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Writing a resume and arranging your resume summary, skill sets, relevant work experience, and education section is tricky— building and organizing a resume when you’re a consultant is even trickier.
Why? Well, most of the workforce uses a classic resume template that organizes their work history in reverse chronological order, including each work experience, their title, employer name, and dates of employment.
But that approach clearly won’t work when you’re shifting company and roles every three to 12 months.
How to organize your resume experience when you’re a contractor or independent consultant
1. Organize It by Parent Company
This approach is the closest to the standard approach. List the staffing and consulting firms you work with as the “umbrella” companies, then underneath, write the consulting jobs you’ve completed along with soft skill bullet points.
For example:
Work Experience
Dexian, 9/10 – Present
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Blue Moon Bank, Nashville, TN
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Senior Java Developer, 6/15 – 11/15
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Re-engineered Java User Interface and portions of core applications, resulting in additional functionality and scalability
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Increased customer satisfaction with bank website by 56% according to user surveys
2. Organize It by Short-Term Employers
Another strategy is to list all of your consulting jobs in reverse chronological order under the heading “Consulting Jobs.”
For job seekers who have worked with a variety of staffing firms, completed many independent gigs, or both, this is a great way to present all of your experience without spending lots of space showing which staffing firm you were working with during each gig.
For example:
Consulting Jobs
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Blue Moon Bank, Nashville, TN
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Senior Java Developer, 6/15 – 11/15
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Re-engineered Java User Interface and portions of core applications, resulting in additional functionality and scalability
-
Increased customer satisfaction with bank website by 56% according to user surveys
3. Organize It by Technology
Maybe you have expertise in several different languages and want to highlight your programming range to potential employers. Or maybe you haven’t worked with your favorite technology for a while but would like to again and need to prove to the person looking over your resume that you’re qualified.
In these cases, grouping your experience by the type of project, technology, or language is the way to go.
For example:
Work Experience
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Java Consulting Roles
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Example #1
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Example #2
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Example #3
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JavaScript Consulting Roles
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Example #1
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Example #2
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Example #3
4. Organize It by Work Category
It’s fairly common for professionals in this industry to have experience working as consultants, independent contractors, and regular employees.
But that presents a problem: you must incorporate all of your disparate work experience into a unified list without confusing the person looking over your resume.
To do that, you can arrange your work experience by category.
For example:
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Consulting Experience
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Example #1
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Example #2
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Independent Contracting Experience
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Example #1
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Example #2
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Full-Time Positions
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Example #1
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Example #2
By implementing one of these four organizational strategies, you’ll be able effectively show hiring managers your expertise, work experience, and capabilities.
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