When looking for a job, your CV is the first impression you'll get to make on a recruiter. These five free apps promise to help you make a modern resume that helps you stand out from the crowd.

Whether it's your first time making a resume or you're updating an old CV, you need to ensure it has the right information. It also needs to look good, and with so many new free software, you don't have to stick with an old-school Word document. Plus, in a modern workforce, you also often need an online presence. These free CV apps will cover all your bases.

1. CV Rest (Web): Easiest Way to Create an Online Resume Website

CV Rest is an incredibly easy way to create an online resume with a personalized link that you can share with anyone. Plus, you can download it in a neatly formatted PDF as well. It's all for free too, which you don't get with most other online CV website makers.

Create an account and CV Rest will take you step by step through the different things that a good resume needs. After your personal details, it'll ask for a summary and a short video CV, much like some of the other free modern resume apps ask these days. It then takes you through sections like work experience, skills, projects, education, languages, certificates, portfolio, etc.

Once the information is filled, create your custom CV Rest URL. Then, choose from different online templates for how your page will look, which includes different styles ideal for artists and designers, developers, and regular corporate jobs. They all look great, and it's much easier to put this together than make your own website.

You also get eight different templates to download your resume as a PDF. The free version adds a CV Rest sign, but you can remove that with the premium paid version, which also lets you make up to 10 custom sections and create five copies of your CV in different languages.

2. Read.CV (Web): Beautiful Online Resume for Accomplished People

Most CVs and resume builders cater to those who are new in the job market or at least in their initial years. There aren't a lot of publicly-available accomplishments to talk about in such cases. But if you are already a strong candidate and want to display your prowess, Read.CV gives you the platform for it.

Setting up a custom profile is easy, after which you can start building your online CV. Read.CV gives you the option to add exhibitions that you have been a part of, articles that you're proud of or have gone viral, speaking assignments and talks you've given, articles you were featured in, and awards you've won. For each section, you can add a custom link, collaborators who helped you, and descriptive details.

Apart from these sections for accomplishments, you can always add the regular things you see in a CV, like work experience, education, major projects, and so on. Read.CV lets you set up a dark mode for your profile, and gives you the option to download your resume as a PDF.

3. Resou.me (Web): Free Resume Builder and Guide to Writing a CV

Resou.me is a free, lite version of the larger Resoume.com website, which has a lot more tools. But if all you want is to build a good-looking CV in an easy interface, customize it with simple controls, and learn how to fill the boxes, you only need Resou.me.

You can choose between two themes, Minimal and Elegant, as well as pick fonts, colors, patterns, and language. That's right, Resou.me isn't restricted to English alone. You'll see a preview of the current choices, and you can live-edit them by clicking and replacing the dummy text or filling the blank spaces. Once you're done, download the CV as a PDF, without any watermarks to spoil the experience.

Resou.me also includes a short seven-page PDF on how to write a good CV. It's worth a read, as it succinctly explains what your professional summary should say, why a skills section is important, and so on.

4. Resume Worded's Career Tools (Web): Treasure Chest of Job Hunt Tools

We've talked about Resume Worded quite a few times here at Make Use Of, as it's one of the best resume review websites and regularly comes up with useful guides and free goodies. The Career Tools page collects some of its most useful free tools for those in the job hunt.

The Resume section offers four free tools. The free resume review uses AI to read your CV and give it a score, as well as suggest improvements. The Targeted Resume tool analyzes a CV for a certain type of job and tailors it for those keywords. You'll also learn how to beat the notorious robotic resume scanner, the ATS. And you'll get a bunch of free templates too.

Apart from that, Career Tools includes other sections like job search (checklists, career change), LinkedIn (optimization, examples of LinkedIn summaries), networking (email templates, LinkedIn requests), and general career advice.

5. Smash Resume and Good-Resume (Web): Free Resume Templates for Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, and Other Software

The standard idea is to make a CV in a word processor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. But if you want to stand out from the pack, try using design software like Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. And you can start with some excellent free templates for such programs.

Smash Resume has over 1200 free resume templates, but none of them are sorted by job type or look. Instead, the website sorts CVs by software, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Corel Draw, Figma, etc. Browse the list to see details like file size, final document size, and who the resume format is ideal for.

Good Resume similarly categorizes resumes in five software: Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, Sketch, and InDesign. Again, when you click on any CV, you'll get file details as well as who should use this style of resume. The site also holds free cover letter templates across different programs.

Consider a Video Resume and Other Forms of a CV

The humble CV has come a long way, as demonstrated in this list of resume apps. From a simple A4 page printout, it has evolved into fancy creations in design apps and ever-updating online portfolios. As communication styles and platforms develop, you have to keep changing with the times.

Apart from the standard resume, you need to look at more ways to pitch yourself. Video resumes are becoming increasingly popular, especially with the rise in work-from-home jobs. It also gives you a more human way to connect with a recruiter.

Some others get creative with their CV. There are developers who turn their resume into an app, and painters who hand-draw a custom CV, thus showcasing their skills while talking about it. The idea is to think beyond simple text to stand out from the crowd and get the hiring manager's attention.