Kickresume
Kickresume is a resume builder that lets you create application tracking system (ATS) friendly resumes in a matter of minutes. It offers 3000+ resume examples for inspiration and provides a seamless import option to get started.
With over 97% of Fortune 500 companies using ATS, it is vital for jobseekers like you to use tools that help resume creation, optimization, and sharing.
With personal experience crafting resumes for different jobs (I worked as a freelancer for 10 years), I know how important it is to create a visually appealing yet professional resume that can attract hiring managers’ attention.
In this Kickresume review, I’ll go through Kickresume’s in detail. I’ll showcase how you can use Kickresume effectively to create ATS-friendly resumes, cover letters, and websites. Additionally, I’ll discuss its pricing.
Features
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AI-powered resume builder that creates resumes in minutes
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Offers cover letter and website creation
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Import data via LinkedIn and PDF
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ATS optimization tool to create an ATS-friendly resume
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3000+ resume examples for inspiration
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Basic design options to customize resume
Pros
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A well-designed dashboard with easy access to features
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Access to 40+ resume templates and 40+ cover letter templates
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ATS resume checker to ensure ATS-friendly resume creation
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Let you transform your resume into a website
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Offers career planning features
Cons
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AI builder offers fewer options, making it less personalized
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Becomes buggy from time to time
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Limited design options
What is Kickresume?
Kickresume is an AI-powered resume builder that offers a meaningful way to create professional resumes and cover letters. It is AI-friendly, which means all resumes created via Kickresume can pass applicant tracking systems (ATS) without getting filtered out.
As a job seeker, you can utilize its ATS-friendly and fully customizable resume templates. Kickresume offers free basic templates and offers 3000+ resume examples to get you inspired.
Users can import their LinkedIn or PDF imports to make resume/cover building seamless.
Apart from that, Kickresume also offers resume optimization via analysis, examples, feedback, and proofreading. They also offer the ability to turn your resume into a website (via its Website Builder feature).
Founded by Tomas Ondrejka and Peter Ďuriš in 2013, it grew rapidly in the coming years. In 2024, Kick Resume hit $1.9M in revenue, having helped 6 million job seekers with 7.5M + resumes created.
Note: For testing purposes, I subscribed to Kickresume’s Premium plan.
Importing Data And Adding Information
If you’re new to Kickresume, you can import your data via LinkedIn import and PDF import.
I went ahead and imported data via LinkedIn. It asks for your LinkedIn profile.
It took Kickresume a few seconds to import the data. Similarly, you can import data via PDF.
Note: In some cases, it can take longer to import the data.
Once the import is done, it’ll redirect to its Fill In tab, where it organizes the data in different sections – such as:
- Personal Information
- Work Experience
- Education
- Languages
- Certificates
As you can notice from the image above, you can add new sections such as Achievements, Certificates, Awards, Goals, and more.
On the right-hand side, you can see a preview of your resume based on the available data. It is updated in real time when you make changes to any of the sections.
AI Resume Builder Quality & Templates
Kickresume comes packed with an AI resume builder.
To access it, you can click on “Resume Builder” from the dashboard. Alternatively, you can go to My Documents > Resumes > New Resumes with AI.
It’ll then open up a series of forms to fill up.
First, you need to fill in your name and job title.
Next, you’ll need to select any of the 44 shown templates.
It’ll load its AI-generated content resume. You can see it below.
I liked the process of how it uses AI to create a resume that fits your work profile. However, I think the resume is less personalized as it only takes two inputs: your name and job title. This means that you have to do a lot of editing before it gets finalized and ready to share with recruiters.
But the good thing is that Kickresume offers all the tools and means to edit the resume as per your need. For example, you can use:
- Resume Analysis to improve it,
- Resume examples to get inspiration
- Resume Feedback to get AI feedback
- Proofreading to get your resume checked by human proofreaders.
You can click on any of the available sections on the left-hand side and edit them. Additionally, Kickresume offers the ability to add new sections such as Graphs, Projects, Goals, Certificates, and so on.
Let’s modify the work experience and see if it updates the resume in real-time.
There is also the option to create the description using AI. Let’s see it in action below.
You might have noticed that not all sections are available in the free version. Some are tagged as free and others premium.
For basic resumes, free sections are enough. However, if you want to customize your resume, you need to get their Premium offering (more of it in the pricing section).
Kickresume also lets you design your resume. It offers designs options such as:
- Font change and Font Size
- Headline capitalization
- Color
- Line Spacing
- A4 or letter size
- Page Number (ON or OFF)
- Background (8 options)
How to Create a Cover Letter with Kickresume
Kickresume lets you create cover letters with ease.
To start creating a cover letter, you need to click on “Cover Letter Builder” from the Dashboard. Alternatively, you can also access it from My Documents > Cover Letters.
Here, you get three options:
- New Cover Letter → create a cover letter that you can customize as per your needs.
- New Cover Letter with AI → Let AI create a cover letter
- Use Examples → Use existing examples to guide you to create a cover letter.
I’ll go through each of these options, one by one, to give you a clear idea of what you can expect from Kickresume cover letter capabilities.
First, I’ll create a cover letter without AI (the 1st option). Once you select it, you get to choose from 44 cover letter templates.
Depending on your plan (free or paid), you can choose the template. If you want to create the cover letter from scratch without using any template, you can also Skip.
Now, you can fill in all the information, including From, To, and Content. You can also use the AI writer to create the body content.
To kick-start your cover letter creation, I suggest using the AI writer capabilities.
Once you click the AI writer option, it asks you to enter the Job title and job post description for which you’re applying. (this opens up first if you select the “Create Cover Letter with AI” option).
If you notice carefully, it has two modes:
- Basic → creates a generic cover letter
- Personalized → creates a more personalized cover letter by using your past experience and resume
I chose the Personalized mode, and that’s why the wizard asks me to select the resume.
Select the one that fits the job you’re applying for, and then click on “Generate with AI.”
KickResume AI will generate a very “convincing” cover letter. In this case, I used Obsidian’s job post.
You can edit the cover letter and customize it further.
Additionally, you can add ready-made phrases to your draft. To use them, click on the “AI writer” button and select “Add phrases.”
Here, you can find phrases from 23,000+ phrases for 3,200 job titles.
Click on the “Add” button to append the phrase to your draft.
Kickresume’s cover letter offers minimal design options for changing:
- Line spacing
- Font Size
- Font choice
- Color
- Page size (letter or A4)
- Address format
You can use the available 1350+ cover letter examples to your advantage. Kickresume offers professionally written cover letters that cover different industries (such as Automotive, Construction, Business, etc.) and professions(such as Auditor, Insurance Agent, Art Director)
Each of these cover letters is a real-life example and is marked as “Hired by company name.”
Once you click on a cover letter, you can see it in detail. Furthermore, Kickresume also lets you rewrite samples with AI.
How to Turn Your Resume into a Website
Online presence is vital for creative jobs such as web developers, writers, graphic designers, and more.
Kickresume lets you transform your resume into a modern website.
To create a website, you can click on “Website Builder” from the Dashboard. Alternatively, you can go to “My Documents” > Websites.
Here, you can select from three options:
- New Website → let you choose from a template and build from there.
- Import from LinkedIn → Let you use your LinkedIn profile to create the Website
- Create from existing Kickresume → Use already created resume for website creation.
For demonstration purposes, let’s use the “Create from existing Kickresume” option.
After you click on it, Kickresume will ask you to select the resume you want to use for website creation.
After you select one, it will create a clean website.
You can design the website by clicking on the “Design” tab on the left side.
The design options included are:
- Color design change
- Headline Capitalization
- Font
- Date Format
- Address Format
Overall, the design options are good but very limited.
Using the Kickresume ATS Resume Checker
To get past the Application Tracking System(ATS), Kickresume offers an ATS Resume Checker.
To access it, click on Resume Analysis under Resume Optimization from the dashboard.
It shows you two metrics: ATS Metrics and Non-ATS Metrics.
The ATS score is given out of 100 with three components:
- Design
- Structure
- Content
To help you improve the score, the Kickresume ATS Resume Checker gives proper suggestions. For example, in Design, it gave the following suggestions:
- Change Template
- Change Font
These suggestions offer solutions. So, if you click the “Change Template” option, it’ll open up the ATS-optimized templates.
And, as soon as you select one, it’ll drastically change your ATS score.
Kickresume Pricing
Kickresume pricing starts at $9 per month for yearly plans.
However, if you’re looking for a monthly plan, then it’ll cost you $29 per month. The quarterly plan, on the other hand, is at $19 per month.
Kickresume also offers a free plan that gives access to:
- 4 basic resume templates
- 1 basic website template
- 4 matching cover letter templates
- 1500+ resume examples
- 20,000+ pre-written phrases
All the paid plans come with a 14-day money-back guarantee. You get the following features with each plan:
- 40+ resume templates
- 40+ cover letter templates
- ATS Resume Checker
- AI writer
- All typefaces and color
- Career Map
- Easy LinkedIn & PDF Import
All plans come with priority email and chat support. Additionally, Kickresume is available via Android and iOS.
Overall, I like what Kickresume has to offer. They offer a free plan, which is good enough to create a basic resume, cover letter, and website. However, if you want to make the most out of it, then you need to get its Premium subscription. That opens you up to better templates, an ATS resume checker, and easy import functionality.
Getting the yearly plan is counter-intuitive. That’s why I suggest taking the Quarterly plan at $19 per month for best value. And, if you’re a confident job hunter, then monthly plans will be more than enough.
Top Kickresume Alternatives
There are plenty of Kickresume alternatives that you can check. I recommend the following:
- Resume.io: A strong Kickresume alternative that lets you create resumes using ATS-friendly templates, AI, and pre-written content. They offer a free plan with limited features and a monthly plan at $29.95 (you can get a 7-day trial at just $2.95).
- Zety.com: I recommend Zety to Kickresume, which offers an all-in-one career platform. Here, you get a resume and cover letter builder with the ability to use AI. I tried Zety.com to create a cover letter and found the process easy to follow and better than Kickresume. Zety offers a free plan. However, its paid plans are more costly than Kickresume.
- VisualCV: VisualCV lets you create job-ready resumes. Here, you get a free AI resume builder to create ATS-friendly resumes. Furthermore, you can create a CV using a CV maker. Its paid plan starts at $16 USD (quarterly plan).
Kickresume Review Verdict
Kickresume is a great AI-powered resume and cover letter builder. I found it easy to use, with a focus on making an ATS-friendly resume.
The free plan is a good start for anyone trying to create a competition-ready resume. However, it lacks features, including no access to the ATS resume checker. This makes the Premium plan more useful.
However, its affordability is a different question, as the total subscription cost depends on industry and market conditions.
As for features, Kickresume doesn’t disappoint. The dashboard houses all the key features and gives quick access, be it resume optimization, career planning, or data import.
Considering all these, Kickresume receives the Geekflare’s Innovation Award. It offers all the tools to create an impactful and professional resume and cover letter. Furthermore, it is easy to use, with plenty of examples and templates to offer.
I liked its AI resume builder, the range of templates to choose from, and hundreds of resume examples to get inspiration from.
However, during my use, I found Kickresume to be buggy. For example, I got stuck in a loop when I selected a resume to create a website. The design options for resumes, cover letters, and websites are also limited and, hence, not for everyone.