Searching for a job is becoming a job of its own. With so many open positions, tests, and interview stages, joining the workforce of moving up is becoming harder. And with screening software automatically disqualifying candidates, the chances to get some 1-on-1 time with recruiters grow thin.
But you have something powerful in your corner: AI-powered resume builders can help you generate a starting resume from scratch, optimize an existing one, and help you adapt it to every single job opening you're going for. With dozens of AI resume builders to choose from out there—many of them acting like copies of one another—it can be hard to choose the best one for you.
I spent time testing every resume creator I could get my hands on, and these are my picks for the five best.
The 5 best AI resume builders
Teal for tracking multiple job applications
Enhancv for building with an AI assistant
Kickresume for generating a resume from scratch
Resume Worded for leveraging your LinkedIn profile
ResumeNerd for adapting your resume as you browse jobs
What makes the best AI resume builder?
How we evaluate and test apps
Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
If you're hunting for a job and strapped for time, I'm sure you've considered turning to ChatGPT to write a resume for you. Can it do a good job? Yes, provided you write a prompt that adds all your information, so it can represent your experience and skills. But AI resume builders do a better job because they package everything into a machine-readable template to please the applicant tracking system software (ATS), score your resume, and help you with other parts of the job-seeking process.
Given all that, here's what I looked for in the best AI resume builders:
Accuracy and relevance. Not all AI implementations are tuned the same way, so those that turned up general advice or content that didn't match my job were excluded.
Design and layout. Style is the first step to making a good impression, so I looked for the resume creators with the best templates and design controls.
Optimized for ATS. Most resumes get caught up in screening nets and never see human eyes. To make sure that's not your fate, these resume builders offer clean templates and scoring systems that help you get past the filter.
Adaptation. Not all of your experiences and skills make sense for each different job opening, so the best AI resume creators will offer ways to tune your content based on the target opening.
Extras. Anything that's a helpful plus is great, from cover letter generators to interview prep systems.
I tested these resume apps over the course of three weeks using a variety of methods. I generated resumes from scratch using the suggested step-by-step processes, uploaded my materials in PDF form and watched them get rearranged, and pasted a link to my LinkedIn profile and let the resume builder do the rest. Now that I'm swimming in resumes, take a look at the results.
The best AI resume builders at a glance
Best for | Standout features | Pricing | |
|---|---|---|---|
Tracking multiple job applications | Pipeline for tracking application process for multiple openings | Free plan available with limited AI usage; paid plans start at $9/week | |
Building with an AI assistant | AI assistant for optimizing resume and creating cover letters | 7-day free trial; from $13.32/month (billed semi-annually) or $24.99/month (billed monthly) | |
Generating a resume from scratch | AI tools for generating and optimizing resumes; interview question practice | Free plan available without AI features; from $7/month (billed annually) or $19/month (billed monthly) | |
Leveraging your LinkedIn profile | Scoring and breakdown of LinkedIn profile; adaptation to job openings | Limited free plan; from $19/month (billed annually) or $49/month (billed monthly) | |
Adapting your resume as you browse jobs | Job feed with matching score; shortcuts to add skills from job descriptions | From $2.75 for 2 weeks; price increases after initial period |
Best free resume builder for tracking multiple job applications
Teal (Web)
Having a resume and a cover letter in your hands is only the first step. If you don't send it out, no one will really know who you are or see your value. Action is important, and Teal will definitely help you get into gear.
During onboarding, it wants to know your current situation, whether you've just graduated or accumulated decades of experience. You can enter your desired position, target total compensation, and indicate the ideal time to find or switch to a new job. After you fill these in, they'll always display on your dashboard—a quick summary of where you are and where you want to go.
There's more as far as job search productivity goes. There's a pipeline that shows the stages of the job searching process (for example, not applied > application sent > interviewing), so you can track your application process for multiple openings. As something changes in the status of an application, be sure to update it on the platform.
As you add more jobs to your wishlist, you can quickly get a score for how your existing resume matches the job description. While this could be done with basic natural language processing by comparing keywords, there's more advanced AI at work when you ask it to write bullet points to describe skills or outcomes you've had in past positions. As you apply, you can turn on or off parts of your work history to keep your resume short and sweet, tailored to what your target companies are looking for.
Teal never mentions that it optimizes its resumes for ATS, but there's a good collection of text-based templates, and the scoring system is pretty good at helping you match who you are to what they need. If you have trouble tracking how all your applications are going at the same time, Teal will remove the overwhelm and help you stick to the plan as much as possible.
Teal price: Free plan available with limited AI usage for resume achievements (5), professional summaries (2) and cover letter (1). Paid plans start at $9/week.
Best resume builder for building with an AI assistant
Enhancv (Web)
Feeling lost while putting together your resume? Enhancv offers an AI assistant that'll help you get everything you need down on the page.
If you've been keeping your LinkedIn profile up to date, you can pull your resume from there. Enhancv will adapt the information it finds there and lay it out in the platform, ready to edit. Once you have a first draft of your resume, click on the AI Assistant to explore the possibilities. Unlike ChatGPT, there's no actual chat input where you'll write prompts—not always, at least. Instead, you can click the commands on the screen to get it to optimize your resume. For example, you can ask to rewrite your title and headline, highlight your strengths, or create suggestions for new bullets. As you click through these options, the preview on the right will update with the new information and suggestions.
The AI Assistant will also help you create a cover letter. It's important that this document is as tailored to the job opening as possible, which is why it asks that you paste in the description. Once you click to create, it will actually display on your dashboard, not on the current screen. Click back to it on the top of the screen, open it, and edit everything until it's sharp enough.
To make sure that you get that face time, there's also a button for running the ATS check. This is a resume scoring feature, running through the entire text to find opportunities to optimize your material. It's a paid feature, so if you're serious about getting the best, consider hopping on the paid plan while you're hunting for a new position.
If you have a mentor or helpful friends and family, you can share your resume with them, and they can leave comments on it. Very helpful to combine AI-powered insights with real human reviews.
Enhancv price: 7-day free trial; from $13.32/month (billed semi-annually) or $24.99/month (billed monthly)
Best AI resume builder for generating a resume from scratch
Kickresume (Web)
Writing a resume for the first time? Or just not happy with the one you currently have? Kickresume's AI tools can put a first draft into your hands and give you the tools to optimize it into a powerful job-searching tool.
To begin, click the New Resume with AI button. The app opens a chat experience, asking questions about you. It starts with your name and current job position. After that, pick your favorite template, and the AI starts generating. I was a bit skeptical here: will it be able to generate something on-point with so little information? Well, color me impressed: I got a starter resume with an original profile summary, on-point bullets on my work experience, appropriate skills and strengths, and even a set of hobbies.
This is just the beginning of Kickresume's AI features, though. Click the AI Toolbox on the left side of the screen to see what I mean. Here's a tour:
When editing your resume, you can use the AI writer in every section to generate or rewrite parts of it.
As you write, the document is being scored in the background: click the Analysis tab and follow the directions to improve the quality of your resume.
Need to practice some interview questions? Enter your desired job title to get Q&As, along with a brief hint of what the recruiter is trying to understand when asking that question.
The career coach recommends learning resources you should get to know to land your desired job. I've got a few new Coursera courses on my radar now.
And AI Feedback uses the power of GPT to critique your entire resume, highlighting strengths and weaknesses and giving you suggestions to keep polishing.
When you feel you've got a good resume on your hands, you can get some human-powered insights too: you can purchase a proofreading service to make sure grammar is on point and that readability is good. With such a complete toolset, Kickresume will get you from empty-handed to ready to land your next job.
Kickresume price: Free plan available without AI features; from $7/month (billed annually) or $19/month (billed monthly)
Best AI resume builder for leveraging your LinkedIn profile
Resume Worded (Web)
Resumes and cover letters used to be the bread and butter of searching for a job, but online presence on LinkedIn is becoming important. Recruiters are either using the social platform's recruitment suite or just profile surfing to do vibe checks on current applicants. To make sure you can make a good impression here, Resume Worded will help you both get a resume on your hands and sharpen your LinkedIn profile.
First, download your LinkedIn profile as a PDF: open your profile page, and click the More button just below your name and tagline. Hit that Save to PDF button, and save it to your computer. Once you upload it to Resume Worded, you'll get a step-by-step scoring and breakdown, offering tips on how to complete your profile with all the information you need. And hey, once you do this for LinkedIn, you can repeat the download as PDF action to get a fresh resume for a fraction of the effort, if you'd like.
If that baseline doesn't work for you, you can still build it inside Resume Worded. The button is hidden on the right side of the dashboard: scroll down to Additional Resources, and click the Don't have a resume? tab. You can browse the ATS-optimized templates, with explanations as to why each one works and how to leverage the structure to pass the automated checks. It's not a free feature, though: you'll have to buy your favorite template before you start customizing it.
To wrap up this useful feature set, you can also adapt your resume to job openings, with a similar user experience to others on this list: after pasting the job description, Resume Worded compares your resume with the requirements, offering a score to show you how far away you are from it. And whenever you log back in to keep working on it, you can access your resume and LinkedIn profile scores, so you know how long it's going to take to get that perfectly optimized resume.
Resume Worded price: Limited free plan; from $19/month (billed annually) or $49/month (billed monthly)
Best resume builder for adapting your resume as you browse jobs
ResumeNerd
Personalization is everything in job searching. When you tailor your experience and skills to the job descriptions, you hit all the positive signals that recruiters are looking for. ResumeNerd can help you laser in and exceed expectations.
Complete the onboarding, and add your resume to the platform. There's a step-by-step flow to make sure you add everything about you, your skills, and your experiences. At the end of the process, you can choose one of the templates, each with a short description of why it rocks. Pick the color that you like the most and move forward to the last step. You'll always be able to add new sections if needed. Caveat: you can only download it as a TXT file for free—all other formats are locked behind the paid plan.
Back on the dashboard, you'll notice that ResumeNerd scores your current resume. When you click to see all the improvements you should make, there's a list of issues you can tackle to bring the score all the way up to 1,000. Keep adding more details to make sure that document is the most accurate representation of your professional life.
After you add your resume to the platform, click the jobnerd button at the top of the screen. There's a job feed there with the day's suggestions of jobs that fit your skills, with a percentage score of how much your resume is matching the description. You can click to see the job opening's details. While there, ResumeNerd is detecting the skills the company is looking for, and it offers you shortcuts to add those skills to your resume, ensuring you're matching what they're looking for.
On the right side of the job posting, you can click to generate a cover letter based on your resume and the job posting you're currently looking at. Sadly, it doesn't actually generate anything with AI—it's a stock template that you have to customize with your own data manually. Fill out the placeholder data with your personal information, and give it a good proofread to make sure you're hitting all the targets.
When you're ready to apply, you can click the link within the platform. You'll be taken to the original posting's page and you can do everything you need to apply. This is a nice shortcut to get you to apply to more jobs. Keep repeating this flow for all other positions that you're interested in, and those interviews are sure to come along soon.
One warning: you can use ResumeNerd on the cheap for a couple weeks, but the price will go up significantly after that, so keep an eye on those subscription costs.
ResumeNerd price: From $2.75 for 2 weeks; the price goes up after that
Can AI write a good resume?
As with most things generative AI, resume builders are good starting point, but you shouldn't rely on them to get you from zero to complete on their own. Use AI to get a few good ideas and do some research: How much did your work with your previous company improve revenue? Did any of your projects have a big impact in daily operations? Are there any notable achievements? AI gets the ball rolling, but it's up to you to score the goal.
At the same time, be sure to rewrite parts of the generated content to make it match to your personality and original voice. While an AI-optimized resume may get through the ATS systems, a recruiter may be able to tell that a resume has a lot of generated content and toss it in the digital trash. If someone's looking to hire a human, they want to see that humanity from the start.
With the help of AI, you don't have to invest as much time writing a resume or cover letters from scratch. You can now dedicate more time to strategy and personalization, ensuring you get through automated screenings, land more interviews, and secure your dream job.
Related reading:
AI job search tips: 9 AI tools to help you land your next job
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