The 6 best AI resume builders in 2026

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 six best. 

The best AI resume builders

• Teal for tracking multiple job applications

• Resume.io for job matching and distributing your CV

• Kickresume for generating a resume from scratch

• Resume Worded for leveraging your LinkedIn profile

• ResumeNerd for adapting your resume as you browse jobs

• Jobscan for optimizing your CV for ATS

What makes the best AI resume builder?

When hunting for a job, your mind might go "oh, I can just use ChatGPT and then make it pretty in Canva." But this duo can't keep track of your job applications, isn't tuned to optimize your CV based on best practices, and can get a bit repetitive with so much copy-pasting going on. 

This is where AI resume builders step in: they can simplify the steps involved in writing, optimizing, and adapting your CV—on top of making it machine-readable, vital to correctly log your details with the employer's applicant tracking system (ATS). They help you scale: you can apply for more jobs with a higher-quality CV consistently, which increases your chances of landing a job faster.

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 free resume builder for tracking multiple job applications

Teal (Web)

Teal pros:

• More generous free plan than most

• Lots of productivity features

Teal cons:

• Expensive upgrade

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 $13/week.

Best resume builder for job matching and distributing your CV

Resume.io (Web)

Resume.io pros:

• All-in-one for building a CV, distributing it, and practicing interviews

• Great user experience

Resume.io cons:

• Too much friction when cancelling subscriptions, requiring email confirmation

Writing and adapting your CV is already a long, time-consuming process. But listing your skills and work experience enticingly is only half the battle: the next step is spreading the CV across job applications around the web to get the attention of employers. Resume.io helps you with both sides of this process, with an all-in-one platform.

The process is divided into four steps. The Resume step is where you'll build, optimize, or tailor your CV and cover letters. You can start from scratch, import from LinkedIn, and either enter your details manually or use AI to do it for you. Whichever way you pick, as you make changes, you can use AI to give you feedback on how well you're displaying your value.

With these documents ready, you move to the Job Search step. Resume.io already makes a shortlist of positions that match your skills: when I tested it, it recommended 300 open positions, out of a total pool of over 9 million across multiple industries. You can tailor your resume with a single click, and that job will be added to the search pipeline, a board where you can keep track of your applications.

Beyond this, you can submit your CV to be distributed among a group of 100,000 "desperate" recruiters looking to fill urgent slots. Once you fill in your details, desired location, and compensation expectations, your profile will be shared with this database. Up to 50 matches may happen per week, so keep an eye on your inbox to see the progress and understand if someone may be interested in interviewing you.

Lastly, you can access a curated section of courses in the Learning step, so you can build the skills to land a better job. It's even possible to hire a coach to help you develop a 90-day plan to get you going. In line with skilling up, be sure to block out some time to explore the Job Search Method accessible on the left-side menu. This is a mini-course that explores how to plan for the job search, how to brand yourself, and how to answer those dreaded "where do you see yourself in 10 years" questions that feel like a minefield.

Resume.io price: Free plan available for 1 CV and 1 cover letter. 7-day trial priced at $2.95, upgrading to $49.95 quarterly after this period.

Best AI resume builder for generating a resume from scratch

Kickresume (Web, iOS, Android)

Kickresume pros:

• Runs 20+ ATS checks to flag issues and keywords

• Mobile apps available

Kickresume cons:

• Some styling elements not rendered when exporting as .doc

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 critiques 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 $8/month (billed annually) or $24/month (billed monthly)

Best AI resume builder for leveraging your LinkedIn profile

Resume Worded (Web)

Resume Worded pros:

• Offers specific feedback on resumes

• Clean pricing and self-service cancellation

Resume Worded cons:

• CV scoring can swing a lot when compared with others

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 (Web)

ResumeNerd pros:

• ATS-friendly templates

• Low-cost introduction at $2.75 for 14 days

ResumeNerd cons:

• Auto-renewal complaints are common; look out for billing dates

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 matches 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; after that, the price goes up to $23.75 per month.

Best AI resume builder for optimizing your CV for ATS

Jobscan (Web)

Jobscan pros:

• Free plan is good for light usage

• Optimizes your CV and LinkedIn profile

Jobscan cons:

• Native job searching tools are limited

When you're getting a suspiciously high amount of silence as you keep sending job applications, your CV might be getting tripped up in each company's applicant tracking system (ATS). To make sure you clear the first automated steps, Jobscan AI Resume focuses on analyzing your CV and providing actionable steps to get it ready to punch through.

To begin, upload your CV. Then, copy the job description of the position you're looking to apply for, and paste it on the right side. Once you click Scan, you get a match rate score, along with a detailed point-by-point breakdown of elements missing across categories like searchability, hard skills, and soft skills.

One good element here is that it also tracks things recruiters are looking for, such as job level match (if you have the target number of years of experience), measurable results (if you're objective in your CV about these), and resume tone (cliches and buzzword detection). All of the points are clear and actionable, so you can use this as a checklist to improve your CV manually or use the AI-driven Power Edit feature to do it for you.

Jobscan can also do this for your LinkedIn profile, so your web presence is as polished as your CVs and cover letters. You can look up jobs in the platform with a set of simple filters and run a scan with a click to see the match. Despite being the best for optimization, you can also build a CV from scratch and manage variations as you create them.

The feature set wraps up with a job application tracker, where you can see saved jobs and move them along the pipeline as you apply and interview. The best feature is definitely the ATS optimization, but it has all the ingredients to help you look for a job without getting too lost in the tools, which is a great plus to maintain a clear headspace and take action consistently.

Jobscan price: Free for 5 resume scans on signup and 5 more every month, as well as access to basic features. Monthly plan at $49/month removes scan limitations and adds AI features for editing your CV.

Can AI write a good resume?

As with most things generative AI, resume builders provide the starting point and the structure you need to start looking for work. Still, remember that employers want to understand what your potential impact could be in their business. CVs and cover letters are a game of signals, but sealing the deal involves preparation, research, and confidence.

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

• How to find and get hired for a remote Job

• Job hunting? Streamline your job sources in an RSS feed with Zapier

This article was originally published in May 2024. The most recent update was in February 2026.