Listing Self-Employment on Resume

Question
I've been self-employed. How do I talk about that in a resume?

Answer
Whether or not to state self-employment on your resume depends on your job objective.

If you're going for a full-time salaried position and you've owned a business, don't say you owned the business on your resume. In the hiring world, it's often thought that once someone has worked for himself, he'll never make a good employee. Of course that opinion isn't necessarily true, but it is an assumption frequently made by employers, since the self-employed person usually likes being the boss and is driven by profit. A way around revealing your self-employment is to give yourself a job title in your business, choosing a title such as "General Manager" or "Engineer" (instead of "Owner") that supports your current job objective.

On the other hand, if you're asking for a consulting gig, your self-employment might enhance your chances of getting the job since a consultant is frequently a self-employed person who needs to deliver high quality in order to build his clientele. If that's your situation, put down "Self-employed," "Consultant," or "Owner" on your
resume.