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Projects on a resume help employers see how you’ve applied your skills in real situations, making them especially valuable if you have limited work experience or are changing careers.
Whether you completed a class assignment, built something on your own, contributed to an open-source project, or volunteered your skills, the right project can demonstrate valuable abilities and make your resume more compelling.
In this guide, you’ll learn when to include projects on your resume, where to list them, and how to describe them to highlight your skills and impact. You’ll also find resume project examples to help you create strong, job-relevant entries.
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Why Should You List Projects on a Resume?
You should list projects on your resume when they showcase relevant skills, accomplishments, or experience that support your application. Projects give employers concrete examples of your abilities, making them especially valuable if you’re changing careers, have limited work experience, or want to highlight specialized skills that aren’t reflected in your job history.
Here are a few ways that projects can strengthen your resume:
- Demonstrate technical skills or job-specific abilities in action.
- Show employers how you’ve solved problems or achieved results.
- Fill experience gaps with relevant, hands-on work.
- Highlight coursework, personal initiatives, freelance work, or volunteer experience.
- Provide talking points for interviews later in the hiring process.
Who Should List Projects on a Resume?
Anyone can list projects on a resume if they strengthen their qualifications for the job. If a project demonstrates skills that are relevant to the role and helps tell your professional story, it can be a valuable addition to your resume—regardless of your career stage.
Projects are particularly valuable for:
- Students and recent graduates who want to highlight coursework, academic research, or capstone projects.
- Entry-level job seekers who need to demonstrate practical skills before building a longer work history.
- Anyone earning certifications or completing independent learning who wants to showcase hands-on experience from bootcamps, online courses, or personal initiatives.
- Career changers looking to show transferable skills through personal, freelance, or volunteer projects.
- Freelancers and contractors who’ve completed client work that showcases their expertise in their field.
- Professionals in technical or creative fields, such as software development or design, where project work is a key part of the job.
If you’re wondering whether projects count as experience, the answer is often yes—as long as they demonstrate skills, accomplishments, or knowledge relevant to the job you’re applying for.
What Are Examples of Projects to Include on a Resume?
Professional, academic, personal, freelance, volunteer, and certification projects can all strengthen your resume when they demonstrate relevant skills and measurable results.
Here are some common types of resume projects:
- Work projects: Major initiatives or accomplishments completed as part of your job, especially if they demonstrate problem-solving or measurable business impact
- Academic projects: Research papers, capstone projects, group assignments, case studies, or presentations that showcase skills gained through school
- Personal projects: Independent work, such as building a website, creating an app, starting a blog, writing a business plan, or developing a portfolio
- Freelance projects: Client work completed on a contract or freelance basis that demonstrates relevant professional experience
- Volunteer projects: Projects completed for nonprofits, community organizations, or local groups that highlight transferable skills and initiative
- Open-source contributions: Software development or technical contributions to public repositories that demonstrate collaboration and coding skills
- Certification or bootcamp projects: Hands-on assignments completed through professional certificates, online courses, coding bootcamps, or other training programs
- Research projects: Independent or collaborative research that demonstrates analytical thinking, data analysis, writing, or subject matter expertise
💡Pro Tip: When choosing projects, prioritize those that are recent, closely aligned with the position, and include specific outcomes whenever possible. Quantifying your results (e.g., improving efficiency, increasing engagement, or completing a project ahead of schedule) helps employers understand the impact of your work.
How to Put Projects on a Resume
To put projects on a resume, include the project name, your role, the organization or client, the dates, and bullet points that explain what you accomplished. Every project should demonstrate skills that support your target role and include measurable results whenever possible.
Choose Relevant Projects
Choose projects that align with the position you’re applying for and demonstrate the skills the employer is looking for. Prioritize recent, high-impact projects over older or unrelated work. In most cases, two to five strong, well-developed projects are enough. Focus on quality over quantity by choosing projects that best demonstrate your skills and accomplishments.
Before adding a project, ask yourself:
- Does it strengthen my resume more than another experience would?
- Does it showcase a skill mentioned in the job description?
- Does it demonstrate a meaningful accomplishment?
Write a Clear Project Title
Give each project a clear, descriptive title that tells employers what the project is about at a glance. If the project has an official name, use it. Otherwise, create a concise title that reflects the work you completed, avoiding vague labels like “Class Project” or “Assignment.”
A strong project title should be specific enough to provide context while remaining easy to scan. If needed, you can include your role, organization, or project type directly below the title.
Here’s an example:
Customer Sales Dashboard
Data Analytics Capstone Project | January 2026–May 2026
Include Your Role, Organization, & Dates
Include your role, the organization or client, and the dates you worked on the project to provide context for employers. These details help hiring managers understand the scope of your involvement, whether the project was completed independently or as part of a team, and how recently you gained the experience.
If applicable, list:
- Your role (e.g., Project Manager, Marketing Intern, Software Developer)
- The organization, client, or school where the project was completed
- The project dates using a month/year or date-range format
Here’s an example:
Customer Onboarding Process Redesign
Project Coordinator | Acme Software | March 2025–August 2025
Describe Your Contributions
Describe your contributions by focusing on the work you personally completed and the value it created. Write two to four bullet points for each project, beginning each one with a strong action verb.
Keep your descriptions concise and highlight accomplishments rather than everyday responsibilities. A strong project description should answer questions like:
- What problem did you solve?
- What tasks or responsibilities did you take on?
- What tools, technologies, or methods did you use?
- What was the outcome or impact of your work?
Here’s an example:
Website Accessibility Improvement Initiative
Digital Marketing Specialist | BrightPath Health | February 2025–July 2025
- Audited more than 150 web pages to identify accessibility, usability, and SEO issues.
- Partnered with designers and developers to implement updates that aligned with WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards.
- Rewrote high-traffic landing pages, improving readability and increasing average time on page by 22%.
- Contributed to a 16% increase in organic website traffic and a 12% decrease in bounce rate within three months of launch.
Quantify Your Results
When writing your project descriptions, look for opportunities to quantify your results with numbers, percentages, dollar amounts, or time savings to show what you accomplished.
You can include details about a project’s size, budget, or timeline, as well as improvements in metrics like engagement, conversions, or customer satisfaction.
Measurable achievements are more compelling than general statements because they provide concrete evidence of your skills.
Instead of:
- Managed a social media campaign.
- Improved the onboarding process.
- Created monthly reports.
Write:
- Increased Instagram engagement by 32% over four months through a targeted social media campaign.
- Redesigned the employee onboarding process, reducing onboarding time from 10 days to seven days.
- Automated monthly reporting, cutting preparation time by 6 hours per week.
💡Pro Tip: If you don’t have exact numbers, describe the scope of your work. For example, mention the number of users you served, the size of the team you managed, or the project timeline to give employers a better sense of its impact.
Highlight Relevant Skills & Tools
Highlight relevant skills and tools by including the software, technologies, methods, or industry-specific abilities you used to complete the project. Focus on tools and skills that directly relate to the job description rather than listing every program or technique you used.
For example, a data analyst might highlight SQL and Tableau, a designer might include Adobe Creative Suite and Figma, and a project manager might mention tools like Asana or Jira.
Including these details can also help your resume match keywords used by applicant tracking systems (ATS) and hiring managers when reviewing applications. Here’s an example:
Customer Relationship Management System Migration
Project Coordinator | Evergreen Solutions | May 2025–November 2025
- Coordinated the migration of 5,000+ customer records into Salesforce while maintaining data accuracy throughout the transition.
- Used Salesforce, Excel, and Asana to track project milestones, identify data issues, and communicate updates with stakeholders.
- Created training materials and process documentation to support adoption across a 25-person sales team.
Where Do You Put Projects on a Resume?
Put projects on your resume in a dedicated “Projects” section, under your work experience, or in your education section, depending on the type of project and your experience level.
Add Projects to a Dedicated Projects Section
A dedicated projects section on a resume is the best place to include personal, academic, freelance, or technical projects that demonstrate relevant skills but don’t belong under traditional work experience. This placement is especially useful for students, recent graduates, career changers, and professionals seeking to build experience in a new field.
Here’s an example of a dedicated resume projects section:
Projects
Mobile Budget Tracker App
Independent Project | January 2026–March 2026
- Built a mobile application using Python and SQLite to help users track monthly spending.
- Designed features for expense categorization, budget tracking, and financial summaries.
- Tested the app with 15 users and incorporated feedback to improve functionality.
Add Professional Projects to Your Work Experience Section
Professional projects completed as part of your job can often be included under your work experience section, especially when they represent major accomplishments, leadership, or responsibilities beyond your everyday tasks. This approach helps employers see how you applied your skills in a real workplace setting.
Here’s an example of projects included in a work experience section:
Work Experience
Operations Coordinator
Northstar Logistics | Denver, CO | June 2023–July 2026
- Managed the warehouse efficiency improvement project, analyzing fulfillment data and coordinating process updates that reduced order processing time by 18%.
- Led the implementation of a new inventory tracking system, training 25 team members and improving inventory accuracy by 20% within six months.
- Coordinated a vendor transition project by managing timelines, tracking deliverables, and communicating updates across operations and procurement teams.
Add Academic Projects to Your Education Section
Students and recent graduates can include relevant academic projects in their education section when those projects help demonstrate skills related to their target role.
This is especially useful when you have limited professional experience and want to show what you learned through coursework and academic experience.
Here’s an example of how to list projects in your education section:
Education
University of Washington
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science | June 2026
Senior Capstone Project: Campus Navigation Application
- Developed a mobile application that helped students find accessible routes across campus.
- Collaborated with a team of four students to design, test, and improve application features.
- Used Java and Firebase to build and manage application functionality.
Include a Portfolio Link When Appropriate
A portfolio can be a useful way to showcase projects when your work is highly visual, technical, or best understood through examples. While a resume should summarize your accomplishments, a portfolio can give employers a deeper look at your work.
Consider linking to a portfolio when you work in fields such as:
- Graphic design
- Software development
- Writing and content creation
- Marketing
- Photography
- User experience (UX) design
For example, a designer might include a portfolio link near their contact information and briefly mention their strongest projects in their projects section. Here’s what their resume header might look like with a portfolio link:
Alex Johnson
Austin, TX | alexjohnson@email.com | (555) 555-5555 | Portfolio: alexjohnsondesigns.com
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Examples of Projects Listed on a Resume
The examples below show how to list projects on a resume for various experience levels, industries, and roles. Notice how each example clearly explains the project, highlights relevant skills, and focuses on measurable results rather than simply listing tasks.
Current College Student
This example shows how a current college student applying for a marketing internship can use a projects section to highlight relevant academic work.
Recent College Graduate
This example shows how a recent college graduate applying for an entry-level software engineering role can feature a senior capstone project in the education section.
Entry-Level Candidate
This example shows how an entry-level graphic design candidate can use a projects section to showcase design work and creative skills.
Experienced Professional
This example shows how an experienced professional applying for a program manager position can incorporate major projects directly into the work experience section.
Career Changer
This example shows how a professional changing careers from business operations to data analytics can use a projects section to highlight relevant analytical experience.
Dos & Don’ts for Including Projects on Your Resume
Strong resume projects do more than list what you completed—they show how you think, what skills you applied, and the value you created. Use these dos and don’ts to make your project entries more specific, relevant, and impactful.
Do:
- Choose projects that support your career goals. Select examples that reinforce the type of role you want next, not just the projects you enjoyed most.
- Show your decision-making process. Highlight challenges, strategies, or solutions to demonstrate how you approached the work.
- Connect projects to employer needs. Use keywords, tools, and skills that match the requirements of the position you’re targeting.
- Prioritize depth over quantity. A few detailed, high-impact projects are usually stronger than a long list of brief examples.
- Update projects as your skills grow. Refresh descriptions, results, and tools to reflect your current abilities and experience.
Don’t:
- Include projects without a clear purpose. Every project should help prove why you’re a strong fit for the role.
- Copy project descriptions from a portfolio. Adapt your project details for a resume by emphasizing impact and outcomes.
- Hide team-based contributions. Clarify your specific responsibilities so employers understand your individual impact.
- Rely on project names alone. A title should be supported by details that explain the work and results behind it.
- Include unfinished or outdated work. Remove projects that no longer represent your best skills or professional goals.
Key Takeaways
Projects can strengthen your resume by showing employers what you can do, especially when your work history doesn’t fully reflect your skills or experience.
✅ Keep these key points in mind when adding projects to your resume:
- Choose projects that support your target role. The strongest projects demonstrate skills, tools, or experience that directly relate to the position you want.
- Focus on your contributions and results. Explain what you did, how you did it, and the impact your work created rather than simply describing the project.
- Place projects where they add the most value. Use a projects, work experience, or education section based on the type of project and your career stage.
- Use specific details to stand out. Include tools, technologies, metrics, and outcomes that help employers understand the scope of your work.
- Tailor projects for each application. Highlight the examples and skills that best match the employer’s needs and the job description.
- Keep project entries concise and relevant. Prioritize your strongest examples, and remove projects that don’t strengthen your qualifications.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good example of a project?
A good example of a project demonstrates the relevant skills, responsibilities, and results for your target role. For example, a marketing candidate might include a social media campaign that increased engagement, while a software developer might highlight an app they built using relevant programming languages.
Can projects replace work experience on a resume?
No, projects typically don’t replace professional work experience on a resume, but they can supplement your work history by effectively demonstrating relevant skills when your experience is limited or unrelated to your target role.
For students, recent graduates, career changers, and entry-level candidates in particular, strong projects can show employers your abilities, problem-solving approach, and hands-on experience.
What are red flags on resumes?
Red flags on resumes include unclear project descriptions, outdated information, inconsistent formatting, and claims that are difficult to verify.
For project entries, avoid listing irrelevant work, copying descriptions without explaining your contributions, or including skills and tools you can’t confidently discuss. A strong resume should clearly show your experience, accomplishments, and qualifications for the role.
Should I include old projects on my resume?
You should include old projects on your resume only if they’re still relevant to the role you’re applying for or demonstrate valuable skills that aren’t shown elsewhere.
Prioritize recent work when possible, but keep older projects that highlight important experience, technical skills, or significant accomplishments. Remove projects that no longer represent your abilities or career goals.
Do employers care about projects on a resume?
Yes, employers care about projects on a resume when those projects demonstrate relevant skills, accomplishments, and measurable results.
Projects can help candidates stand out by showing how they apply their knowledge to solve problems and complete work, especially for students, career changers, and professionals in project-based fields. The most valuable projects are specific, relevant, and focused on results.
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