Best AI Resume Builder [And The Only 6 That Passed My Test]

Resumes

Oct 17

Artificial intelligence has come a long way recently and resume building is one space it has made significant strides. Many people are using these AI tools to build resumes, but let’s face it, some of them are much better than others.

This week I examined 27 AI resume builders and compiled a list of the best. I judged each software program on the following criteria:

Formatting
The quality of the AI-suggested content
Customization options
The ability to import information from an existing resume or other source
How good it can analyze a resume and provide meaningful suggestions
Whether it focuses on content or design more
How easy it is to use
The ability to help you tailor a resume to a specific job
Whether it was an ATS friendly resume (basically, does it parse data into multiple systems well)

These reviews are based on my own experience using each resume builder. I have over 20 years of hiring and recruiting experience and I’ve seen resumes change over the years. Based on current best practices, here is my honest review. Please note that I do have an affiliate relationship with Teal, but none of my reviews are influenced by any kind of affiliate arrangement.

Enhancv (My Top Pick)

This was one of my favorite resume builders to use. It’s a Bulgarian company, but they’ve built a fantastic program. It was one of the most robust AI resume builders I’ve seen.

Ability to Import From Old Resumes

Enhancv gives you step-by-step instructions to set up your resume from scratch, but you can also import an existing resume if you have one. I found it much easier to use when compared to others. It has a clean, simple, sleek design that is very intuitive.

Templates Focus on Content Over Fancy Designs

Like other builders, they have a variety of resume templates to choose from. I prefer a single-column resume that focuses on content, but they also have some with columns.

I don’t typically like charts and infographics on a resume (and most other recruiters will agree with me), but they have one that is a pie chart breakdown of where your time is spent at work. This was the first time I’ve seen a resume builder do this and I really liked it. It’s one of the things many recruiters want to know, and they did a good job of incorporating this feature.

Complete Customization

Some resume builders are very rigid, not this one. This program has customizable templates like the others, but you can customize anything. You can change the title of section headings, change the fonts, rearrange sections, and more. I really appreciated this.

Great AI Capabilities

As you are writing the resume, the AI can suggest improvements. The AI bases suggestions on job titles, you have to play with it to get it right, especially if your job title is something unusual. But if you use a mainstream job title, it does a good job of giving you suggestions for bullet points based on common job descriptions.

When it’s time to download your resume, it will automatically scan for spelling, grammar, and readability. If it finds something you can improve, it will highlight the sentence and make recommendations to improve it. It can even help you reword sentences that may be too complex.

You can also check the length of your resume to see if it fits within the ideal resume length. There is some data that indicates the most successful resumes have similar word counts. I don’t know if this is something on its own that brings enough value to use a tool, but it is a cool addition.

Finally, it also can scan for the right voice and tense (this is important) and it will check to see if you’ve used any resume cliches and buzzwords. Both of these AI features are very useful.

Formatting

I was pleasantly surprised when I found that they had included a formatting feature that allowed me to write in the style I teach in the Weekend Resume Makeover. It’s an executive resume writing style that blends a short line of context about the job followed by bullet points as evidence.

Most resume builders force you into only writing in bullet points. And if you’ve read my material for a while now, you know I hate this format. It’s really hard to convey logic and reason in a resume that looks like a grocery list. Enhancv gives you so much customization ability, you can write the way I teach using their builder.

ATS Features

These guys get it right when it comes to how an ATS works. The only thing you really have to worry about is whether the information in your resume can parse into an ATS. They have a built-in feature that checks the parse rate. This normally isn’t a problem for most people, but it’s a bonus feature.

Areas for Improvement

While overall, I loved this resume builder, there were some things that I don’t think they got right.

The program is heavily weighted to include achievements everywhere when you use the AI features. But you don’t want to overdo the achievements and end up with a narcissistic resume either. The AI can’t separate context sentences from impacts and will recommend you talk about impacts everywhere.

If you import your existing resume it doesn’t always separate the bullet points and it may think they are one long sentence and flag it as too long for text.

Enhancv Cost: About $17/month

Of all the options I reviewed, this is the most affordable AI resume builder on the market. They do offer a free version so you can try this all out at no risk to yourself, but you’ll need to purchase a subscription to access the full benefits.

Rezi

Rezi AI was also in my top 3 picks for AI resume builders. This builder was also very clean and simple to use. It scored high in all the categories I reviewed and allows you to paste a job description for the AI to help tailor your resume. Enhancv did not have this feature. The only reason Rezi is my second choice is because I found its AI-generated content quality slightly below Enhancv.

Rezi even offers video tutorials as you’re building out your resume to help you along the way.

Ability to Import From Old Resumes

You can import an existing resume, but Rezi suggests starting from scratch so I did so when testing it out. You have both options

Templates Focus on Content Over Fancy Designs

Rezi understands what resumes should look like. All of their templates and sample resumes had a one-column design that was focused on content and not looking pretty. This is what you want in a resume - a logical focus on content.

Solid Customization Abilities

Similar to the other resume builders I’ve selected, you can customize quite a bit including resume subtitles. After you’ve built the resume, you can even make freeform changes to anything in the resume just as if you were writing in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

One thing I was disappointed with was the ability to write text outside of bullet points. Unfortunately, it only allows you to write job experiences using bullet points. This makes it hard to offer context about companies and your scope of work.

Descent AI Capabilities

You can use AI to generate bullet points for your resume, a list of skills, and write a summary. I found the AI hit or miss so you’ll still need to be able to recognize what a good resume looks like. When I asked the AI to generate a bullet point for me, the first sample was very general and generic. It could have been on anyone’s resume. But the second time was much better and included ideas on how I could show that I was actually good at a key responsibility.

To generate a summary, you can tell the AI what position you are targeting and what skills to highlight and it will generate a summary for you. I found that it did a good job at incorporating the skills, but lacked ideas on how to be unique. It used phrases like “proven track record” which is a resume cliche you should avoid.

Beyond generating content, the AI can also analyze your resume for things such as using too many bullet points, use of action verbs, grammar, tense, and word count.

Overall I found the AI capabilities to be good.

Formatting

While I’ve never met a recruiter or hiring manager who has disqualified someone because their resume wasn’t an even one or two pages, this resume builder has the ability to change font sizes and margins to automatically fit your resume onto one page. It’s a nice bonus feature I suppose, but highly irrelevant unless you’re trying to win a resume writing award instead of a job.

Tailoring

One thing that Rezi has that Enhancv didn’t have is the ability to make use of a job description for targeting a resume. You can paste a job description into the AI and it will analyze your resume for any missing keywords.

Areas for Improvement

While overall I like Rezi as an option, there are some limitations that frustrated me.

First, the inability to write anything but bullet points was a real turn-off for me. It’s hard to tell a story, provide context about a company, and communicate logically when you can only list things out in list format.

Second, I didn’t feel like I could rely on the AI as much as other programs. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t great. You have to know a thing or two about resume content to identify what is good and what is bad.

Rezi AI Cost: About $29/month

Rezi was one of the most expensive AI resume builders I reviewed. Do I think it’s worth it? Yes, but if you’re looking at just price, there are more affordable tools that do a great job.

Teal

Teal has been one of the up-and-coming resume builders lately, but they also have a job tracker and much more. Unlike many of the others, it’s more than just a resume builder, but I’m going to focus just on the AI resume builder aspect for this article.

Also in full disclosure, I am an affiliate with Teal and I do earn a small commission if you sign up for free. It costs you nothing and doesn’t impact my review (as you’ll see below).

Ability to Import From Old Resumes

You can start with an old resume or LinkedIn profile to import your information. This saves you a lot of time rather than starting from scratch. But even if you do start from scratch, Teal has excellent step-by-step best practices to help you build your resume.

Templates Focus on Content Over Fancy Designs

This is one area that many resume builders get wrong, but Teal gets it right. They have a solid resume layout. It even includes a place for context about the companies you’ve worked for in addition to bullet points. I really appreciated this about the software.

Minimal Customization

This was one area I was surprised and expected more. I didn’t have full customization of the resume like I did with other builders. I eventually figured out how to reorder sections through the formatting icon, but it wasn’t the easiest to find. In addition, I didn’t have the ability to rename section headings either. They only come in one size fits all.

Great AI Capabilities

The AI generator for bullet points does a great job at suggesting achievements you can include but lacked a bit when including context with those achievements. While it focused on achievements, it was really light on suggesting things like the scope of roles and responsibilities.

Teal’s AI also has the ability to analyze your resume and offer suggestions. It could analyze the length of sections, and identify skills that may be missing. I thought they offered good suggestions on how to improve the resume based on this analysis.

Formatting

Overall, I thought the resume builder had a solid formatting setup. The only area it scored low on with formatting was in each job experience. In the job experience, there is minimal white space which can make it hard to read.

Areas for Improvement

While overall, I loved this resume builder, there were some things that I don’t think they got right.

The AI needs to take into consideration that while achievements are important, they are not everything. I wish the AI could help people include things about their scope of responsibilities, business partners, and the context of their work.

The other improvement would be to increase the level of customization with the document. While it has much more customization than most resume builders on the market, it would be nice to have complete abilities.

Teal Cost: About $29/month

While it’s more expensive than some AI resume builders, you have to remember that Teal is not just an AI resume builder. You can use the resume builder for free, but with a Teal+ subscription, you get access to their entire job search platform including interview analysis, email templates, job search tracker, and more. It’s a great price for the value.

Hiration

Hiration claims to be the most advanced ChatGPT-powered resume builder on the market and I can see why. They’re in my top 3 picks for AI resume builders.

Ability to Import From Old Resumes

Like the others in my top 3, you can upload your old resume to save time and the program will autofill in your content from it.

Templates Focus Too Much on Design

While I did find some templates that I would approve of, the vast majority of them focused too much on looking good. The problem with that is that unless you’re a graphic designer, no one is interviewing you for your pretty resume. They will interview you when they read words that make them want to interview you.

A majority of the templates sacrificed content for looking good. If you use this tool, make sure you pick the right resume template to begin with.

Complete Customization

You can customize the entire resume within the builder including headings. Unlike Rezi, it also doesn’t force you into only using bullet points. You have the option to insert a line about the company and your scope of responsibilities with each job in addition to bullet points. I like the flexibility of this.

Good AI Capabilities

Hiration’s AI made good suggestions on how to improve my resume. It was able to identify if I missed any critical information, analyze the structure of my resume, and even detect which resume format I was using.

The AI was able to analyze my resume bullet points for context and evidence and I thought it did a good job. It could detect action verbs, length, and sentence structure as well as come up with suggestions for changes.

The only thing I didn’t like was it suggested I bold facts and figures in my sentences. This is a common practice of certified resume writers, but when you speak with recruiters and hiring teams, they don’t prefer it.

You can also use ChatGPT to rewrite job experiences and summaries. While it wasn’t great at suggesting content from scratch (and I wouldn’t recommend using ChatGPT that way anyhow), it did help me restructure some sentences to make them more concise.

Ability to Tailor to a Specific Job

Hiration gives you the ability to paste a job description and it will analyze it for keywords. Unlike some keyword-matching tools, I did find that it was able to distinguish between important keywords and unimportant ones. It then told me which ones I was missing in my resume. I could then use the AI features to suggest content that included them.

Areas for Improvement

The skill section in this builder is messy. When creating my resume it added quite a few unnecessary skills. I had to decide which ones to delete afterward.

While the customization level is quite good on this resume builder, it did not allow me to customize the layout of skills. It only adds them in s straight line which takes up way too much space. It would be better if you could put them in two or three columns across like other resume programs.

Unlike using resume prompts in ChatGPT, you can’t do as much prompting which I felt impacted the quality of my content.

Hiration Cost: About $20/month

Hiration offers a good value for the price. While it scored well in a couple of categories, it scored excellent in the majority of categories I reviewed.

Kickresume

Kickresume is another ChatGPT-4 powered AI resume builder according to their website.

Ease of Use

When you start building a resume, a chatbot will appear and ask you questions. I found this to be a super easy way to kickstart your resume.

Templates Focus Too Much on Design

Kickresume has several resume templates to choose from. Most of them focus on design over content. There are a few good templates you can use, but you have to look for them and know what to look for. If you’re struggling with identifying a good resume template, read my article on bad resume templates.

Good AI Capabilities

I was rather impressed with the AI ability to suggest bullet points for my job experiences based on the job title I prompted it with. I thought this was a great way to get started with content ideas.

However, when it came to writing a resume summary, the AI really failed. It suggested things like “being a book lover and added a laundry list of keywords. The summary suggestion was all about me and not the problems I can solve. In fact, it didn’t show I was good at anything.

The AI also has a resume analysis tool but you have to upgrade to use it. I found this unfortunate because most of the other programs allow you to use it in the free version. I didn’t test this feature, so I don’t know how good it is.

Good Customization

I thought the customization was good in this program. You can change everything from headings to titles.

Areas for Improvement

The formatting for skills could be much better. This resume builder prompts you to rank them, but the problem is that self-ranking skills are arbitrary and no one will put any value in your ranking. They need evidence. This is why I usually advise people to replace skills with a key qualifications section instead.

Kickresume Cost: About $19/month

I found that Kickresume priced their builder at a fair price for the value.

Wonsulting Resume AI

My first impression of this resume builder wasn’t the greatest because it feels like they are trying to sell you additional services during the first 5 minutes before you can even use the resume builder. However, once you get to the resume builder, I found it had some good capabilities.

Ease of Use

The resume builder is very intuitive and easy to use. You spend the first few minutes answering a bunch of personal questions which is for thier data collection. I was frustrated that they didn’t then transfer that information to my resume. Instead, you have to enter it twice, once for Wonsuting’s sales team and then for your resume.

Template Focus on Content Over Design

There is only one template to choose from, but it focuses on content and not graphics and design.

Rigid Formatting

Wonsulting has a very distinct resume practice based on its founder’s successful resume when applying for jobs. It doesn’t include a summary and therefore the AI program doesn’t allow you to write a summary either.

The resume builder also only allows you to write in bullet points. There is no ability to give context about the company and your role. You can only do it through bullet points which I find difficult. It’s hard to convey a holistic picture of a job experience in a grocery list format.

Minimal Customization

The resume builder only allows you to add work experience, project experiences, leadership experiences, education, and skills. Compared to other programs on the market, it offers less customization.

Great AI Capabilities

This is where Wonsulting’s resume builder excels. The AI bullet points followed best practices and made sense based on the information I inputted. They included a solid combination of achievements, evidence, and context about my job.

Templates Focus Too Much on Design

Areas for Improvement

The resume builder only allows you to write in Wonsulting’s style which doesn’t include summaries and is a straight list of bullet points under each job. More customization would help different people in different situations make the most of the resume builder.

Wonsulting Resume AI Cost: About $20/month

The pricing for Wonsulting’s resume builder is in line with most others. While it lacks in formatting and customization, it is very strong in suggesting resume bullet points for your resume.

AI Resume Builders I Didn’t Like

Novoresume

My overall impression of this AI resume builder was that it was ok. It wasn’t harmful, but I didn’t find it super helpful either when it came to AI-generated content. It used a lot of adjectives and “fluffed” up the resume. Both are bad resume practices. In addition, I found that the resume templates focused more on design elements than content optimization. If they made improvements to their template formatting and AI capabilities, this resume builder could easily be on my recommendation list.

Skillroads

This program uses a questionnaire to build an AI resume, but it was very limited in the job titles you could choose from. I also had issues with the site being very slow and timing out a couple of times.

My Perfect Resume

Immediately I was turned off by the templates this program used. It wasted a lot of space and made it hard to write quality content. The AI clearly didn’t understand resume best practices either. When prompted to write resume bullets it suggested vague statements that could have belonged to anyone rather than give ideas on how to make your resume unique and evidence-based.

Resume Worded

I found this resume builder to be very inaccurate. It had trouble reading my resume and claimed it had problems that I should fix. I found this strange because all of the other programs could read my resume just fine. This led me to believe it was an issue with their software and not my resume. It would mention that I didn’t have bullet points, but I had 3 for each job, and that I had inconsistent dates, but they were all uniform and right-aligned.

In addition, the AI had a tendency to inflate my material to make it more “fluffy.” Instead of saying I grew sales by $400k in year 1, it suggested I reword it to say “I leveraged data-driven insights to optimize customer segmentation strategies, leading to a $400k growth in sales within the first year.” It’s suggestion was longer, with more complex sentences, and lacked clarity.

Zety

I was very disappointed with the resume templates to choose from. They were very heavily focused on design elements. When I used the AI for bullet points, it suggested very generic and vague statements that didn’t show I was good at the job or qualified. Instead, there was a heavy focus on keyword matching. The same happened when using AI for summary ideas. It suggested, “goal-oriented professionals motivated to achieve demanding targets under tight deadlines.” Talk about sounding smart without communicating any value.

Resume Trick

This AI resume builder has a long way to go before it’s usable. The summary it suggested was way too long, it had the wrong tense for a resume and was very fluffy. It could have belonged to anyone for multiple jobs. When using the AI for bullet points, it had no suggestions on how to incorporate context or evidence statements to show that I was good at the job.

Resume Now

This site claims that their resumes are approved by recruiters. It does offer a popular and classic template that I found in alignment with best practices; however, the AI did very little to help create ideas for unique, effective content. It focused on keywords and too many adjectives rather than how I could show my qualifications and differentiate myself.

One of the suggestions was an “Analytical and thoughtful SEO Analyst with a proven track record of driving web traffic. Translates big picture strategies into clear action plans. Offer collaborative teamwork and communication skills.” This could belong to anyone and no one is going to say they don’t have communication skills. Unfortunately, the suggestion was just a waste of words.

Resumai.com

This is another resume builder that claims to be powered by ChatGPT. It’s owned by Rezi and I found no differences between the two builders. I’m including it in this section because you can use Rezi and get the same thing.

Rezscore

This software scores your resume based on AI; however, when I tried to use it, it gave me a grade and then froze.

Resumaker.ai

This site claims that its templates are HR-approved, yet most of the templates look like they are made by graphic designers and not resume content writers. When using the AI for bullet point suggestions, I found them very vague with no context or evidence. One example was, “developed SEO strategies for clients to increase website presence.” Everyone applying for an SEO job would have that on their resume. It’s not unique an that’s a problem.

Resume.io

I thought this AI resume builder was good, but not as strong as the others I’ve already listed. They have some decent templates, but most of them focus way too heavily on design over content. You can prefill information from an old resume, LinkedIn, Google, or even Facebook. This will save you time.

The AI-generated bullet points had a blend of context and evidence examples, but I don’t know if they are truly AI. They appear to be pre-written phrases instead and then programmed into the suggestion feature.

When I tested the pre-written phrases for summaries, I was very disappointed. It suggested things like “passion for detail-oriented.” The sentences didn’t even make sense.

Resume Builders That Don’t Have AI Capabilities

Resume.com

Indeed acquired this company back in 2018 and they have some really good templates that focus on content optimization. It doesn’t have AI capabilities at the time, but the site did say that they are working on adding this in the future. I’ll revisit them when they do.

JobScan

JobScan used to be all the range back in the day, but today I find them falling behind. There’s no AI component to the resume product. I also find their scanner too rigid. It couldn’t find my phone number for example, but other programs could. Yet it found my email address which is right next to my phone number. I ran the resume through a few ATS (applicant tracking systems) as well and they all found the phone number just fine.

I also found it distasteful how this company included false information about ATS systems to lure people into using it’s service. The software stated that I had to label my work experience section as “work history” or “professional experience” for the ATS to identify it. This is false. I’ve used a dozen ATS and they can read job experiences just fine without these headings.

JobSeeker

This program had no AI functionality so it didn’t make my list. I also found that their resume templates focus way too much on design elements instead of content. That’s fine if you’re applying for a graphic design job, but for the rest of us, it’s not helpful.

Resumonk

This is a standard AI resume builder but has no AI component.

Cultivated Culture Resi.Ai

This is a standard resume builder but lacks any AI capabilities. Similar to Resumonk, it would be better to write the resume yourself in a Google or Word document.

Career Sidekick

This is another resume builder that doesn’t have an AI component yet. I found that most of them templates focus more on design and it wasn’t as user-friendly as other options.

Other AI Programs That Can Help You Write a Resume

While these programs are not resume builders, they can still help you brainstorm and create content for your resume. I suggest using the following two.

ChatGPT

Most of the population has heard of ChatGPT at this point. For a complete guide on resume prompts and how to use ChatGPT for your resume read my article: ChatGPT Resume Prompts [Step by Step Guides]

HyperWrite

This is another AI learning tool similar to ChatGPT. It works the same way and is just as good.

AI Resume Builder FAQ

How can you effectively use an AI resume builder?

Using an AI resume builder is not a substitute for knowing what a good resume looks like. These tools are best in the hands of experts. The more you know, the more you’ll get out of them and the easier it will be to write your resume.

Resume builders are great for suggesting information to get you thinking, but they’re not perfect and shouldn’t be relied upon to do the job for you.

If you need to brush up on current resume practices, read my Definitive Guide to Resume Writing.

Can AI update my resume?

AI can help you update your resume by suggesting possible content based on your target role. Keep in mind that you are writing your resume to position you as qualified for your next role, not writing a documentary about your current role. With that in mind, you’ll be able to leverage AI to find similarities between your current job and the one you wish to apply for.

Are there free AI resume builders?

Yes. Every resume builder I suggested in this article has a free component to it. Most of them allow you to access all features for a limited time for free, while others may limit which features you have access to without a subscription. But I do personally think the good ones are worth paying for, especially because they only cost $20 per month on average. You can update your resume and then cancel your subscription.

Do all resume builders use AI?

No. As you can see from my list, nearly a third of the resume writers I reviewed had no AI component to them at all.

Is it safe to use an AI resume builder?

While this is still up for debate in many circles, overall I find them safe to use. Be sure to read each resume builder’s terms and conditions to see what they can do with your information. Inputting sensitive or confidential information about past employers into an AI system may create some ethical quandaries. Know what each company does with your information before doing so.

Why use an AI resume builder?

For starters, it can dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to write or update your resume. If you have a good resume builder, you won’t have to worry about things like formatting because the program will take care of it all for you.

Best AI Resume Builder Conclusion

The best AI resume builder I found was Enahncv by far.
Other AI resume builders that I would recommend include Rezi, Teal, Hiration, and Kickresume, and Resumeai.
There are many AI resume writers that I would not use for various reasons. Know that they are not all equal for many different reasons.

Best AI Resume Builder Recommended Reading

Resume Writing: The Definitive Guide

ChatGPT Resume Prompts [A Step-by-Step Guide]

How Long Does It Take to Write a Resume

Cole Sperry has been a recruiter and resume writer since 2015, working with tens of thousands of job seekers, and hundreds of employers. Today Cole runs a boutique advisory firm consulting with dozens of recruiting firms, oversees Optim’s Resume Revision Service and Interview Prep Service, and is the Managing Editor at OptimCareers.com.