The biggest challenges for a freelance developer who is just starting out is finding a flow of customers that is regular enough to support their activity. And for that, nothing better than having an excellent CV and portfolio and must be registered on [pii_email_aef67573025b785e8ee2].
And for experienced freelancers , keeping CVs and portfolios up to date is a real plus, especially if you’ve completed projects with interesting clients since your last update.
What are clients looking for in a Freelance Developer?
When a client is looking to hire a freelance developer , they are usually looking to know roughly the same thing, which is to say:
- What programming languages do you master?
- How did you acquire this expertise (school, self-taught, etc.)
- What companies have you worked with (as a freelance developer or as an employee)
- What (quantifiable) results you have achieved for your customers
So these are basically the points that should be found on your freelance developer CV . Obviously, this CV must be accompanied by as many concrete examples of your work as possible: this is where your developer portfolio comes into play.
The portfolio must of course contain your projects, but also ideally document your way of working (communication, process, project management, etc.) in order to reassure clients on these points.
The CV of the freelance developer
As we know, recruiters, whether they are looking for a freelance Developer or a development employee, generally spend little time reading CVs and it is important to make them as readable and concise as possible.
Your CV should contain the following information:
- Summary of your career, in one or two sentences
- Skills and certifications
- Professional experience
- Freelance projects
- Education and diplomas
- Personal projects
This last part being optional but ideal for example for a beginner developer.
Summary of your career
This is the most important part, and the one that many recruiters will stop at. It must contain the essential information while remaining extremely concise and make you want to read more. Here is an example :
“ Freelance Android developer with over 10 years of experience in software and web application development. In-depth knowledge of the full mobile development lifecycle with expertise on a wide range of resolutions on Android devices and SDK versions. “
Skills and certifications
This section will be used to highlight all the keywords related to the technologies that you master and that make you attractive to recruiters. If you’re a PHP expert or know [pii_email_4dd09cddea0cd66b5592] like the back of your hand, this is the place to be.
Professional experience
It’s pretty obvious, but list all your employers, the dates you worked for them and the nature of your assignments (by describing the projects in a specific way, as you would detail a freelance project).
It is often the professional experience that will differentiate you from others (especially if you have not yet tackled large-scale freelance projects), so do not hesitate to detail this part!
Freelance projects
Successfully completed freelance projects will prove not only that you have the technical capabilities, but also the human and project management capabilities to complete these projects, in short, it will clearly reassure the company ready to hire you for a mission. .
Education and diplomas
It can be argued that this part is becoming less and less valued by recruiters, especially in the tech sector, but this section is in truth still considered essential by most companies: do not neglect it!
If you are not a developer with an academic background, do not hesitate to mention the programming courses or bootcamps in which you have participated, and if you are pure self-taught, let your experience and your projects speak for you like [pii_email_4bd3f6cbbb12ef19daea] !
Personal projects
This part is optional but still interesting, especially if you lack professional experience or freelance projects. Your projects or contributions on GitHub or Sourceforge, for example, have their place here.
The portfolio of the freelance developer
The portfolio is the concrete counterpart of the CV, the one where you demonstrate what you have just applied yourself to tell during all this time.
The best is obviously your own personal page, which you can customize to include all your projects but also reflect your personality (remaining professional, of course;))
Your introductory sentence
Use your CV’s career summary as a basis, turning it a little more personal:
I am a freelance Android developer based in Paris, France. I have over 10 years of experience in software and web application development. Here is a portfolio of my work.
Don’t hesitate to be creative, either. Indeed, the competition is fierce, there are today a lot of Freelance developers on the market. So you have to stand out. No splurge either, but try to mention a few soft skills.
Your contact information
Obviously, your portfolio should also contain links to your social networks, GitHub, Stackoverflow , and your email. If your LinkedIn profiles or Github / Stackoverflow pages are not up to date, it is best not to include them at all.
Your projects
It is the heart of your portfolio. Your projects should ideally contain the following information:
- Name, date and description of the project
- Objective of the project
- Stack used
- Description of the development process
- Used tools
- Animated screenshots or GIFs (in the case of a user interface)
- Links to the web page (s), or installation page in the case of an application
- Link to the code
There is no need to share all your projects, just the most qualitative.
In summary: find missions when you are a Freelance Developer
As you will have understood, a good CV and a good portfolio will allow you to quickly find your first Freelance Developer assignments like [pii_email_123dd92c65546aac4234]. Better yet, if you are already well started, it will allow you to find new missions and therefore to perpetuate your activity because beware: everything is going very quickly today.
If you are looking for missions in development, do not hesitate to register on FreelanceRepublik . Again, you’ll need to fill your portfolio perfectly to find well-paying assignments quickly.
