Free AI Resume & CV Builder — Writes Your First Draft, PDF, No Signup

A free resume and CV builder that never paywalls your download

Most “free” resume builders let you fill in every field, then ask for a subscription the moment you click download. This one doesn’t. Build a resume or a CV, pick one of three templates — ATS / Classic, Modern, or Europass — and export a clean, ATS-friendly PDF with no account, no watermark, and no signup. Optional AI can draft your first version or sharpen your bullet points, and Quick-fill can import your LinkedIn profile or an existing resume so you don’t retype your history.

A resume and a CV (curriculum vitae) are the same document under two names, so this CV maker and resume builder are one tool — you choose the term and length your country expects. It’s private by design: your details are saved only in your own browser and the PDF is generated on your device, so nothing is uploaded. Only the specific text you hand to the optional AI is ever sent anywhere.

Resume or CV? What each country expects

The structure is identical everywhere — contact details, summary, experience, education, skills — but the name, the length, and whether to include a photo change by region. Match the row below to where you’re applying, then pick the template it suggests.

Why an ATS-friendly template matters — and how this one is built

Before a recruiter reads a word, most applications pass through an applicant tracking system (ATS) that parses your PDF into fields. If the parser can’t read your file, your experience never reaches a human — no matter how strong it is. Two things decide whether it can: the text has to be real, and the layout has to be simple.

Real, selectable text. This builder draws your resume as an actual text layer in the PDF — not a screenshot, not an exported image. Open the download and you can select your name, roles, and skills with the cursor, which is exactly what an ATS does when it reads the file. All three templates export selectable, ATS-readable text.

A layout the parser can follow. The ATS / Classic template is a single column with the standard headings a parser looks for — Experience, Education, Skills — and no tables, text boxes, side columns, icons, or graphics. Those flourishes are the most common reason a parser scrambles a resume, reading a two-column layout straight across and jumbling your dates into your job titles. It’s also why ATS / Classic is deliberately photo-free: a photo is an image the ATS can’t read, and in the US and UK it can invite bias screening. Add a photo only on Modern or Europass, where a person — not software — is the first reader.

One honest limit. The PDF is drawn with a standard Latin (Helvetica) font, so English and Western-European accented names render reliably. If your content uses a non-Latin script — or certain Central- and Eastern-European diacritics — it may appear in the on-screen preview but drop from the downloaded PDF. Check the actual download, not just the preview, if that applies to you.

Turn duties into achievements: a before-and-after

The single biggest upgrade to most resumes isn’t the template — it’s rewriting flat job duties as achievements with a number attached. Compare the same line the way a recruiter reads it:

The formula is consistent: a strong action verb, what you actually did, and a measurable result — a percentage, a count, a time saved, a revenue figure. “Mentored 4 engineers,” “introduced a component library used across 6 product teams,” and “handled 2M events a day” all beat “worked on the team,” because a hiring manager can picture the scale.

If a bullet is stuck at the “duty” stage, select Improve bullets with AI under any role. It rewrites each line in the achievement style and shows the original and the AI version side by side, so you keep what’s true and discard the rest. It won’t invent numbers, employers, or dates you didn’t provide — so add the real metric yourself, then let the wording tighten around it.

Let AI draft it, or import what you already have

You don’t have to start from a blank form. There are three optional AI helpers and a Quick-fill importer, and every one of them leaves you in control of the final text:

• Generate with AI — give a target role and a few rough notes about your background, and it drafts a first version: a summary, bullet points, and a skills list you then edit. If you’re a student, a recent graduate, or writing a first resume for an internship or an entry-level job with little work history, describe your degree, coursework, and projects instead — you’ll get a clean one-page draft to refine.
• Write with AI — drafts or rewrites just your professional summary from the role and experience you’ve entered.
• Improve bullets with AI — rewrites your achievements one line at a time and lets you accept the original or the AI version per bullet.
• Quick-fill import — upload your LinkedIn profile as a PDF (on LinkedIn: More → Save to PDF), upload an existing resume PDF, or paste any profile text. The file is read in your browser; only the extracted text is sent to Google Gemini to structure it into the form.

The guardrails are the point: the AI is instructed never to invent employers, job titles, dates, or metrics you didn’t mention, and you review every change before it lands. Importing works only on PDFs that contain real text — a scanned or photographed resume has no text layer to read, so use the paste-text option for those. And because a resume should speak to one job at a time, once your base version is ready you can tailor your resume to a specific job description and see which of the posting’s keywords you already cover.

Common mistakes that get resumes filtered out

Building it in a table or two-column layout

Many ATS parsers read straight across, so columns get interleaved and your dates end up attached to the wrong job. The ATS / Classic template stays single-column for exactly this reason — switch to it before you apply through a job portal.

Sending a scanned or image-based PDF

If the file is a picture of a resume, an ATS reads nothing. This builder exports a real text layer, so the parser — and a recruiter’s keyword search — can actually find your experience.

Listing responsibilities instead of results

“Responsible for X” tells a recruiter nothing about how well you did it. Lead with an action verb and attach a number, as in the before-and-after above. Improve bullets with AI can do the first pass, then you add the real metric.

Using creative headings the parser doesn’t recognise

“What I bring to the table” may read well to a human, but a parser is scanning for standard headings like Experience, Education, and Skills. The templates use those labels so your sections are found and indexed correctly.

Sending the same resume to every job

A generic resume matches every posting weakly and none strongly. Keep one strong base here, then tailor the summary, skills, and top bullets to each role — the keyword match on the JD builder shows you exactly what to adjust.

Adding a photo to a US or UK application

Outside much of continental Europe, a photo can trigger anti-bias screening and is often stripped anyway. Keep ATS / Classic (which is photo-free) for those markets, and reserve the photo for Europass or Modern, where it’s expected.

Frequently asked questions