Follow These Guidelines for How and When to Include Projects on Your Resume

Projects are a great way to show off your skills, and they can be an excellent addition to your resume. This is especially true if you don’t have strong work experience in the field for which you’re applying. But figuring out how best to highlight projects on your resume can be confusing. Here are a few tips.

Choose Wisely

You don’t want to dump all your projects onto your resume just because you can. Instead, look for projects that closely align with the job duties, qualifications, or skills asked for in the job posting. Also, see if anything you’ve done is uniquely suited to a particular role. For example, if you’re applying to a small business, consider highlighting a project that helped a previous small business improve operations.

Decide Where to Put Your Projects

If you only have one or two projects to list, put them in the section that makes the most sense: Education for projects you did at school or experience for projects completed at a previous job. If you want to include several projects, or you did the projects outside of work or school, consider adding a resume section called “Relevant Projects.”

Make Them Enticing

Layout the important facts about each project, such as a brief description, dates, and who the project was for. Also, include your role on the team and what the results were. Then use a few bullet points to drill down on your personal achievements with the project. Be sure to tailor this information for each job you apply for, focusing on whatever is most relevant to that position. Hyperlink to online projects whenever you can.

Projects can help convince a company to take a chance on you, but a little goes a long way like anything else. Choose projects relevant to the job, place them somewhere logical on your resume, and write them up in a clear and convincing way that focuses on what you accomplished. With a bit of work, your projects could be just what you needed to take your resume to the next level.

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