I have been blessed with having great jobs and have not had to apply for many jobs since graduating from college. But, with the decision to go back to school and having another year to finish up, I am getting around to updating my resume in hoping of advancing my career here in the next 6-8 months. The resume can really set you a part in the application process and the creation of one has evolved a lot over the last couple of years. For those of you that have your pulse on the web, you have noticed that resume creation has started to move towards the web in an increasing way lately. Gone are the days of creating one in Word or some other type of word processing application.
There are a handful of resume creating web apps that are out there, but there is one that has recently come out that claims that it will be the last resume that you will ever need. That is a bold prediction to be making for a company that is so new, but that is what Purzue is claiming. Let’s take a look at it more to see if it is for real or if it is just hype.
Creating Your Resume
The first thing you can do when you get started is that you can create your own resume or you can upload one that you have previously done. There are other options where you can import data from both Facebook and LinkedIn. For the sake of this review, I am going to focus on the creation aspect of Purzue.
Adding items to your resume
It is really easy to get started and there are a variety of things that you can add to your resume. It really doesn’t matter where you get started, you can just pick the items you want to add. Once you start to fill out an area, you are lead through items that you should fill out. The other option that you have is that you can choose to be verified by your employer or school that you attended. The way that this works is that you can add a contact that represents the school or company and Perzue will send them a verification notice and once they verify your info, this will be represented on your resume.
Filling out your resume
Sending Out Your Resume
When you are ready to send out your resume, you are given an assortment of choices to do this. You can export your resume as a text, PDF, or Word document and you can also print it out. With the free plan, you cannot send a link to your resume, which I was a little disappointed about.
Options to export your resume
Upgrading Is Going To Be Key
The one thing that I noticed as I started to use Purzue was the fact that you were very limited when it came to choices on the free plan. You could basically add most of your important information to your resume and then get it exported for word processing and printed. If you really want control of your resume, you are going to want to upgrade to the premium version, which costs $10/month. Although Purzue says that you can trial it for 14 days no strings attached on their website, that is not the case. They make you pay the $10 first before you can try it, which doesn’t make sense to me. At least that was my experience and I tried it a few times to make sure that I was accurate. Some of the features of the premium package are that users can change fonts, add social features, and have the ability to edit every section that Purzue has to offer for your resume.
Not Fully Convinced
After playing around with Purzue for a little while and adding different items, I am not convinced that this will be the last resume that I ever create, as they say. I know it is just a headline that they have, but I came in expecting to be convinced that this was going to blow away anything else that I have previously used. I will admit, they do offer features that other resume web apps don’t, but they don’t particularly stand out head and shoulders above their competition. The part that bothered me the most was the fact that I had to pay $10/month just to get some added features, which just didn’t make sense to me. I just couldn’t justify paying over $100 a year just so that I could have more control over my resume.
Final Thoughts
Purzue was easy to use and I found it easy to navigate as well. It just wasn’t for me, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be for others. I see it being great for those that need to add images, video and other creative things to their resume that they wouldn’t be able to do in just a word processed one. For someone like me who just needs a good looking resume with all of my information, this just was just a little too expensive for my taste.
All that to say, the experience using the service was great, and I had no problems adding or editing my resume. The only glitch was the 14 day trial on the premium plan. Other than that I think Purzue can carve out their niche for those that need a more robust resume and need to add media to show others. Although this wasn’t the last resume I would ever need, I am sure it could be for others.
     |