How to list contract and freelance work on a resume

How do you list contract work on a resume?

List it in your work experience like any other job, with one change: label it. Put "Contract" in brackets after the job title, name the company you worked for, and give month and year dates. A reader then sees at once why a role lasted six months, and nobody can say you dressed it up as a permanent job.

The University of Puget Sound's career office reposted resume tips for freelancers and contractors, first published on Vault. It suggests adding "freelance" in front of the job title or "contract" in brackets after it. It also suggests grouping several jobs for one client under that client's name.

Here is a made-up example entry in that format.

Data Analyst (Contract), Northfield Health, Toronto, ON | March 2025 to September 2025 Built the weekly claims report in Power BI that replaced a manual spreadsheet process for the finance team.

Keep each entry in plain lines of text, the same as your permanent jobs. Greenhouse's help page on resume parsing says the parser reads company names and job titles. It lists tables, multiple columns and text in headers or footers as formatting that often causes problems.

Should you list the staffing agency or the client?

Name both when an agency placed you: the client where you did the work, and the agency that paid you. The client's name shows where the work happened. The agency name tells them who will confirm your dates, which matters once a background check starts.

The Federal Trade Commission's page on background checks lists employment history among the things an employer may check. It says an employer must get your written permission before a background reporting company runs the check. If the agency holds your employment record, the dates on your resume should match the agency's.

A simple pattern covers most cases: "Client name (via Agency name)." Put the client first because that is where the work happened. If the agency placed you at three clients over two years, you can use the agency as the heading and list each client under it.

How do you list freelance work for several clients?

Group it under one heading instead of listing every client as a separate job. Use "Freelance [your role]" or your business name as the heading, with the full date range. Then name your strongest two to four clients in the bullets, each with a result. Many short entries can look scattered, while one entry shows a steady business.

Here is a made-up example.

Freelance UX Designer, Self-employed, Remote | January 2023 to present Redesigned the checkout flow for a regional grocery delivery client, cutting the steps from six to three. Built a design system for a two-person fintech startup that its developers used for every new screen. Ran usability tests with 12 customers for a nonprofit's donation page and handed over a written report.

If you registered a business name, use it, and add your role so a reader knows what you did. A heading of only "Smith Consulting LLC" leaves the reader guessing. "Smith Consulting LLC, Independent Financial Analyst" answers the question in one line.

Which format fits your situation?

Pick the format by how you were engaged and how many clients you had. The table sets out the common cases, with a made-up example of the heading line for each. Whichever row fits, use the same pattern for every contract entry so the page reads consistently.

Are you a contractor or an employee?

Use the label that matches how you were engaged, and check your contract or tax slips if you are unsure. In the US, the IRS page on independent contractor or employee says the key is "the extent of the right to direct and control the worker."

The IRS groups the evidence into three categories: behavioral control, financial control and the type of relationship. In Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency's guide on employee or self-employed separates a "contract of service," an employment relationship, from a "contract for services," a business one. It looks at control, tools, subcontracting, financial risk and opportunity for profit.

For the resume, the label is about accuracy. If an agency paid you as its employee, you were an agency employee on contract at the client. If you invoiced clients directly, you were self-employed. This page doesn't give tax advice, so ask a tax professional about your own status.

You are far from alone in this kind of work. In its contingent and alternative employment survey, BLS counted 11.9 million independent contractors in July 2023, or 7.4 percent of total employment.

How do you handle short contracts and gaps between them?

Group short contracts so the reader sees a block of work instead of a string of dates. Three three-month contracts through one agency can sit under one agency heading. A few weeks between contracts rarely needs any note. For a longer gap, a one-line explanation helps more than a blank year.

The guide on explaining a resume gap has wording for the gap line. If your contract history goes back many years, the page on how far back a resume should go helps you decide which older contracts to cut.

How do you write bullets for contract work?

Write them the same way you would for a permanent job: what you did, for whom, and what changed because of it. Contract roles often have a clear start and finish, which makes results easier to state. Name the deliverable, the users or the money it touched, and the date it shipped if that helps.

The guide to resume bullet points and the XYZ resume formula show how to build each line. If a client asked you to keep its name confidential, describe it instead, such as "a national retailer," and keep the result. Never add a figure you can't back up; the guide on tailoring a resume without lying explains where the line sits.

How do you talk about contract work in an interview?

Say it plainly and point to the reason. Contracts end by design, so "the contract ended as planned" is a complete answer. If you are looking for a permanent role now, say why in one sentence. Then move to what you delivered, which is what the interviewer wants to hear.

Here is an example answer to "Why did you leave your last role?"

"It was a six-month contract to migrate the billing system, and it ended on schedule in September once the migration was live. I enjoyed the work, and I'm looking for a permanent role now so I can stay with a team after a launch."

The guide to why you're leaving your current job covers other versions of that question. When your resume is ready, the free resume optimizer rewrites the lines that matter for a specific posting and keeps your facts.