Why Side Projects and Freelance Gigs Belong On Your Resume
Employers don’t care whether you got paid through payroll, PayPal, or not at all. They care about three things:
- Can you do the work?
- Have you done something similar before?
- Are you reliable enough to bet money and reputation on?
Side projects and freelance gigs are often the purest proof of all three. You chose them, shaped them, and saw them through without someone forcing you. That’s professional gold—if you present it correctly.
From a hiring manager’s chair, though, “random side projects” can look like resume padding when they’re vague, inflated, or disconnected from the job at hand. My job, as your friendly Resume Monster, is to help you turn those projects into sharp, credible experience that makes a hiring manager think:
“Finally. Someone who doesn’t just list job titles, but can actually do things.”
Let’s walk through how to do that, step by step.
Step 1: Decide What Belongs On Your Resume (And What Doesn’t)
Not every side project deserves prime time. Treat your resume like premium shelf space, not a storage unit.
Ask two questions for every project or freelance gig:
- Is it relevant to the role I want next?
- Does it demonstrate skills or outcomes that matter to a hiring manager?
If the answer is “no” or “not really” to both, it probably belongs on LinkedIn, in a portfolio, or as an interview story—not on page one of your resume.
Filter by the job, not by your pride
You might be proudest of your experimental mobile game, but if you’re applying to a B2B data analyst role, the hiring manager cares much more about:
- Your small business dashboard project in Google Data Studio
- Your freelance Excel automation for a local non-profit
- Your side project scraping and visualizing public datasets
Relevance beats cool factor. Every time.
Group and name your experience strategically
If you have multiple small projects, don’t scatter them all over. Group them to make them look intentional and substantial.
For example:
- “Freelance Web Developer”
- “Independent Data Analytics Projects”
- “Content & Brand Strategy Consultant”
- “Independent Design & UX Projects”
That simple framing says: “I take this work seriously. It’s not random tinkering; it’s professional practice.”
Step 2: Choose The Right Section And Label (So It Looks Legit)
How you label your side work shapes how it’s perceived.
From a hiring manager’s view, vague or cutesy titles cause suspicion:
- “Chief Everything Officer, My Life”
- “Passion Projects”
- “Hustles”
These sound like padding. Instead, lean into clear, professional framing.
When to use “Freelance” or “Consultant”
Use this when:
- You had paying clients, even if sporadic
- You delivered real work with deadlines, scope, and outcomes
Examples:
- Freelance UX Designer, Self-Employed
- Marketing Consultant, Independent
- Software Developer (Freelance), Various Clients
This says: “I did real work for real people, and they trusted me.”
When to use “Projects” or “Independent Projects”
Use this when:
- Work was unpaid, self-initiated, or mostly for learning
- You didn’t have formal clients, but the work is substantial and relevant
Examples:
- Independent Data Science Projects
- Software Engineering Projects
- Personal Design & Branding Projects
You’re being honest about the nature of the work while still treating it as serious, structured experience.
Where to place projects in your resume
General best practices for how to list freelance and projects on your resume:
-
If you have limited professional experience
Place “Freelance Experience” or “Projects” above or right after “Work Experience” so it doesn’t look like an afterthought. -
If you have solid full-time experience
Put projects under a separate section called “Selected Projects” or “Freelance Experience,” after your main Work Experience. -
If freelance is your main work
Treat it like any job: full “Work Experience” entry as “Freelance [Role], Self-Employed.”
Step 3: Describe Your Work Like A Hiring Manager Reads It
Most candidates write about side projects like diary entries:
- “Built an app using React and Firebase.”
- “Worked on various graphic design tasks.”
- “Helped a friend with marketing.”
From the hiring side, that means nothing. What problem did you solve? For whom? With what result?
Use this simple formula for each bullet:
Action verb + what you did + how you did it + why it mattered (result or impact)
From hobbyist to professional: a before-and-after example
Weak (padding vibes):
- Created a personal finance app as a side project using React Native.
Strong (professional, credible):
- Designed and built a cross-platform personal finance app in React Native, enabling users to categorize expenses and visualize monthly spending, reaching 200+ active users through organic promotion.
Notice the difference:
- Specific tech skills? Check.
- What the app does? Check.
- Evidence of actual usage? Check.
- Sounds like real work, not tinkering? Check.
Another example.
Weak:
- Helped local restaurant with social media.
Strong:
- Developed a 3‑month social media content calendar and managed daily posts for a local restaurant, increasing Instagram engagement by 65% and contributing to a 20% rise in online reservations.
Now you look like someone who understands business outcomes, not just someone who “knows Instagram.”
Step 4: Quantify Everything You Can (Without Faking It)
Nothing builds credibility like numbers. Hiring managers are wired to respond to measurable outcomes because they de-risk the hire.
Your side projects may not have formal KPIs, but you can still quantify:
- Scale: number of users, pages, screens, features, or assets
- Time: time saved, project duration, speed of delivery
- Revenue: sales generated, leads captured, donations raised
- Engagement: click-through rates, conversion rates, followers, opens
- Efficiency: reduced manual work, automated steps, error reduction
How to find numbers when you think you have none
Ask yourself:
- Did someone use this?
- Did this replace a previous process?
- Did anyone say, “This saved me time / money / headaches”?
Examples:
- “Automated weekly sales report generation in Excel using macros, saving the team approximately 3 hours per week.”
- “Launched a portfolio website and blog that attracted 500+ unique visitors in the first two months via SEO and content marketing.”
- “Designed a logo and visual identity for a podcast, helping grow listenership from 100 to 600 monthly downloads in six months.”
You don’t need perfect analytics. You just need honest, reasonable estimates that show direction and scale.
Step 5: Make Your Role And Scope Crystal Clear
Side projects can create confusion:
- Did you really do all that alone?
- Were you the lead, or just helping?
- Was it a one-week experiment or a year-long effort?
When hiring managers are confused, they discount what they read. Your job is to remove ambiguity.
Clarify your role in a single, honest line
Right after the project title, add one clarifying line. For example:
- “Role: End-to-end ownership from requirements gathering to deployment.”
- “Role: Designer and front-end developer in a 3-person team.”
- “Role: Solo founder responsible for product, marketing, and customer support.”
This signals maturity and transparency.
Show the scale of the project or engagement
Include scope details like:
- Duration: “6-month engagement,” “3-week sprint,” “Ongoing since 2022”
- Complexity: “10+ page site,” “4‑screen mobile onboarding flow,” “3 data sources integrated”
- Stakeholders: “Worked directly with founder,” “Collaborated with 4‑person dev team”
For example:
Independent Data Analytics Projects
Role: End-to-end project ownership: data collection, cleaning, analysis, and visualization.
- Built a Power BI dashboard consolidating 3 years of publicly available city traffic data (2M+ rows) to identify congestion patterns, using DAX measures and time-intelligence functions to surface hourly and seasonal trends.
Now your work sounds real, scoped, and substantial.
Step 6: Align Your Projects With The Job You Want
The best practices for turning projects into resume experience all converge on one principle:
Your resume is not an autobiography. It’s a sales brochure for a specific job.
Two people can have the same project but describe it totally differently based on the role they’re targeting.
Tailor your angle to the role
Imagine this project:
You built a simple e‑commerce site for a friend’s handmade jewelry business.
For a software engineer role, you might emphasize:
- Tech stack: React, Node, Stripe API, PostgreSQL
- Architecture and code quality
- Deployment and CI/CD
For a product manager role, you might emphasize:
- Requirements definition and prioritization
- User research with potential customers
- A/B testing of product pages
For a marketing role, you might emphasize:
- Email marketing and landing page copy
- Conversion-rate optimization
- Ad campaigns and analytics
Same project. Different story. That’s not dishonest—that’s strategic communication.
Echo the job description (intelligently)
Read the job description and identify:
- Tools and technologies they care about
- Types of problems they need you to solve
- Business outcomes they value (revenue, engagement, efficiency, etc.)
Then, when listing your project:
- Use similar language where it truthfully applies
- Highlight related tools or frameworks
- Emphasize similar outcomes
If the posting says “experience improving funnel conversion,” don’t just say:
- “Built a landing page for an online course.”
Say:
- “Designed and shipped a conversion-focused landing page for an online course, A/B testing headlines and CTAs, which improved email sign-up rate from 3% to 7% over four weeks.”
Now you’re speaking their language.
Step 7: Avoid The Red Flags That Scream “Padding”
Hiring managers have strong radar for fluff. Here are common mistakes and how to fix them.
Red flag 1: Overblown titles
“CEO,” “CTO,” “Founder & Chief Visionary” for a one-person project can sound inflated.
Better options:
- “Creator”
- “Developer”
- “Designer”
- “Freelance [Role]”
- “Founder” (used sparingly, with context)
“Founder” is fine when there’s some real scope—customers, users, or a product in the wild. Just don’t hide behind a fancy title to cover thin work.
Red flag 2: Vague, buzzword-heavy descriptions
If your bullets are full of words like “synergy,” “leverage,” “dynamic,” but light on specifics, it looks like you’re covering emptiness.
Instead of:
- “Leveraged cutting-edge technologies to deliver innovative solutions across various domains.”
Say:
- “Developed two full-stack web applications in React and Node.js, including a task manager and a budgeting tool, focusing on performance and responsive design for mobile users.”
Concrete beats buzzwords every time.
Red flag 3: Listing everything you’ve ever touched
If you dump every framework, language, and tool you’ve briefly tried into a “Skills” section—and your projects don’t back them up—hiring managers will assume you’re inflating.
Best practice:
- Only list skills that appear somewhere in your experience or projects.
- Prioritize depth over breadth: better to be strong in a focused set.
Red flag 4: Dishonesty or exaggeration
Nothing kills your credibility like claiming:
- “Led a team of 5 engineers” when it was just you and a friend
- “Managed $500K budget” when you mean the projected value of leads
Assume the interviewer will ask:
- “Tell me exactly what you did.”
- “Give me a concrete example.”
- “How did you measure that?”
Write your bullets so that you can comfortably answer those questions without spinning stories in the interview.
Step 8: Use Portfolios And Links To Prove It
One of the best tips for how to make freelance and side projects look credible is to let the work speak for itself.
If you can show it, show it.
Add proof where possible
Add links to:
- Live websites or apps
- GitHub repositories
- Behance/Dribbble or design portfolios
- Case studies or write-ups
- Medium/Dev.to/Hashnode blog posts
Example in your resume entry:
- “Redesigned a non-profit’s website to improve donation flow and mobile usability, increasing completed donations by 22% over 3 months. [View live site]”
Link the text “View live site” or the project title.
From the hiring manager’s seat, this is huge: it moves you from claims to evidence.
Use short case studies for complex work
For bigger projects, create 1–2 page case studies that cover:
- Problem / context
- Your role
- What you did
- Tools you used
- Results (with numbers)
Then on your resume:
- Include one sharp bullet
- Add: “Detailed case study available at [portfolio link]”
This tells the reader you think like a professional and understand stakeholders.
Step 9: Integrate Side Work Into Your Career Story
Your resume should tell a coherent story about where you’ve been and where you’re going. Side projects and freelance experience are powerful narrative tools—when you use them to show direction and intentional growth.
Show progression and focus
If your goal is to switch fields (for example, from customer service to UX design), your projects and freelance work become your bridge.
You might have:
- “Customer Support Specialist, 2019–2023”
- “UX Design Projects, 2022–Present”
Within those projects, show:
- Research with users (interviews, surveys, usability testing)
- Wireframes, prototypes, iterations
- Collaboration with developers or stakeholders
Add a one-line summary under the project section:
- “Self-directed UX design projects focused on transitioning from customer support into user-centered product design.”
From the hiring manager’s perspective, you now look like:
- Someone with domain context (customer support)
- Someone actively building the right skills (UX)
- Someone intentional about their path (not random drifting)
Connect your projects in your summary/profile
Use your resume summary at the top to tie everything together.
Example:
- “Front-end developer transitioning from technical support, with 3+ years in customer-facing roles and a portfolio of React and Next.js projects, including a ticketing dashboard used by a 10-person support team. Experienced translating real user pain points into performant, accessible interfaces.”
Now your side work isn’t filler; it’s the heart of your story.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I list freelance work on my resume if it was part-time or sporadic?
Be honest about the nature of the work, but treat it as legitimate experience.
Format it like this:
Freelance Web Developer
Self-Employed | 2021–Present
Then use bullets that highlight scope and outcomes:
- “Designed and built 4 WordPress sites for small businesses, implementing custom themes and basic SEO, resulting in a 30–60% increase in organic traffic within 3 months of launch.”
- “Provided ongoing maintenance and performance optimization, reducing average page load time by 40% on client sites.”
You don’t need to note “part-time” unless the context demands it. Employers care more about what you did and how well than about whether you did it on evenings and weekends.
Should I include unpaid projects or volunteer work on my resume?
Yes—if they are relevant and substantial. Hiring managers care more about outcomes and skills than about the payment method.
For unpaid work:
- Label it clearly (e.g., “Pro Bono Web Design for Local Non-Profit”).
- Describe it like paid work (scope, role, results).
- Avoid over-positioning it as a giant corporate engagement if it wasn’t.
Example:
Volunteer Data Analyst
Community Health Initiative | 2023
- “Cleaned and analyzed survey responses from 1,200+ participants using Python and Pandas to identify trends in healthcare access, presenting findings that informed the design of 3 new outreach programs.”
That’s absolutely resume-worthy.
How many side projects should I list?
Aim for depth over breadth. Two to four strong, relevant projects are more powerful than ten vague entries.
Ask:
- Does this project demonstrate skills I’d use in the target job?
- Does it show measurable results or clear impact?
- Does it avoid overlapping too heavily with another listed project?
You can keep additional projects in:
- A portfolio or personal site
- A GitHub profile
- A “Selected Projects” section on LinkedIn
Use your resume to showcase your best work, not all your work.
What if my side project isn’t “finished” or is still in progress?
It can still be valuable, as long as you:
- Make the status clear: “In progress,” “alpha version,” “MVP launched.”
- Focus on what’s already built, learned, or tested.
- Avoid promising what you “plan” to do; employers can’t hire plans.
Example:
- “Developed an MVP of a time-tracking web app in Next.js and Supabase, supporting user registration, project creation, and time logging; currently iterating onboarding flow based on feedback from 8 pilot users.”
That’s concrete and credible, even if the project isn’t “done.”
How do I talk about side projects in an interview without sounding like I’m making them bigger than they are?
Anchor your stories in reality and impact:
- Start with context: “This was a personal project” or “This was a freelance project with one client.”
- Be precise about your role: “I was the only developer,” or “I handled research while a friend built the backend.”
- Emphasize what you learned and how you’d apply it.
- Share failures and iterations; that makes you more credible, not less.
Hiring managers don’t expect side projects to be perfect. They expect honesty, reflection, and transferable learning.
Key Takeaways
- Side projects and freelance gigs absolutely count as real experience when they’re relevant, clearly described, and results-oriented.
- Present them professionally with accurate titles, clear roles, and quantified impact so they feel like substantive work, not resume padding.
- Align each project to the job you want by emphasizing the skills, tools, and outcomes that matter most for that role.
- Avoid red flags—overblown titles, vague buzzwords, and inflated claims—and use links or portfolios to back up your work.
- Treat your projects as part of a coherent career story, especially if you’re changing fields or leveling up into a new role.
Ready to turn your side projects into a powerful, credible resume that hiring managers take seriously? Try Resume Monster for free and let’s transform your experience into interviews and offers.