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Resume Builder Series
By Tonya Wells – One of the corporations who has produced the most options for resume builder / resume software is Individual Software, Inc. They are the makers of ResumeMaker Professional Deluxe 17, available in a PC download version from Amazon.com here. Version 17 was released September 7, 2011, so this resume builder is relatively new.
List Price: $29.99
Price on Amazon: $16.99
Availability: Immediate Download
Features:
ResumeMaker Professional Deluxe 17 comes with a Guided Resume Wizard and Cover Letter Wizard that you can utilize, or you can look through the resume samples and templates provided and put together your resume outside the wizard. It’s up to you.
It also comes with a selection of over 1,250 resume samples that were written by professional resume writers. These are a good starting point, and you can customize the resume from there, combine different suggestions from different resume samples, or add whatever unique qualifications you possess yourself.
ResumeMaker Professional Deluxe 17 also comes with Power / Actions phrases and Keywords that will help you come up with effective phrases to put in your resume to describe your skills and experience.
If you already have an existing resume, you can import it into ResumeMaker from Word, PDF, and HTML and make your edits there. You also have powerful formatting tools available to improve your existing resume format and layout.
Resumes can also be exported in Word, PDF, and HTML format, although Word is the recommended format to export and provide to recruiters.
ResumeMaker Professional Deluxe 17 also comes with a resume analyzer that will make suggestions for improvement, and provide you with a report of the recommended changes.
It also offers a Targeted Job Search feature that will allow you to search all the major job sites, 50,000 corporate sites, and classified ads to locate jobs that might be a fit for you. There is also a Mobile App feature that will allow you to search jobs on the go as well. You can also set up a Job Alert to notify you of new jobs that are posted which might be a match for you. ResumeMaker also provides you with a Job Applicant InfoSheet that ensures you have all the information you need at your fingertips in order to fill out just about any job application.
ResumeMaker also provides a Contact Manager to track the employers to whom you’ve already applied, on what date you applied, and any contact information you may have been provided from the application process.
Sample interview questions and answers are also provided so that you can make sure that you are prepared once you do snag that all-important interview!
A Salary Calculator is also provided, although I think you might be able to find more updated information on a website such as salary.com. Be careful not to rely too much on the salaries provided in ResumeMaker.
This package also offers a social networking feature to sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and will allow you to publish resume links to these sites, although I’m not sure why you would really want to utilize these features. Jobs are usually setup by job posting, and recruiters to not search for resumes on individual’s social status/activity feeds. They search on applicants who have applied to their postings.
Pros:
– Professional Deluxe 17 is packed with lots of bells and whistles
– Comes with a lot of resume and cover letter samples
– Interview questions and answers provided to help you prepare for your interview
– Job search tool to help you search multiple job search engines at once
– Contact Manager to help you track all of your submissions
– Ranked the #1 Resume Software application in Amazon, Office Depot, OfficeMax, and Staples – So, for what it is worth, it’s the application of choice that the major big box stores have chosen to sell.
Cons
– Some users have reported difficulty getting the wizard to work properly
– Salary information may be outdated since the software is a couple of years old
– Resumes might need tweaking in Microsoft Word once they are completed here
