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How to Write the Best Self-Employed CV for 2025

Writing a CV if you’re self-employed doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Use these tips to prove how your experiences and skills match what the employer needs.

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Self-employed CV example

freelance cv

Freelance CV

Even if you have self-employment experience, you may decide that you want to move back into a more traditional job field. This means going through the job search process and writing a new CV and cover letter to include your self-employed experience. Here’s what you need to know about adding self-employment to a CV.

When to use a self-employed CV?

A self-employed CV is any CV that a self-employed person writes. Whether you need to list self-employment for every job you’ve had or you ran your own business for a period of a few years, a freelance CV indicates that you have self-employment history of some kind. This may mean that you need to write new job descriptions, change up your skills section, or learn how best to list your work experience.

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Writing your self-employed CV, top to bottom

Contact information
 
 At the very top of the CV, is the CV header with your contact information. This lists your full name, phone number, and often professional portfolio links, such as your LinkedIn profile. This information makes it easier for a recruiter to contact you.
 

Personal statement or CV summary

 
The first part of your CV will always be your CV summary. This is also known as a CV objective or professional statement. This section goes at the very top of your CV and includes 4-6 sentences that spell out your best skills and accomplishments.
 

Skills

 
Self-employed skills are very frequently soft skills, although depending on your specialty, you’ll have hard skills to pull from as well. A freelance web designer, for example, probably knows SEO and project management. Additionally, freelance work frequently teaches you skills like budgeting and managing extended programs that you may not obtain in a more traditional role.
 

Work experience

 
As a self-employed individual, you have an employment history. It doesn’t matter if you worked full-time or part-time, whether you were a business owner or you worked in someone else’s small business. Either way, you can put any self-employed work in your work experience section. Your work history should include any jobs that you’ve held, regardless of whether or not you worked for someone else. You’ll want to make the details of your self-employed as explicit as possible. Include key phrases associated with your role combined with freelance or self-employed terms to provide a title to your work history. For example, “Self-employed web designer” or “Freelance writer.”
 

Education

 
List any education that you have in your CV. This can include both formal education, like a university degree, and other types of education, such as certifications. Self-employed individuals can have a variety of education backgrounds, often connected to their employment. For example, freelance writers may have certifications in different writing styles, carpenters may have state licensing, and self-employed entrepreneurs may have an MBA.
 

Major projects, publications, or credits

 
This is an optional section that you can include if your self-employed work was mostly freelance or you completed a lot of projects that might not show up as effectively in a work experience section. Writing “self-employed accountant” looks less impressive than “Managed multi-million dollar accounting services for multiple leading technology brands.

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Tips for a freelance CV

Here are a few additional tips to keep in mind when writing your freelance CV:

  • Never just put “self-employed.” Even if you didn’t have a formal job title, you should come up with a job title and use it for your CV.
  • Showcase the projects you worked on, not just your job title. It’s common for self-employed individuals to have a greater variety of projects than job duties.
  • Indicate how you spent your time to build your skills. A potential employer wants to see that your time in self-employment helped you become a better worker overall.

FAQ: Self-employed CV

Have questions? We’re here to help.

What does it mean to have been self-employed?

This term doesn’t have a single definition. Generally, it just means you set your own hours, don’t receive benefits from a company, and usually get paid by the hour or using another method of determining payment, such as by the word for freelance writers. Remember that as a self-employed person, you still have a job title. Because “self-employed” covers such a wide array of jobs, one top piece of career advice is to use a job title that best explains the work you specialise in.

Is self-employed work experience different from other work experience?

It can be, but it also doesn’t have to be. Self-employed work experience can be extremely unique, or it can be almost identical to the work experience of someone who isn’t self-employed. Your best bet will always be to use a CV template to show off the achievements you earned while working for yourself. Talk about the skills you developed and the job requirements you had as a self-employed individual.

What are some job titles I can use if I created my own startup?

“Entrepreneur” is the most common term that you’ll see people use. Include the business name as well. A potential employer will likely look up your business to see what happened with it, and they will almost always ask why you left. When you use the CVHelp CV builder to create your freelance CV, you can also input different job titles related to your field so that you can start creating your CV.

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WRITTEN BY Ho

Ho is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and editor with two decades of experience in content strategy, creation, and development. He holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University and his background includes experience aiding military veterans as they transition to civilian careers.

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