Use These Resume Builders to Make Your Resume Stand Out

Ready to make your first resume (or freshen up your existing one)? Create a customized resume and cover letter online—or let a professional make them for you—with these handy resume building resources.

What to Look for in a Resume Builder

All resume-building resources want to help you create a resume that will land you the job. While some of these companies offer bare-bones help and limited templates, most go the extra mile and give you everything you’ll need to create a professional-looking resume. Here are the most important factors to keep in mind while looking for a resume service:

• Varied, Professional Templates: Services that offer one-size-fits-all templates suck. The best resume builders have dozens if not hundreds of customizable templates to choose from, including ones tailored for specific industries, like computer programming or modeling. Although a larger variety usually means a higher price point, it’s worth paying a little more, as a tailored resume stands out from the crowd and has a higher chance of landing you an interview, which is the goal.
• Easy to Use: Since creating a resume isn’t something one does on a regular basis, choosing a straightforward service that guides you through the creation process step by step through is paramount. Good resume builders make it easy to add and edit information, change templates, and otherwise tweak your resume until it’s perfect.
• Professional Advice: It’s okay if you’re not an expert resume writer. These services understand this and supply expert help you can reference. If the whole process is too overwhelming, consider choosing a resume writing service that will create a custom, professional resume for you (note: these are more expensive than template options).
• Reasonable Cost: The general rule with resumes is the more you can do on your own, the less it’ll cost. If you’re familiar with document design, using a word processor with free templates like Google Docs is a perfect solution. For those who aren’t, expect to pay anywhere from about $10 to $225 for your resume, depending on what type of service you choose.
• Export Options: Once you’ve created your new resume, you’ll need a way to send it out to recruiters and hiring managers. The best resume making services offer multiple options for saving and exporting your documents.

Best Overall Resume Builder: Zety

Zety ($2.70 for a 14-day trial) makes it easy to create a high-quality resume. It offers professional resume, CV, and cover letter templates, or it can look over your existing resume and provide suggestions on how to improve it. If you don’t know how to build your own resume from scratch, don’t worry—the website walks you through the process step by step and tells you what information you need to input for each section. This process is easy and intuitive, but it’s nice to have the expert advice that it offers along the way.

The trial period ends after 14 days, then rolls into a $24.70/month subscription plan, so be careful. If you want to create multiple resumes and cover letters of a period of time, consider upgrading from the Monthly Access plan to the $71.40 yearly plan for access to all features. Overall, Zety is super easy to use, and its variety of clean, modern templates help you create the perfect resume in minutes.

Best Free Resume Builder: Google Docs

You don’t have to break the bank to get a professional-looking resume. Google Docs (Free) offers five free resume templates. Although it’s not as vast of a collection as most of the other builders, each of its templates has a clean, modern look with tons of personality. All you need to do is type in your personal information for each section, and voila! Your new resume is ready. If you know a bit about document design, Google makes it easy to change fonts, colors, spacing, and any other part of the resume to make it yours. Google Docs supports versioning (so feel free to go crazy exploring customization), and it offers extensive export options.

Best Premium Resume Builder: Kickresume

Kickresume ($8/month) has many strengths that make it worth paying for. The biggest is its variety of cover letter and resume templates, which are incredibly colorful, modern, and unique compared to the others out there. Combine that with the way Kickresume tailors resumes to specific industries, and you get a resume built to stand out from the crowd. It has an interactive resume maker, tons of samples you can look at for reference, text editing tools, grammar check tools, and it can even turn your resume into a website with a single click.

Best Professional Resume Writing Service: Top Resume

Building a resume from scratch isn’t for everyone. Luckily, services like Top Resume ($149) have professional resume writers who will do the work for you. With Top Resume, you’ll have one-on-one support from an expert writer who will design a custom, modern resume tailored to you and your career goals. Or, upload your current resume and have Top Resume provide expert, personalized feedback on how to improve its organization, style, writing, and mechanics within 48 hours. If you opt for the Career Evolution package ($219), you’ll get a custom resume plus a 60-day interview guarantee, and the Executive Priority ($349) gives you all of that plus a professional makeover of your LinkedIn profile.

Best Resume Builder for iOS: Resume Star 2: Pro CV Designer

If you don’t want to deal with the fuss of designing a resume on your desktop, Resume Star 2: Pro CV Designer (Free) lets you create unlimited resumes and cover letters super fast right from your iPhone or iPad. It’s also totally free, with no premium subscription hassles to deal with. All you have to do is put in your information and choose one of ten professionally-designed templates. Resume Star 2 uses web safe fonts, avoids garish colors and outdated layouts, and lets you rearrange sections within your resume for a personal touch. You can download your resume, or email it to recruiters directly from the app.

Best Resume Builder for Android: CV Engineer

If you’re an Android user, CV Engineer (Free) can help. It has nine professional template options to choose from. It also walks you through filling out each section, from your education experience to your career history, interests, and references. For each informational section, you can swipe over to view resume advice from expert recruiters and see professional examples. When you’re done, export your resume as a PDF via email, Google Drive, Dropbox, and other options.