Self Employed CV

Build your CV around projects not employers (I was taught this style of CV writing when I worked at Andersen Consulting (aka Accenture) and it's one of a handful of things from that time that stuck with me). Also try to state clearly and concisely what the project was and what your role was. AC also suggested anonymizing employers -- e.g. "medium sized construction company" which is a wise thing to do if the work is not public.

There's nothing wrong with self employment in and of itself. I've been self employed for many years now, and this hasn't stopped me constantly receiving jobs offers. Of course, I've also been employed for many years before that, and that probably counts too.

I think self employment only looks bad when it's interspersed with very small periods of employment, from a couple of months to six months. Having long periods of unemployment, followed by short bursts of a couple of months here, three months there could maybe be interpreted as a sign that the candidate has a problem with keeping jobs, and that there are probably good reasons for that.

Having only ever been self employed could also be seen as a bad sign. Having never worked within a company, maybe the candidate has no teamwork skills, cannot work within a hierarchy, cannot keep a fixed schedule, etc.

I can't think of any other situations when self employment would look bad.

Which forums? Not everyone uses the term the same way. I stopped saying "self-employed" and started calling myself "entrepreneur".

When I said self employed, people either heard "unemployed" or "marginal freelance person, barely made ends meet". When I switched to entrepreneur, people heard "successful businessman". The change was uncanny.

Now, my activities didn't change. So the questions to ask are:

  1. How did the people complaining about self-employed mean the term?
  2. Does that match what you do?
  3. How should you brand it so that the person hiring you understands it correctly?

I never had a problem with other entrepreneurs or managers. We spoke the same language. I even got some unsolicited job offers when working for myself, which never happened before.

In general, I think it's seen as a positive thing, as long as you're talking about the kind of self-employment we mean here on Hacker News. Fairly lucrative, manage your own schedule, no shortage of clients, but more overhead and uncertainty than a job and a need to focus on non-technical stuff. The latter two points explaining why someone might want a job instead of self-employment.

Anecdotally, I've found it difficult to persuade potential employers that I won't just quit after six months and start another business. It's a legitimate concern on their part - if you're someone who likes the challenge and (potential) reward of running your own business then you're less likely to stay in a salaried job for as long as someone else. Employing someone should really be a long term commitment from both parties.

Secondly, it's quite hard if you failed. I learnt a huge amount about running a company, building software, even about who I am, when I've been doing startups, but ultimately the main thing I've demonstrated is that I can put a lot of time and energy in to projects that fail. I didn't have the insight to change what needed to change to ensure success or to walk away earlier to limit my losses. Those aren't great things to show people.

All in all, being self-employed does make it harder to get a job afterwards. If you recognise why though, you can defend yourself against those issues that employers will have.

I don't want to have a conventional job ever. So I don't have to worry about my CV.

IMHO - which doesn't mean much, it's really a combination of industry and geography. And of course, I fully realize that what I'm writing below is based on generalizations that I've witnessed/experienced.

For example, here in Canada there's very little risk tolerance, regardless of what people tell you. You see it in the ways companies raise funds, are valued, and even the execution points. Being 'self-employed' can be a hindrance, especially in marketing. On the other side 'Founding X company - building the overall business to over $YY in revenue' is a positive spin on the same result.

On the other hand, discussing a project-based approach looks VERY good. At that point you're a consultant, rather than a contractor or freelancer. Here, that resonates better, in that people go 'ah, well paid expert'. This in turn means that you can pivot the discussion around to project successes, the values you've learned working on multiple projects, etc.

But most importantly, don't underestimate the value of the cover letter - which I used to believe no one reads. If you can explain your passion to join organization X (for some specific reason), then effectively you're priming your resume reader. That helps you positively change the conversation - a brilliant technique from behavioral economics.

Good luck!

For me, as a programmer, having a (1 employee = me) business / being self-employed alongside my study and some jobs has helped in building my CV.

On one hand it gave me a lot of first-hand experience with a lot of things, and second it shows that i'm not keen on sitting on my hands.

You could always change your title from something like "CEO of XYZ Co.", "Founder at Acme Inc.", or "Chairman of Dog Corp" to something less ambitious like "lead developer", "marketing manager", or even just "web developer".

Sure, occasionally, you might get employers in the valley who (claim) they care a lot about your personal growth, but from my experience outside the tech world, plenty of employers would much rather just have a dull but trustworthy tool who gets the job done without fail to someone incredibly smart, unscrupulous, and motivated. To these people (which I will venture to say is the majority of small-business owners), your ambition is scary to them, so you're better off not coming off as being ambitious.

TL;DR: best way to market self-employment? Don't. Instead market it as regular employment where you had a lot of responsibilities.

I'd create it around the job that you're trying to get. If an employer is looking for a candidate, often the don't have the time to look deeply into each resume coming in.

If your resume has traits that stand out for the position available, it'll catch the employers eye and increase your chances of getting an interview.

I'd recommend writing about projects you did that relate to the job posting combined with measurable facts about the results.

Hope that helps!

I tend to show my github account. Nobody asks any further questions about ability after that.

If you go self-employed and take it seriously, you shouldn't be thinking about a CV/resume :)

http://philcv.com. I just mark the roles as '(freelance)'.

Despite my CV clearly stating that I'm self-employed, and which period I've been self-employed, many recruiters still seem to think my own company is someone else's company. I have no idea why.

In any case, it doesn't seem to cause any problems. I work as freelancer, so it makes every kind of sense that I have my own company.

I'm trying to do the same after ten years of running a web agency. I had some successes, but I also made plenty of mistakes along the way since I was learning while doing. Ultimately I couldn't make it into a viable business.

At first, it felt like a hindrance, a decade-long black dot that I wanted to somehow hide. Now I'm proud of the period -- provided jobs, mentored, made things, etc. -- so it is easier to talk about.

I'm not going the hide that period. I'm going to be frank about it once I hit the streets. I made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of hard lessons, lessons that should help in whatever my new capacity is.

So I guess my advice is to be honest about those self-employed periods. They are what they are.

I'm not self employed; I am a small business owner. Start a formal business for consulting [or whatever].

That way you aren't self employed; you were employed at Sudorank LLC or something similar.

I haven't maintained a personal resume/CV is years; and have no plans to do so again. I do not share past client names with other potential clients. Recruiters don't know how to handle me, however it hasn't hurt my business.

For proof of skill people can review my books, articles, blog posts, or StackOverflow profile.

I assume my first meetings with clients are very different than interviews [although a few have had an interview-like feel].

been dealing with this for a long long time. Until I learned how to fudge a resume or CV correctly(doesn't take much effort), I really struggled and lost out to what I called the, "certified stupid", or "the Educated/indoctrinated incompetents". Take a google search through people busted for fake CV's, many of whom held VERY high positions at prestigious Universities yet it took decades and decades to catch the few who've been caught. And we have a commander in chief who's 'cv' is either false, or the biggest joke in history. So my friend, plan ahead, purchase a number of throwaway cellphones(TracPhones are less than $5!) and label each with a name, company, gender, etc. and use those for your 'references'. Depending on what kind of work you seek you may also want to research what people who left jobs under a NDA have to do when trying to list previous work experience.

I've been intern, employed, freelance, self-employed, founder, consultant, and I haven't had any problem marketing myself. In fact, I had an online profile in one of those job seeking sites, and I had to take it off cos recruiters and headhunters were continuously calling me with job offers (but I was happily self-employed as stated in the CV!).

I think it is more about your achieved goals, projects and skills, and less about who have you been working for. If I were you, I'd just concentrate my efforts in building projects where you show off your skills (blog/portfolio, github, etc...). IMO this can be more powerful than a CV.

Of course I added it to my resume! All the companies I interviewed at (all small companies of <10 people though) thought it was a huge bonus for me. Even though I'm only a medior developer I have proven that I can work independently and responsibly. It also gave me a lot of cool projects to show.

That's how I did it; I just demo'd them the coolest apps I built and explained why they were cool (google tweeted about it, won the imagine cup with it, got covered by major news sites, etc.).

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