interested in long resumes. Many believe that your ability to put together a short resume highlighting all necessary sections makes you a right candidate. Hence, when you are crafting or thinking or writing your resume, one thing you shouldn’t forget it to make it as short as possible. Many recruiters have expressed their displeasure in resumes more than two pages.

One of the mistakes many make is to put all information they can remember into the resume, however that is not advisable. The resume is nothing more than a marketing piece. Treat it as such.

2.   Organized and neat

Your resume is your representative; give it the best outfit. It is needless to mention that your resume’s presentation matters. Before anyone checks the content of your resume, they need to be compelling to review and one sure way to do that is to ensure that it is neat, organized and well arranged.

If you are submitting a hard copy, ensure the texture and thickness of the paper are industry-accepted. The least you want to happen is get to know that your resume was thrown into the bin before the recruiter could read it because you used fonts and colours that were difficult to read. Aside from that, you should also consider social media effects on writing skills.

3.   Formatting

This is a bit tricky and closely related to organization. If you are tempted to add creativity to your resume, you should know that you are not alone. But avoid doing that. Follow the basics and instead of focusing on using many fonts and flair, pay attention to submitting a professional and accepted resume. Don’t emphasise on a word by bolding or capitalizing where unnecessary.

4.   Consistency and clarity

Being a writer should help you do this well, yet it still must be mentioned. You must ensure that your resume follows a pattern. Use headings to let the reader of your resume know the information that follows and ensure margins, line spacing and fonts remain uniform. One of the ways to ensure this is to use the same convention for all section headings without forgetting the interests to put on a resume.

5.   Fonts

The font you choose is another area you want to take note of. Reports have shown that many amateurs use multiple fonts in their resume. And as you must have guessed, that can and will backfire. Be professional and use clear, simple and single font throughout your resume. If you are not sure of what to use, the professional Times New Roman, Arial, or Verdana should do.

6.   Outstanding objective or summary

After you must have settled issues with fonts, line spacing and clarity, the next thing you should focus on is the exact content of your resume. And this starts with the objective or summary. This is the first and most important part of the resume. It tells the recruiter, in a glance, your expertise and how you can help the organization. Write it to fit the exact role you are applying for.

7.   Projects and achievements

After stating your experience or exposure and how you can help the organization through your objective or summary, the next thing the recruiter will most likely look towards is the achievements section. Here you must state clearly the projects you took, the process you used in solving the tasks and the result you brought to your past clients.

Once you can do that creatively, the recruiter will be pleased to give you a call. It is important to state at this juncture that you should include only projects that align with the role or project the job you are applying for.

8.   Be specific

Anyone can mention what they can do, but not many can show their results through numbers and figures – you should be among the latter. In writing your achievements, you must be specific as much as you can. Imagine that you are writing a financial analyst resume, you should be very specific, know the numbers and show them in the document. If you wrote a copy for a client and it was sent to 200 prospects, and 100 of them responded, then you should write that.

9.   No frivolous words

In writing your resume, you should be as clear and simple as possible. The recruiter isn’t interested in frivolous words or jargon. Hence, as much as possible, only put the essentials.

10.                 Proofread

This comes without saying – edit your work before sending. After you must have written all essential achievements and projects, you must make sure that there are no grammatical errors, extra white spaces and ensure you read through.

Laura Garbers is an exceptional writer that helps people land their dream jobs through her work at CraftResumes. She is also a digital marketing expert and HR specialist that uses her wealth of experience to add value to the world.

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‘Her love is real. She isn’t.’ Love the tag line. It works great as a hook as well, but eliminate the quotes.

To the untrained eye, Arieanna is just an ordinary woman, but she is the product of an advanced computer and complex 4D printers; the world’s first ‘perfect’ android, complete with human thoughts and emotions. Kind of a long sentence, I would split after "woman." Her purpose? To be whatever the humans want or need her to be. A personal assistant, a friend to the elderly, a spokesperson for women’s rights. Or... a sex bot? Sorry, but that's immediately where my mind went. If it's part of her possible job descriptions, I'd say so here. She is the only person on Earth who is completely adaptable to do any job. But there’s one flaw in her design. Where babies have years to adjust to their emotions and learn to control them, Arieanna has weeks. Some clarification here - meaning like, weeks from the time when she's been switched on? Or weeks to adpat to each job? When she experiences heartbreak for the first time and subsequently attacks Ashur, the very man who created her, she has no choice but to escape - or face being switched off. Is she in love with Ashur? I think so, but it's slighlty ambiguous so maybe clarify.

To the outside world, she’s a dangerous, malfunctioning machine. Everyone seems to want to do anything to catch her – and all Arieanna wants is to just live in peace. Awkward sentence construction here. Also - clarify - is there a reward for her capture, dead or alive? Or a warning about her being dangerous? Things seem bleak until she meets Catelynn, a spunky eleven-year-old, and her bad-tempered father Liam. They seem like the last people she should trust, especially since Liam seems to be involved in some dubious wheelings and dealings. But, after some coaxing from Catelynn, he’s also the only one willing to help her. You used variations of "seem" three times in this para. That's called an echo, and you'll want to eliminate those.

When they realise they are being followed by one of Ashur’s hitmen, she quickly learns that Ashur will stop at nothing to destroy her, and everything she has grown to care for. Why? What is Ashur's motivation to kill her? Now, Arieanna must decide if her found friendship is worth sacrificing her freedom for, and she must discover what her true purpose really is. Slightly confusing - isn't the friendship and the freedom the same side of the coin?

HUMAN INSTINCT (90,000 words) is an accessible adult sci-fi set in the near future. It could be described as Machines Like Me or Ex Machina with the feel of a Tom Clancy novel. Hmm... not sure of the Tom Clancy comparison. His novels tend to be realy male driven and tech-heavy. But otherwise I like the comp titles.

Read Around the World—Inspiration from Literary Cafes

During these unprecedented times, we’re all craving a little adventure. Even though we can’t pack up our bags and hop on a flight, we can follow in the footsteps of many adventurers from the comfort of the couch. Some of the greatest novels by infamous writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, and Jack Kerouac were written with a hot cuppa at literary cafes around the world.

Expand your reading list with these 10 cafes across the globe. Grab the books that were inspired by the French doors of Parisian cafes, we see you The Great Gatsby. You can’t forget about the Scottish cafe that Rowling herself wrote the first of the Harry Potter series. You don’t need a travel authorization to take a literary trip inspired by these cafes.