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Freelancer Must-Have Resume Skills and Keywords

Are you interested in improving your job outlook and increasing your salary? How can you demonstrate that you are the most qualified candidate for a Freelancer position? Of course continuing to gain experience working as a Freelancer may be your best qualification, but there are other ways you can also develop your skills, like continuing education or volunteer opportunities. More immediately, however, you can be ready for your next opportunity or promotion by educating yourself about the duties, responsibilities, and required skills of a Freelancer and making sure your resume reflects your experience properly.

In order to do so, you’ll want to know that employers commonly feature Social Media and Translation as the most prominent terms in their Freelancer job descriptions, yet those who have held the position of Freelancer and list it on their resume indicate English Speaking and Adobe Photoshop more predominantly. Do you know what you would list?

We designed the ZipRecruiter Career Keyword Mapper to help you solve this problem and hopefully improve your resume. Using machine learning tools paired with industry research, our Marketplace Research Team helped analyze millions of job postings and resumes to identify the most important keywords related to Freelancer jobs. Our goal is to help you discover opportunities to improve your resume or to help you understand what skills and qualifications you need to be a Freelancer or to advance your career into beyond this role.

Top Skills Mentioned in Job Descriptions

Top
10
Job Skills
The top three keywords employers use in Freelancer job descriptions are Social Media appearing in 23.85% of postings, Translation 23.79%, and Speech appearing in 23.66%. 71.3% of Freelancer job postings have at least one of these terms indicating the value employers place commonly place on these experiences when hiring candidates. Search Engines, Technical and Digital represent an additionally healthy share of the employer Freelancer job postings with their combined total of 25.95%. At 2.74%, Copywriting, Video Editing, Customer Service, and Communication Skills make up the balance of the 10 top Freelancer skills and requirements according to employers.

Top Skills Mentioned in Resumes

Top
10
Job Skills
Job seeker resumes showcase a broad range of skills and qualifications in their descriptions of Freelancer positions. The top three keywords represent 34.75% of the total set of top resume listed keywords. Look to the Resume Checklist below to investigate how English Speaking, Adobe Photoshop, and Social Media match up to employer job descriptions. Customer Service, Technical, and MS Office represent a very decent share of skills found on resumes for Freelancer with 31.32% of the total. At 33.93%, Graphic Design, Collaboration, HTML, and Digital appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Freelancer skills and qualifications found on resumes.

Most Important Skills Required to Be a Freelancer as Listed by Employers and Employees

Here is a simple table of the top 10 skills and qualifications as listed by employers in Freelancer job postings since January of 2018, followed by the top 10 skills and qualifications most commonly listed by people who held the title of Freelancer on their resumes.
Top Freelancer Skills
Skills Required by Employers Share
Social Media 23.85%
Translation 23.79%
Speech 23.66%
Search Engines 23.60%
Technical 1.27%
Digital 1.08%
Copywriting 0.76%
Video Editing 0.70%
Customer Service 0.64%
Communication Skills 0.64%
Skills Listed by Employees Share
English Speaking 12.95%
Adobe Photoshop 11.15%
Social Media 10.65%
Customer Service 10.47%
Technical 10.47%
MS Office 10.38%
Graphic Design 9.46%
Collaboration 8.66%
HTML 8.16%
Digital 7.65%

Freelancer Resume Checklist

Our Resume Keyword Checklist is based upon an analysis of the most commonly found terms within both job descriptions and resumes for Freelancer roles. Our algorithm helps isolate phrases and patterns to identify the most frequently recurring and reused keywords from each data source, while correcting for uncommon and outlier results. Various heuristic methodologies are then applied to ultimately create two top 20 lists of the most important and significant skills, certificates and requirements found within Freelancer job postings and resumes. We then merge the two lists together and use a combination of statistics and rules-based scenarios to create a list that is audited by the Marketplace Research team, and finally turned into the checklist you see below. Our hope is that knowing this information can help you make your best impression with your next potential employer.
Uncommon Keywords on Freelancer Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Search Engines
Employer job listings tend to list Search Engines as requirements in Freelancer job descriptions; however, job seekers mention them far less frequently on their resumes. If you possess this experience, including this keyword prominently on your resume when applying for a Freelancer role may help you stand out more to hiring managers.
Common Keywords on Freelancer Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Translation
Rigging
Waxing
Massage Therapist
Loading and Unloading
Both employer job listings and resumes from people who’ve held the role of Freelancer tend to always include skills and requirements found in this list. Whether you’ve only got Translation, Rigging, Waxing, Massage Therapist or Loading and Unloading in your background and experience, make sure to highlight the term prominently on your resume. As a job seeker you’ll be competing with many others who are bound to have as many as you (or more!) of these common resume keywords highlighted in their application for a job as a Freelancer.
Uncommon Keywords on Freelancer Job Descriptions
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Social Media
Trucking
Employer job listings infrequently list Social Media or Trucking as important skills or qualifications in Freelancer job descriptions. Nevertheless, job seekers mention them much more commonly in their resumes. If you possess any or all of these experiences, including these keywords prominently on your resume when applying for a Freelancer role may go unnoticed or even discounted by hiring managers.

FAQs about Freelancer Skills and Resume Keywords

What are the most important Freelancer job skills to have on my resume?

The most common important skills required by employers are Translation, Rigging, Waxing, Massage Therapist and Loading and Unloading. These skills and requirements are just as likely to be mentioned by employers as well as on resumes of people that held a job as a Freelancer, suggesting that having these keywords on a resume are important for success as a Freelancer. Additionally, employer Freelancer job descriptions list Search Engines as a desirable experience, even though Search Engines appears 5.07 times less on resumes, suggesting that it's worth considering including this skill if you possess the experience.

What are the least important Freelancer job skills to have on my resume?

Although you'd probably love to load up your resume with every possible keyword you can, employers tend to look for the things they specify in the job description. Our analysis suggests that highlighting too prominently terms like Social Media and Trucking may be something to reconsider. These two terms appear 0.28 and 0.20 times less often than in job descriptions for a Freelancer role. This indicates that highlighting either of these keywords on your resume may not be a great way to get noticed by a potential employer.

How do I make sure my resume has all of the right keywords for a Freelancer position?

Unless your resume has a good density of the following skills and experience listed, you may not be considered for the role of Freelancer. Make sure to include a strong showing for the following keywords on your resume:
  • Translation
  • Rigging
  • Waxing
  • Massage Therapist
  • Loading and Unloading
Additionally employers frequently list the following as desirable qualities in a Freelancer candidate, but they are far less common on most resumes:
  • Search Engines
Finally people who held the position of a Freelancer and list it on their resume are adding these terms that are less likely to be noticed by employers. You may want to consider downplaying these terms on your Freelancer application:
  • Social Media
  • Trucking

Before applying for a Freelancer job

At ZipRecruiter, we understand better than anyone the importance of using the right keywords to describe your experience — it’s crucial to attracting the right employers! We built our business on the ability to effectively match job seekers with employers using AI-technology that understands your resume and how likely you are to be noticed by a potential future employer. Having a ZipRecruiter profile that showcases your most relevant skills and abilities can help you get recruited into a new role as a Freelancer. Get started on your journey with a new ZipRecruiter Profile today!