In your quest to create the perfect resume, no doubt you’ve encountered several AI (artificial intelligence) applications all supposedly guaranteeing the same promise: to be able to save you time, worry, and stress, and generate a shiny new document that will get you past the gatekeepers and secure an initial interview.
If you’ve never used a generative AI tool before, you might be concerned and initially apprehensive.
And you should be.
After all, you don’t want to take any chances and wreck an entire application that has already taken considerable painstaking effort.
With the plethora of options you have to choose from, it might be overwhelming to know which resume builders are worth your money (if you do need to pay anything at all) and which ones have the highest chances of success.
But as long as you follow these guidelines to make your resume with AI, you’ll be on the right track:
How To Find A Good Resume Builder
When looking for a resume builder, you will need to carefully weigh up several factors including:
- Ease of navigation and user experience
- Your budget and pricing options available—including any free trials or free plans you might be able to take advantage of
- Trustpilot and Product Hunt reviews, Reddit discussions and reviews, and even asking your professional connections on LinkedIn
- Value for the price
- Comparison of features and customization options—customization is extremely important for your resume to be effective
- ATS compatibility
A note on ATS compatibility: Applicant tracking systems are becoming more modernized, and as such, some features that would have been rendered unreadable and disqualify you from a position (such as double columns) are now accessible thanks to updated parsing technology, according to an Enhancv study.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that according to the study, a resume built with Canva or Microsoft Word tends to fare better overall without double columns—a 93% success rate compared to an 86% success rate for double columns.
At the same time, using a different software such as Google Docs yields an impressive 99% success rate, regardless of whether the resume was created with a single or double column.
5 AI-Powered Resume Builders
Below are five positively-reviewed AI-powered resume builder tools you can use to make your application truly stand out to hiring managers. Some, such as Enhancv, are tested against ATS software (applicant tracking systems that recruiters use to help screen candidate resumes) to ensure full compatibility:
- Novoresume
- Enhancv
- Kickresume
- Resumaker AI
- TealHQ
How To Use A Resume Builder
Whichever resume builder you decide to use from the list above, it’s essential to understand that AI is not a quick fix. While it certainly provides much needed assistance as you figure out how to make a resume that truly stands out to employers, you will need to ensure that you double check the final output for grammatical issues, spelling mistakes, inconsistencies, needless repetitions, and a lack of human flow in the writing style—all of which can be obvious tell-tale signs that your resume was written by AI.
Additionally, while AI can help with formatting and readability, you need to ensure that the final document reflects who you really are and is one that you are personally happy and comfortable with.
Using a resume builder doesn’t take away from the fact that you need to sell yourself effectively. AI will only provide impetus to what you already have. An AI-powered resume builder won’t do the selling for you. This means quantifying your achievements where possible and using this data to feed the resume builder.
Resume builders will also help you identify keywords to help you beat ATS—but you’ll need to check over these to ensure they apply to you, and look out for any other resume keywords which are familiar terms in your industry so you can highlight the right keywords to catch the attention of recruiters.
Finally, it’s essential to note that resume builders will not take away the necessity for mental effort. You still need to closely study job descriptions and highlight relevant experience, education, skills (including soft skills) and certificates that you possess, so that you can input these into the tool.
This is because resume builders may sometimes include skills that are not relevant to you, in an effort to match with the job description for the role you wish to apply for, so you’ll need to ensure that you review these for accuracy. Also, some may only focus on your last role, so you’ll need to add extra experiences to bulk up your resume and provide deeper context into your skills and experience.
Overall, crafting the perfect resume that actually gets you hired comes down to a combination of your personal input and self-belief in your abilities, and the complementary augmentation of artificial intelligence tools. Job searching can be an exhausting process, so utilize these resume builders to make your efforts easier and give you greater piece of mind—edging you closer to your dream job.