Yes, you should put side projects on your resume.

Hello indies!

Outside of building side projects and working full-time, I spend some time with professional development ( for both corporate employees and startup leaders).

I get the question relatively often of whether or not to include side projects on resumes and/or interviews.

The answer is yes.

Using side projects as talking points in interviews and on resumes has helped me more than anything. This is true even for senior roles I've had like Executive Project Lead, Senior PM, and Senior Strategy Manager.

Here's how you can include side projects and leave an impact:

- Map out the adjacent skills learned and pair them with the job requirements.
Ex) Growing to $312MRR might not impress a hiring manager, but daily communications, email flows, content creation and the consistency it took to get there will impress them.

- If relevant, share key milestones like number of hires or contractors, a big client landed, a significant social following (community management), etc.

- Share how the experience of owning side projects helped execute key initiatives in your last role.
Ex) Applied SEO tactics learned with projectX to increase search results 23% etc. etc. etc.

The point is, there are extremely valuable lessons to be shared from side projects with employers for those of us who double as an employee and a founder.

Hope this helps! If you need any resume tips or successful examples, hit up Resume Supply which launches in December!

Cheers!