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5 Amazing Apps and Websites to Help You Build the Best Resume

Creating a solid resume has become more important than ever as social media and mobile apps continue to link personal information and job searching tools. However, it can be challenging to create a resume that succinctly displays your information and meets multiple sites’ uploading requirements. In addition, there is the burden of keeping your resume and online information constantly updated.

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Thankfully, you can now access a number of apps on your mobile device to create, disseminate, and update resumes, thereby simplifying the process and making it easier to manage personal information during a job search. Many websites also provide assistance for all steps of creating a resume, including tips on how to write text for resumes and advice on how to design a distinctive document.

Here are five of the best apps and sites for putting together a professional resume:

Pocket Resume

This app, which bills itself as the “original and highest quality resume-building app for iOS,” offers a number of templates for resumes and websites. After you enter your information, Pocket Resume will create a professional-looking document that you can share or print as a PDF with multiple style choices. The app also will upload your resume to a professional website and share it with all of your devices through iCloud sync.

Recent updates include an updated user interface, new web resume templates, and split-screen support for iPads. Reviewers praise the app as easy to use and reliable.

Enhancv

While templates will help make a resume look professional, they don’t help you sort through what information to include in one. Enhancv helps you create a “modern resume” that reflects not only your relevant information but also the “true personality” behind your accomplishments and experience.

The site’s “human-centric” approach offers resume designs with sections such as “Most Proud of” and “Life Philosophy.” You can upload your basic information from LinkedIn or Facebook, and then Enhancv will offer tips on what to write in each section based on what recruiters are looking for. The site also provides a collection of sample resumes for inspiration.

Upcoming features include a content analyzer that will flag mistakes and offer suggestions for improvement. Enhancv also boasts a program that will customize your resume for each job that you apply to.

Hloom

As job listings have moved online, many companies have employed electronic readers to scan resumes for key words—a process that weeds out many resumes before a human actually looks at them. This means that qualified applicants may not make the cut if their resume doesn’t contain the right words and phrases.

The website Hloom.com offers hundreds of free resume templates, including almost 30 Applicant Tracking System (ATS)-optimized designs. For jobs that could receive hundreds or even thousands of applicants, it can be vital that your resume pass through ATS software. Sometimes, an issue as small as a special character or unusual formatting can get your resume rejected, therefore ATS-optimized templates use simple designs and standard fonts. Templates include information about how many people have used them and their significant features.

RezScore

When your resume is complete, the website RezScore can evaluate it and offer you constructive feedback to help you make it better. You simply upload your resume to the site, and RezScore returns a letter grade, such as C or an A-, and a report on the resume’s brevity, depth, and impact, as well as suggestions for improvement. RezScore also provides information about what industries your resume is a good fit for, a graph of your skills, and details about what kind of personality your resume represents.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become a central hub for making business connections, and its online resume builder is an easy way to create a solid document. The tool takes information from your profile and enters it into a template, which you can then tweak. However, you should consider LinkedIn as a way to build a foundation for a resume, not a finished document, because a strong resume likely will require some personalized formatting and further personal details to make it stand out.

Resumes are now considered “living documents,” not one-time creations, and a good way to keep your business information and resumes up-to-date is to use LinkedIn as a valuable repository of all things job related. The focus now is on keeping your LinkedIn account, not just your resume current. However, you will still need to edit your resume based on your current situation and which job you are applying for.

While technology can offer invaluable assistance for creating and disseminating a resume, personal connections can still be a crucial factor in whether you land a job. A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal acknowledged that technology has “gained the upper hand” in the job market, but the author implored job seekers to also utilize human connections. When a business connection can get a strong resume into the right hands, it greatly increases the applicant’s chances of getting hired.