A resume serves as the first impression of a potential employee to a potential employer. A wise man once said, “your first impression is your last impression”. This idiom means that you cannot change your first impression no matter how hard you try. Therefore it is important that you land a perfect first impression.
Your resume can either get you a call for an interview or throw you out of the race of people fighting for a job role. Through this article, we will tell you how you can land a perfect first impression by strategically placing your contract work in a perfect spot with optimal visibility for your employer.
Here is everything you need to know on how to list all your contract work in a resume.
What Can Be Classified as Contract Work?
Contract work is any service or work that a company or an individual performs for a client for a specified period of time. The contract work can be short or long term. Contract work can either last a few weeks, a few months, and even years. Many people don’t know this, but contract work is one of the most popular forms of providing professional services. Contract work is relatively more popular in IT-related jobs, and office jobs.
Should You List Contract Work On Your Resume?
The simple answer to this question is “YES”, you should. Listing contract work in your resume serves as proof. This proves that you have solid experience in a relevant field and you are ready to start work as early as possible without any extensive training. Another benefit of including your temporary contract experience in your resume is that the employer understands how resourceful and flexible you are and you can fit in different roles. This also shows how you can quickly take on a role and start working as a pro just like other people with extensive experience and expertise.
Yet another benefit of listing your contract work is that you can justify all the full-time employment gaps in your resume. By listing your contract work you can justify that you were not just passing time on vacation doing nothing but you were being productive in all that time. Most employers nowadays don’t want to hire people who want to start work after a very long break. The reason for this is that employees that take long breaks become lazy and sluggish. Long breaks also affect a person’s discipline and focus.
Here is How to Perfectly List Contract Work on Your Resume
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First Decide How to List Your Work
There are multiple listing methods to list your contract work to increase its visibility. No matter what listing method you choose you first need to ensure that all the individual contract-based jobs are clearly listed in your resume. We recommend that you use the reverse-chronological order while listing your contract-based jobs. Doing this will provide your employer with a better insight and a cohesive picture of all your past work.
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Group Jobs Based on Industry
Grouping the most relevant types of contract-based jobs together will make it easy for your future employers to comprehend your work experience. We recommend that you organize similar jobs under one heading. This makes it easy for employers to scan and understand how extensively experienced you are in a particular job.
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Clear & Concise
No matter how much you want to add in all the details of your previous contract work always remember that it is only a resume. You only have to highlight your previous experiences and expertise. You are only supposed to share details of your experience in a cover letter and not your resume.
We recommend that you only include your name, location, and major relevant projects in your resume. We also suggest that you highlight the more reputable companies you have worked for at the top.
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Achievements are important
While it’s amazing that you did not sit idly when you did not have a full-time job and you worked for a contract-based job. But performing well in a contract-based job and having some major accomplishments from that job is even more amazing. We recommend that you only add the most relevant major achievements while adding details to your job description.
Employers are not only looking for a person to fill the role but also want to see how much value you can add to that job. Having major achievements from contract work can land an impression so strong that it might get you an interview call from your dream job.
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Highlight Your Skills
Nowadays employers use all kinds of resume handling software. This software shortlists candidates based on the keywords in their resumes. Therefore it is important to add the right keywords in your resume to impress this software. To add more relevant keywords to your resume think about all the skills that you gained from all of your contract work jobs. Make sure you add all the skills that are relevant to the job title you are applying for. Using the right keywords will also help employers find your resume for a relevant job.
Tips for Highlighting Your Contract Work
Here are some tips to perfectly place the contract work in your resume.
Add Total Experience in Numbers
Number attracts more than words. You can immediately attract the attention of the hiring manager by showing them your total experience in numbers. The more numbers you can add to your resume the better. You can also add your job role details in numbers for example as a CSR you can add details about how many calls you answered per day.
Showcase Your Skill Set
Read the complete job description and add all the skills that your employer seeks. Also, add details about how you handled such tasks with your previous employers. All the work examples that you provide will serve as an example of how quickly you can become a productive employee for the company. All the work examples that you add serve as proof that you are can become a valuable potential employer in no time.
