How do you stand out in a competitive job market? One important tip: Putting your best foot forward involves knowing how to write an outstanding resume, including how to highlight your skills and work history, and making the document look its best regarding design, graphic elements, font, and more.

You want the power of the best resume builder on your side during a job search. Online resume builders, which often offer free templates, provide a variety of customization options to help you stand apart from the crowd with your resume and cover letter. It’s generally easy to use this type of program—you simply pick out a template, add details, and fine-tune the download.

A good resume builder provides numerous examples and templates to inspire you to create an outstanding resume of your own. These resume and cover letter builders often include expert advice from human resource professionals as valuable guidance. Templates make building resumes and cover letters simple, letting you customize and fine-tune starting drafts until they’re exactly what you want, while saving lots of time and effort.

We provide a list of some of the most useful resume makers on the market and explain why they deserve your consideration.

Zety

Zety is easy to use, has intuitive navigation, is extremely customizable, and offers plenty of advice. Use its content builders to create a resume and cover letter from scratch in a process that takes only minutes.

As you build your new resume with Zety (or update an existing resume), you’ll have access to a wide variety of professional templates and get context-sensitive tips from professional recruiters to help you look your best professionally. You can also optimize your files with various editing tools, such as deciding which style of bullet points looks best.

Example of a Zety resume template

Example of a Zety cover letter template

Zety has a wide-ranging blog with useful articles on resumes, cover letters, and many other employment topics.

While job seekers can build resumes on Zety for free, you’ll pay a fee if you want to download that file in different formats and have access to the service’s full range of features.

You can get a 14-day trial with full access for $2.70. After the trial, you’ll pay $23.70 a month or can prepay $71.40 for the year.

LiveCareer

LiveCareer offers a great selection of resume templates, an in-text spell checker, and a selection of tips and step-by-step tutorials. Many entry fields have built-in tips. Immediate previews help you see how your resume looks as you build it

You can also access a convenient mobile app, customizable cover letters, and a job application tool. If you want even more help, turn to LiveCareer’s professional resume writing services, provided by certified writing professionals. Choose from entry-level ($99), professional ($199), or executive ($299) writing services.

The Resources page has extensive information about resumes and cover letters, job interviews, career advice, and much more.

A 14-day trial of LiveCareer provides full access to its resume-building services and costs $2.95, plus $0.45 for additional formats. Monthly access is $23.95 or pre-paid yearly is $71.40.‍

Resume Genius

Resume Genius lives up to its name with an AI-powered resume builder that helps you build a professional document in as little as 12 minutes. Other perks include pre-written templates, a cover letter builder, a user-friendly interface, and help provided for job-hunting situations.

Job seekers also have access to a blog with advice from professionals. The widely-ranging templates are designed to be friendly with applicant tracking system (ATS) software used by many recruiters and employers to filter candidates. Simply select your template design and color, fill in your details, and download the document.

Example of a Resume Genius resume template

Example of a Resume Genius cover letter for graphic designers

People using Resume Genius for the first time can download their creations for $2.95, which kicks off a 14-day trial. A monthly plan costs $24.95.

CV Maker

With a quick interface and great ease of use, CV Maker is also worth considering for a resume that may catch the eyes of hiring managers. Using the templates is quite straightforward to give you a no-fuss, no-muss document.

The site relies on a step-by-step process to compile information about your work experience, education, interests, and references. Choose from a selection of different styles and add your own sections to the resume. You can download the resume for use in job applications.

Example of a CV Maker resume template

The free version of the resume builder includes basic resume templates, a basic rich-text editor, and the ability to add custom plain sections to the document. You can upgrade to a premium version of the service for a one-time fee of $16. This version includes more templates, the ability to add special resume sections, an advanced rich-text editor, and more font choices. The one-click email functionality is useful for smartphones and tablets that don’t allow file downloads

Resume.io

The Resume.io homepage warns: “Only 2% of resumes make it past the first round. Be in the top 2%.” To get you there, the service offers a variety of field-tested resume templates that follow the same “resume rules” many employers use.

Resume.io has an uncluttered, easy-to-use interface, different resume template styles, and a resume builder with pre-generated content tested by recruiters and IT experts. You can download your completed resume as a PDF or Microsoft Word file.

Example of a Resume.io resume template

Example of a creative Resume.io resume template

While Resume.io allows you to do quite a bit with its free services, you can purchase a 7-day trial that gives you access to all the site’s features for $2.95. Unless you cancel, this automatically turns over to a subscription and costs $24.95 every 30 days.

You can also pay for a single resume download without a periodic subscription

ResumeLab

Boasting excellent Trustpilot scores and a certain swagger (“Get the job you’ve

been dreaming of”), ResumeLab has flexible editing tools and unlimited PDF downloads. TXT and Microsoft Word downloads are also available.

The service also provides a quick, intuitive creation process, advice from professional resume writers, and real-time and interactive document previews. You can customize the resume template section order or skill rating icons.

Get a 14-day trial subscription for $2.70 for full access to the site’s products and services. This turns into an ongoing subscription of $24.70 per month and lets you create unlimited resumes. You also have access to career advice articles to help with your job hunt

Resume Now

Resume-Now features more than 64,000 resume examples to provide inspiration and resume designs for different experience levels, jobs, and industries. You can download your document in a variety of resume formats or use the service’s mobile app if that’s how you want to create your document.

Editing documents and customizing sections is easy. If you wish, you can get a resume review by a professional resume analyst in one to two business days for $19.95. You can also hire the services of a professional resume writer (ranging from $99 to $299) to really make your words sparkle.

Resume Now has a limited 14-day trial plan for $2.45 or a 14-day full access trial plan for $2.95. Both plans roll over to monthly billing of $23.85 if you don’t cancel.

Put your resume out there

Polish your resume to its professional best to increase the chances of getting hired. You can also submit your current or improved freelance resume to jobs posted on Upwork, the world’s work marketplace. Find extensive information on resumes and other work-related and career topics at the Upwork Resource Center.

Upwork clients list thousands of freelance job opportunities in fields like development and IT, design and creative, sales and marketing, and writing and translation.

With your job experience and Upwork working together, you can find a career match made in digital heaven.

Upwork is not affiliated with and does not sponsor or endorse any of the tools or services discussed in this section. These tools and services are provided only as potential options, and each reader and company should take the time needed to adequately analyze and determine the tools or services that would best fit their specific needs and situation. Prices are current at the time of writing and may change over time based on each service’s offerings.