Top 10 Resume Builders: Free & Paid

Writing a good resume can be a challenging task. You need to include and arrange all the relevant information about your professional background and ensure that your document fits current HR requirements. Finding the best resume builders is not only a great option to ease your work but it is also one of the best ways to write a resume that stands out.

A resume builder is an online tool that you can use to quickly create a resume. Resume builders allow you to pick a pre-formatted resume template, and fill in your contact and background information. You can also select pre-written work history bullet points, thus saving you a lot of time.

The templates can also be customized to match the varying needs of job applicants. For instance, you can change the fonts, colors, layout, and sizes among others.

However, not all resume builders are created equal. This is why it is important to pick a high-quality resume builder that is easy to use. it should also include a good selection of professional templates and provide bullet points tailored to your needs so you can best demonstrate your previous achievements in context.

10 Best Resume Builders

Indeed

While Indeed is mostly known as a job board, it also provides one of the best free resume builders online. Indeed, it is one of the best resume builders if you’re looking for a simple resume-creating process (excuse the pun).

Thanks to its easy-to-use interface, Indeed’s service is one of the best resume creators for beginners. It doesn’t require a signup, and it’s completely free, so you can start working on one of the eight premade templates right away. The drag-and-drop menu is very intuitive and includes all the important sections you can add to your resume.

Featuring eight unique templates, Indeed gives job seekers everything they need to put together a strong resume. Additionally, their builder provides the option to add less common resume sections like military experience and patents, which makes it a good choice for people with nontraditional work experience.

Indeed is great for those who want to create a simple resume quickly. However, if you’d prefer to personalize it or make use of advanced settings and features, Indeed’s resume builder is definitely not for you. Another drawback is that the software only lets you save your resume as a PDF.

Indeed’s resume builder also falls short regarding template offerings. Their templates are all quite basic looking when compared to competitors, and many of them do not do a great job of maximizing available space.

Novoresume

Novoresume is one of the best resume builder websites. It is very intuitive, has many options to personalize your resume, and comes with fresh-looking templates. It comes with a series of intelligent tools and modern-looking templates to help you create a strong professional resume.

After answering some basic questions regarding your professional background, you are presented with expert tips and professional templates that are highly personalizable. The real-time editing and feedback allow for a faster step-by-step resume-creating process.

Like Indeed’s resume builder, Novoresume allows you to manually adjust many aspects of your resume, such as the font, margins, and layout. Additionally, Novoresume provides tons of tips while you build your resume to help you make sure it’s written well.

Novoresume has a Free and a Premium plan. If you opt for the free resume maker, you can only use certain templates and create one-page resumes. The Premium plan provides access to more templates, custom layouts, color themes, cover letters and more advanced features. Both plans require a signup.

MyPerfectResume

Featuring helpful pre-written content and a broad slate of templates, MyPerfectResume is a resume builder website that’s on par with the rest of the competition. It excels with its extensive library of pre-written content. We found that it made the process of writing a resume fast and easy.

However, many of MyPerfectResume’s templates are old-fashioned-looking or awkwardly designed. For example, the formatting of some templates was very inefficient, leaving a large block of white space on the right side of the page.

MyPerfectResume’s paid resume builder is $2.95 for a 14-day trial, after which they charge $5.95 for monthly access.

Zety

One of the biggest career advice websites on the internet, Zety provides a snappy, helpful paid resume builder with plenty of template options. Its resume builder is beginner-friendly and convenient to use. However, their templates all feature a very similar style.

Zety’s resume maker offers an extensive library of pre-written bullet points, skills, and resume summaries, making it one of the most helpful builders. Each pre-written line is tailored to the industry you work in and provides a short fill-in-the-blank template. This feature significantly speeds up the resume-creating process, making Zety’s resume builder a great option for anyone looking to save time.

The resume-creating process is quite simple and straightforward as Zety guides you through all the important sections you need to include. If you’re not sure how to write a good resume, you can use top resume examples and expert tips based on your job history and profession.

The major critique of Zety is that their template options are slightly similar in style. They are great for making a modern, minimalist resume. But if you want your resume to stand out from the competition, we think you’re better off using a different service that provides more variety in template designs.

The service advertises itself as 100% free to use, however, you have to buy a subscription to download your resume. Zety’s resume builder costs $2.70 for a 14-day trial, after which they charge $5.95 per month.

Also, it may not be the best option for those who prefer to completely personalize their CVs.

EnhanCV

EnhanCV offers one of the best free resume builders online, housed on a sleek, minimalist website. It is a highly intuitive resume builder tool that comes with a variety of templates and resume examples.

When starting EnhanCV’s builder process, you’re greeted by Julia, a virtual assistant and “resume expert”. While a bit uncanny, this is just one of many details that makes Enhancv feel like the most cutting-edge and contemporary out of all the resume builders we tried. After signing up you can start creating your ATS-friendly resume (ATS meaning applicant tracking system) with the help of a smart content-analyzing tool.

Besides the spellchecker tool, you get tailored suggestions and recommendations in real-time. The editing process is quite straightforward and includes many options for customization.

However, unlike some other resume builders, EnhanCV doesn’t offer a guided experience or pre-written options to speed the resume writing process along. Not having these elements makes EnhanCV’s service a bit intimidating for anyone without experience writing a resume.

A great feature Enhancv has is the tailored job suggestions you get after creating your resume. You can browse through positions and submit job applications that fit your profile. All plans include this feature so you don’t have to pay for a subscription to get access to it. However, you can only download the free templates with Enhancv’s branding, so you might want to consider buying a plan.

EnhanCV provides a freemium service, so you’re able to download a basic resume from their builder without paying. However, if you want access to their full library of templates, designs, fonts, and colors, you’ll need to pay $14.99 per month. This makes it one of the more expensive online resume builder services.

Resume.io

Resume.io is a resume builder with some interesting features. You can choose from 25+ professionally designed resumes to use. The editing process is quite simple. While adding new sections to your resume, Resume.io spellchecks your writing and keeps you updated with real-time resume scoring. It also gives you tips on how you can improve your score and provides pre-written phrases for each relevant section.

In addition to the simple editing process, Resume.io provides useful features like AI pre-written phrases and real-time scoring.

To download the resume you created in PDF, you must have an active subscription. Another downside of Resume.io is that it lacks the option to fully customize your resume. It’s best for those looking for an intelligent resume builder with features that make resume writing easier and more effective.

Resume Genius

Thanks to its intuitiveness and wide range of templates, Resume Genius is an excellent option for people who have no experience in resume creation. This platform offers an intuitive way to create a professional resume.

The website guides you through a series of questions regarding your work experience and education in order to provide you with tips. It comes with hundreds of templates, resume examples and additional career resources to help you write a resume, cover letter, resignation letter, or recommendation letter.

While Resume Genius advertises itself as free to use, the free version only allows you to create your resume and download it as a text file. If you want to download your resume as a PDF or a Word file, you need to sign up for an account and pay for a subscription. The Resume Genius builder charges a one-time fee of $2.95 to download your custom-built resume or a monthly fee of $7.95 for unlimited resumes and cover letters.

Another drawback is the lack of personalization options. You can download hundreds of premade templates to use as a Word file, but there’s only a small number of templates available in the resume builder software itself.

Canva

Canva is an easy-to-use, professional online graphic design tool. With a huge library of templates, Canva is one of the best free resume builders online and is a great choice for graphic designers in particular.

After signing up, you can immediately start creating your resume from scratch or by choosing from hundreds of premade templates. Canva is best for those who love graphic design as it provides numerous options to personalize your resume. You can browse through different styles, elements, colors and fonts, and just drag and drop them into your document.

Where Canva really excels though is the sheer number of template options they provide. In fact, the Canva builder has so many templates that we couldn’t count them.

However, unlike some other online resume builders, Canva doesn’t offer pre-filled text or provide advice on how to write your resume. Additionally, you can’t upload your current resume for a redesign and will have to fill in each text field manually. This makes it a more time-consuming option than other websites.

Canva’s resume builder is free to use, but many features and templates require you to sign up for a Canva Pro account, which is $119.99 per year. Both the free and the premium versions come with enough different templates to ensure that anyone can find the right one for them. However, it doesn’t provide you with expert tips, guides or resume scoring.

VisualCV

VisualCV is a fast and easy-to-use CV maker. It requires a signup after which you can start creating your CV by choosing from 30+ templates. You can opt to use pre-written examples to kickstart your resume, which is a great addition for those who need some help writing it. You can customize your resume with the convenient real-time editing tool.

With plenty of pre-written resume examples and an easy-to-use interface, VisualCV is an excellent option if you need some assistance in both writing and building your resume.

While VisualCV has a free version, it only allows you to create one resume with big watermarks on it. The Pro version lets you build unlimited resumes and cover letters. It also comes with some interesting features like a personal professional website and resume performance analytics.

ResumeNerd

ResumeNerd is a job board site that also provides a powerful online resume builder tailored for beginners. It is very easy to use and provides a range of tips and pre-written content, making it a great option for entry-level job seekers.

ResumeNerd stands out by providing tons of pre-written examples users can add to their resume’s experience section. Not only that, but they offer a list of helpful tips before filling out each section, making them a great option for anyone creating their first resume.

However, ResumeNerd’s template options aren’t as impressive as some other online resume builders. The majority of their templates are simple, and not very space-efficient. If you have a lot of information to list on your resume, you’re better off using a builder that provides more compact templates or allows you a greater degree of customization.

ResumeNerd’s paid resume builder costs $2.75 for a 14-day trial, and a $9.75 per month subscription.

Benefits of using resume builders

Writing a polished resume is second nature for some job applicants. But even the most experienced professionals can struggle while making a resume. If you’re one of the many people who need a little extra help with resume creation, here are a few ways that a resume builder can help:

Saves Time

Resume builders offer templates, clean designs, and tips that speed up resume writing. They also make the process less stressful.

Improves Design

Each industry has different expectations for what a great resume looks like. If you’re not familiar with design skills or tools, resume builders offer free templates to make your resume look as good as it sounds.

Offers Writing Tips

It takes a lot of work to promote yourself. And even if you enjoy self-promotion, writing isn’t a skill everyone has. A resume builder can help you use the best words and phrases to show your experience and knowledge.

They Help Job Seekers Cast Their Nets Wide

Using resume builders and templates, job seekers can submit many resumes every day compared to the number of resumes they can submit without the builders. The templates that they get from the builders can be updated within a short period of time. In addition, they can be easily customized to match the different requirements of the job openings.

This helps job seekers find a job quickly since they can send many applications at the same time.

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)

Recruiters often use ATS systems to scan resumes. Good resume builders will help with formatting to make sure that your resume is easy for these systems to read.

Boosts the Confidence of Job Seekers

Finally, one of the most important things that job seekers need when meeting recruiters is confidence. Resume builders ensure that they (job seekers) have professionally designed and formatted resumes, something that builds on their confidence. This is important when meeting recruiters.

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