13 Tips For Making Your Resume Stand Out When Applying For A Job On Upwork

If you’re a freelancer and looking to find new gigs on Upwork, you know it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. Thousands of other freelancers are also applying for jobs on Upwork every day, so making your resume stand out from all of them is no easy feat.

In this article, we’ll give you 13 tips for making your resume stand out when applying for a job on Upwork. These tips aren’t guaranteed to get you hired by any means; however, they will give your application the best chance of getting noticed by hiring managers who are sifting through hundreds of applications each day!

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Takeaways
1. Tailor your resume to match the job requirements.
2. Highlight your relevant skills and experience.
3. Use concise and impactful language to describe your achievements.
4. Include a professional summary that grabs attention.
5. Showcase your portfolio or relevant work samples.
6. Quantify your accomplishments with numbers or percentages.
7. Proofread your resume for errors and consistency.
8. Optimize your resume for relevant keywords.
9. Include relevant certifications or training.
10. Use a clean and professional resume format.
11. Provide clear contact information.
12. Include links to your professional online profiles or website.
13. Customize your resume for each job application.

Table of Contents

1. Choose A Great Profile Picture

Your profile picture is the first thing potential clients see when they browse your Upwork profile, so it’s important to make sure it’s professional and puts you in the best light possible. Here are some tips:

Make it a clear photo of your face only, taken from the front and both sides (make sure there aren’t any people or objects in the background).

Use either a .jpg or .png file format with a minimum size of 400×400 pixels.

Avoid sunglasses and hats; these can make it difficult for potential clients to see your eyes, which helps them determine whether you’re trustworthy enough for their project!

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2. Add Some Design To Your Profile With A Cover Photo

Your profile is the first thing clients will see, so you want it to be impressive. If you’re applying for an editing job, your cover photo should show that you’re an editor. If you’re applying for a translation job, make sure your cover photo highlights some of your translation work.

As with most things on Upwork, use good judgment and don’t go overboard with the number of images or text in your cover photo. Try not to have more than three images in total.

A good cover photo will help clients know what kinds of projects they’re likely to get from working with you. It can also help them feel more comfortable about hiring someone they’ve never worked with before (or at least give them something interesting while they’re deciding whether or not they want to hire).

3. Have A Concise, Keyword-Rich Headline

The headline is one of the first things an employer sees on your resume, so it needs to catch their attention. The ideal headline will be a concise summary of who you are and what you can offer to the client. It should also include relevant keywords from the job posting (e.g., if they’re looking for someone with experience using WordPress, include that in your headline).

In addition to highlighting what makes you an ideal candidate for this role, make sure not to discount any skills that aren’t explicitly asked for in the description you never know when those might come in handy later!

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4. Include A Summary That Sells Your Strengths

Include a summary that sells your strengths. The summary should be short (no more than three lines), and it should include only the most relevant skills for the position you’re applying for. As with your qualifications, don’t try to list every single skill you have just mention the most relevant ones: soft skills (e.g., communication, teamwork) and hard skills (e.g., proficiency with certain tools).

For example, if you were applying for a job as a web designer, this would be okay:

WordPress expert

CSS3 proficient

5. Focus On The Last 10 Years Of Experience

Focus on the last 10 years of experience.

Some employers might require you to list your entire work history, but if they don’t specify that they want a detailed breakdown of all your past jobs (and maybe even a photo), it can be helpful to focus on recent professional experience. Start with the most recent and go back in time until you’re discussing your first job out of college or high school.

You may want to include internships the more relevant experience, the better!

In addition to listing each job title, mention what skills and abilities were emphasized during that position and how those helped build upon previous positions for growth as a professional. This demonstrates how much value you gained from previous roles, which might lead potential employers to believe that they would receive similar benefits from hiring you.

6. Use Short Bullets To Highlight Value

Choose a font size that is easy to read.

Use bullet points to highlight your skills and accomplishments.

Keep sentences short and focused on the last 10 years of experience, which is the most recent hiring trend (according to Harvard Business Review).

Include leadership and teamwork skills in your resume’s summary section.

If you’re applying for a job that involves interacting with clients or managing a team, those qualities should be highlighted in your resume’s summary section as well as elsewhere on the document itself so they stand out from other applicants’ documents this can help seal the deal when it comes time for an employer to decide who should get hired!

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7. Make Sure Upwork Portfolios And Samples Are At The Top Of Your Resume

If you have a portfolio of work on Upwork and are applying for jobs there, make sure to include it at the top of your resume. If not, consider creating one! I’d recommend that everyone create an Upwork portfolio if they haven’t already it’s free and can be an extremely helpful tool when applying for jobs on the platform.

Include examples of the best work in your portfolio so hiring managers can see exactly what kind of quality work you produce. You could also provide links to any other online profiles where employers can learn more about your skills and experience (like Behance or Dribbble).

8. List Key Skills For Every Job You’ve Had

You’re likely familiar with the concept of “key skills” from your LinkedIn profile. If you have a professional background, listing relevant skills for every job you’ve had can help potential employers see how well qualified and experienced you are for their opening.

It’s easy to list all of the skills that come to mind when thinking about what sets you apart from other candidates, but this may lead to redundancy or lack of detail that could hurt your chances of getting an interview. Instead, think more critically about how and why each skill is important in helping you do your job well and apply those points specifically toward each position listed on Upwork.

For example:

I am proficient in working with large datasets using multiple programming languages. This skill has helped me complete data analysis tasks efficiently while maintaining accuracy and efficiency levels above 90%.

This bullet point tells us that this candidate was able to effectively manage large amounts of data through programming languages without sacrificing quality or speediness!

9. Create An Education Section That Showcases Your Most Impressive Achievements

Once you’ve listed your job history and experience, the education section is a great place to highlight your most impressive accomplishments. Many employers will look through this section first before moving on to other parts of your resume. The best way to organize this information is by degree or license, then date, then school.

You should include the name of institutions attended, the date of graduation, and degrees received (if applicable). Also, include any honors or awards that you’ve earned in school as well as any notable achievements such as being named student body president or earning perfect attendance for 10 years straight.

10. Consider Adding Courses, Certifications, And Publications That Align With Your Goals

Consider adding courses, certifications, and publications that align with your goals.

If you’re a recent graduate or if your education isn’t relevant to the position you’re applying for, it’s important to think about what other elements would enhance your resume.

For example, if you want to work in marketing and advertising but don’t have any relevant coursework from school under your belt yet, consider taking an online course on writing effective copy or advertising techniques so that it’s clear that this is something you’re interested in and committed to learning more about.

If you’re looking for work as an accountant but don’t have any professional certification yet or even when you do consider adding any relevant credentials to your resume (e.g., CPA). You could also highlight volunteer work where there was an opportunity for leadership roles or developing new skills by organizing events or contributing articles on topics related to accounting practices (e.g., tax law).

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11. If Applicable, Add A Languages Section To Showcase Fluency In Additional Languages

If you know that a job requires fluency in a language, it’s important to include it on your profile. You can add up to five languages by going to your Profile > Work History tab and clicking Edit under the Languages section.

Then, you can format the languages in your profile just like any other field of work experience or education: type them into the appropriate fields (except for those who have added many different skills), and then separate each language with commas. When done correctly, this will look like this: “Japanese (native speaker), English (fluent), Spanish (fluent).”

You can also use Upwork’s Language Proficiency Tool if you’re not sure which level of proficiency belongs in which category it’ll give you suggestions based on what information you enter into their app!

12. Review Sample Resumes For Inspiration And Ideas On What To Include In Your Resume

Review sample resumes for inspiration and ideas on what to include in your resume

You can find several sample resumes online, but here are four we recommend:

Sample Resume 1: This one is good for anyone who has experience in the medical field or insurance industry. It’s simple, which helps make it easy to read.

Sample Resume 2: This resume is more advanced than the first one we mentioned, but it still works well if you have a lot of relevant experience under your belt (say 10+ years). The use of bullet points makes it stardom other samples that simply list job duties instead of explaining them with action verbs and numbers (e.g., “increased sales by 50% within six months”).

Sample Resume 3: This resume uses formatting like bolded headings and italicized subheadings to draw attention to different sections within it, particularly its objective statement at the top right corner.

You could apply this same strategy by highlighting paragraph breaks between details about each job or project you’ve worked on so employers can easily see how far back into the time they go before deciding whether or not hiring someone would be worth their time/money investing into training them up-front costs associated with onboarding new hires can get expensive quickly;

13. Save Your Resume As A Pdf Or Word Document With The File Extension

You might be wondering why it’s better to save your resume as a Word document with the file extension .docx instead of just saving it as a PDF. For starters, many employers prefer receiving resumes in PDF format because they can open it right away and view their contents without any extra steps or programs needed.

Additionally, since PDFs are essentially secure documents already (you can password protect them), they’re less likely to get hacked than Word documents are which makes them more secure for sharing sensitive information with other people.

Additionally, because PDFs are also widely used by many different platforms (including but not limited to Macs and PCs), you’ll be able to share your resume with more clients no matter what kind of computer they use or what operating system their device runs on.

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Conclusion

If you’re ready to get started, here are 15 tips for making your resume stand out when applying for jobs on Upwork:

Customize your resume for each job you apply for.

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date, and fully complete. It should include your education history and current job title as well as details about any significant accomplishments in previous roles that would be relevant to the position in question.

Create a great Upwork profile by using keywords from the job description (but don’t copy anything directly) so it appears in search results when hiring managers look at applicants’ profiles.

This will help ensure that recruiters can find your information easily and understand why they should hire you based on what they see on there or read in an application letter sent through their system later on down the road if needed.”

Frequently Asked Questions

How Can I Make My Upwork Profile More Complete?

You should be sure to include a cover letter when applying for jobs on Upwork. This is where you tell the hiring manager why you are the right candidate for the job and how your skills will benefit their business. If a cover letter isn’t included with your application, then this could cause it to be rejected outright by employers.

If you don’t want to write one yourself, you can use a template that someone else has created to save time and effort in doing so.

How Can I Make My Upwork Profile More Visible?

The best way to increase the visibility of any post on any platform is through social media sharing. That being said, some posts will naturally appeal more than others based on their subject matter or content style (among other factors).

For example, if someone was looking for help with marketing materials such as logos or websites then those types of posts would probably get more traction than saying something about programming languages,

which both require specialized knowledge sets that many people don’t have access to when trying them out firsthand on their machines before starting up any kind of project plan which might require coding work done by someone else instead (you).

So long story short here folks there’s only one way around this problem which involves sending out emails directly asking people whether they’d like some help getting started with whatever task(s) they need to be completed next!

Is It Okay To List Jobs That Are Not Directly Related To The Job I’m Applying For?

Yes, but remember that the more similar your previous experiences are to the job you’re applying for, the better your chances of getting an interview will be. If you have no relevant experience, list your transferable skills.

If you have relevant experience but have gaps in your resume, list your transferable skills so hiring managers can see what kind of work is important to you and how well equipped you are to perform it at their company.

What If I Am Looking For Something New And Don’t Know What Type Of Work I Want Yet?

Listing “Sales” as one of your skills doesn’t make sense when trying to apply for a marketing position because there’s nothing about sales (or any other skill) that tells potential employers much about how well suited you might be for their specific project needs or culture the two things they about when deciding which candidates should get interviews!

Costantine Edward

Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.