iMPact Business Group is a staffing agency specializing in Information Technology, Engineering, Finance/Accounting and Business Administration/Process positions. To connect with one of our professional recruiters, view our job board for all available positions or submit your resume for consideration here.
A common question from job seekers is how to best include and explain contract work on their resume. Working contract positions can come with many great benefits. It can be a great way to have more flexibility in your work-schedule, gain new skills and experience different industries and get into a new career path. How to present your contract work on a resume can sometimes present a bit of a challenge. Here are a few things to keep in mind to be able to include your temporary work on your resume and make it look impressive to a potential employer.
What employers look for
One of the things an employer will be looking for when making a hiring decision is reliability. They want an employee who is going to enjoy their work and want to stick around for a while. Presenting a resume with a number of short-term positions may raise a red flag and give the impression that you might get bored quickly or be less likely to be considered someone they want to take a chance on for a permanent position. But leaving them off will leave your resume with employment gaps which will also be a cause for concern. Use the cover letter or resume objective to explain why you’re seeking a permanent position.
Include all your work
You should always include all of your contract work and identify it as such. If you have an interview and are asked about a certain type of skill or experience that aligns to the position you are interviewing for, but that experience was not present on the resume then it can raise a red flag to the employer that you are being untruthful by leaving things off of your resume. There are different ways of organizing the contract work on your resume to more effectively tell your story.
- If you’ve worked on multiple projects for the same company, you can list them all under that company’s name, and list each company individually.
- To make it easier to find, you can group all of your contract work in the same place on your resume.
- If you’ve worked for a staffing agency, you can include both the company you worked for as well as the agency that you went through for the position.
- Include with the description for each job that it was contract, so the employer understands that the reason you left was because the position ended.
- Use consistent formatting. Decide if you want to label the work as “temp”, “contract” or otherwise and stick with that description for consistency.
Focus on value and achievement
What an employer will be looking for is the value you’ll bring to the position you’ve applied to. Make sure to focus your resume around quantifiable achievements. Also read through the job description carefully to find out what the employer values most, keywords they’ve used, and incorporate into your resume and what you’ve done in your contract positions that will relate well to the position you’ve applied to.
Regardless of how you decide to include contract or temp specific positions in your resume, it’s still important to follow basic principles of good resume writing. Temporary positions can come across as confusing to some recruiters and hiring managers, so make sure you explain them in a way that’s easy to understand, and they will not be an obstacle but rather an asset on your resume.
Finding a new job with iMPAct
Before we start working with a client, we will research them, have in-depth conversations with their hiring team and visit their facilities to get to know them and what makes a candidate successful in their company culture. To connect with a recruiter and find out about our currently available opportunities in Information Technology, Accounting/Finance, Engineering and Business Administration/Process, please visit our job board to view all available job opportunities. Or, submit your resume here for consideration to connect with one of our experienced recruiters in either our Grand Rapids, Michigan or Tampa, Florida location.
