Personal Projects and Side Projects on Your CV

Plenty of people are doing genuinely relevant work outside their job and leaving all of it off their CV, because it was not paid and therefore did not feel like it counted.

It counts. A project you built, ran or organised on your own initiative can be the most persuasive thing on the page, particularly when your paid work does not yet show the skill you are trying to sell. The question is which projects earn their place and how to write them.

The Test for Including One

A side project belongs on your CV if it does at least one of these:

• Demonstrates a skill the job asks for that your paid work does not cover.
• Shows initiative, follow-through or scale that your job title hides.
• Explains a period when you were not employed.
• Gives a career changer real evidence in a new field.

If a project does none of those, it is a hobby, and hobbies belong in a short interests line at the bottom if they belong anywhere at all.

The awkward middle case is a project that is relevant but tiny. A weekend of tinkering is not a project. Something you sustained over months, that produced an outcome someone else can look at, is.

Where to Put It

Placement depends on how much of your case it carries.

If the project is central to your application, it deserves its own section titled something like Projects or Selected Work, positioned directly after your personal statement and before your employment history. That is unusual placement, and it is justified when the project is stronger evidence than your day job.

If it supports the application without being the main argument, put the section after your employment history and before education.

If it is a small but relevant detail, a single line inside your skills or interests section is enough.

What you should not do is bury a serious project on page two under a heading called Other. If it is worth including, it is worth putting where someone will see it.

Write It Like a Job

The mistake people make is writing projects in a different register from the rest of the CV, all enthusiasm and no substance. Use exactly the same structure you use for employment.

Give it a name that describes what it is, a date range, and then two or three lines covering what you set out to do, what you built or ran, and what came of it. If other people were involved, be clear about your part, because a reader who suspects you are claiming a group effort will discount the whole entry.

Outcomes matter here as much as anywhere. Users, readers, money raised, hours saved, people trained, events run, items sold. Our guide on quantifying achievements applies directly, and side projects are often easier to quantify than employed work because you were the one counting.

Make It Verifiable

The single biggest difference between a project entry that works and one that does not is whether the reader can go and look.

A link is worth more than a paragraph. A live site, a repository, a published piece, a photograph of the thing you made, a charity page showing the total raised. Anything that turns a claim into something checkable.

If there is nothing public, name something that is checkable in another way. The organisation you did it for, the event it fed into, the number of people who came. Unverifiable projects are not worthless, but they carry less weight and you should not spend your best space on them.

Common Types That Land Well

Some categories consistently earn their place:

Building something. A site, an app, a tool, a piece of furniture, a small business. It shows you finish things.

Running something. A club, a society, a local group, an event, a fundraising campaign. Organising other people is a skill employers pay for and rarely see evidenced.

Writing or teaching. A blog with a real readership, a newsletter, a course you delivered, tutoring. It demonstrates communication in a way that no bullet about communication skills ever can.

Volunteering with responsibility. Trustee roles, committee positions and coaching all carry real weight, particularly where they involve budgets or people. Our guide on adding volunteer experience covers how to position those specifically.

Be Careful About Two Things

First, anything that could conflict with a current or future employer. A side business in the same market as the company you are applying to is a conversation you want to have deliberately, not one they discover on page two.

Second, anything that reveals more than you intend. Projects tied to strong political, religious or campaigning positions are legitimate and you may well want them on there, but include them by choice rather than by accident.

Nothing here is about hiding who you are. It is about deciding what a document designed to get you an interview should carry.

Keep It Current

A project section ages badly. Something you last touched four years ago, listed with no end date, invites the reader to assume it fizzled out.

Put honest date ranges on everything, mark what is ongoing, and remove projects that have stopped mattering. Three current, relevant, checkable entries beat eight that trail off into the past.