How To Build A CV After being Self Employed For Years

If you are someone that has been self employed for years then you may find it hard to write a regular CV. You may not have any regular job title, annual performance reviews or a  list of employers. Your experience may come from running a business, freelancing, consulting, managing projects or providing services. What is important is being able to make your employer understand this experience easily. Here is how you can write a CV after being self employed :

1. Treat self-employment as professional experience

one thing that you should not do is leaving your independent work out of your CV because you believe it is not real work experience. Self employment still entails most of the work found in conventional employment. You may have done things and developed skills, handled some things that are usually done in a professional work space and are very useful in a CV. These thing can be very useful in a CV. Thus it means that your CV should include self employment in your employment history, mostly when it is important for the position you are applying for. Instead of making a huge gap between your last traditional job and the one you are applying for, let them no what you were doing during that time and give them evidence that backs it up.

2. Choose a professional and accurate job title

It may be difficult for someone who has been self employed for several years to determine a job title. You do not necessarily need to use self employed as your only job title. You can just pick a title that can accurately describe the type of work you performed. This title is important because it helps recruiters understand the type of work  you did better. What is important is being accurate, try not to exaggerate your position or say you worked in a company you did not work in.

3. Describe your responsibilities instead of simply saying you ran a business

Saying that you owned a business is not enough to make your employer understand. Running a business usually involves many responsibilities, so you need to state everything you were responsible for that is important to the position you are applying for. Your CV should tell your employer what you actually did. Thus it is very important when you are applying for a job that is similar to one of yourself employment. You need to make your employer understand the connection between your independent work and the position you are applying for.

4. Show the scale of your work

It is easier for your employer to evaluate you tell them the  scale. There’s a big difference between saying that you handled a particular type of work and the amount of work you handled or the number of projects you handled. Quantifiable information sheds more light on what you actually did while you were self employed. You do not need to tell the employer confidential financial information. The goal is to give your employer enough information to understand your level of responsibility.

5. Focus on achievements not duties

Your CV should not only say what you can do it should tell your employer what you have accomplished with those skills. Therefore individuals that have been self employed should state the meaningful outcomes of their work. Think about everything that you have achieved and let this change your CV from a description to evidence.

6. Translate entrepreneurial experience into transferable skills

being self employed requires you to take on many responsibilities that would have been divided among several people. Business owners usually take on tasks simultaneously. This helps you to create transferable skills and experience that are valuable when applying for a job. The employer needs to see how you have used your skills to grow. Your work history should also provide evidence of the skills you have. The skills section should contain the most relevant skills pertaining to the job you are applying for.

7. Explain your major career transition through your professional summary 

Returning to conventional work after a long time will make recruiters ask the question “why does this person want to come back”. Your professional summary can provide this context. You don’t need to explain your whole professional history just your professional background, your areas of expertise and the direction of your current job search. This is very useful if you are going into a completely different type of role. This can help you explain why you are pursuing this professional direction.

8. Adapt Your CV to the job you want now

Your self employment history may contain a lot of skills but not all of them may be relevant to the one you are applying for. Your CV should focus on the parts of your employment that are relevant to the job you are applying for. This doesn’t mean the facts should change, it means your CV should emphasis on what is important.

9. Make your professional identity clear

You may want to describe your self as just an entrepreneur. But this doesn’t tell you employers what you bring, your CV should target a professional identity based on the role you are targeting. They should be able to understand your professional background without having to do research by themselves.

10. Keep your CV focused on your value as a professional  

The biggest thing to remember when writing a CV after several years of being self employed is to stop thinking of the document as a record of your business ownership. The employer wants what you can contribute. Your self employment experience is important because it has given you knowledge. Your CV should make those capabilities visible.

The main idea

Someone who has been self employed for years does not start their CV from scratch. They already have experience, where the problem lies is knowing how to translate that experience into the language of the