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Writer Resume Example (Full Guide & Examples for 2024)

So, you’re a writer. 

You have a way with words and yet, each time you sit down to write your resume, you get stuck. 

Ironic, right?

On a serious note, though, writer’s block is no joke, and it’s even less fun when it’s preventing you from getting your dream job.

If you’re struggling with your writer resume, we can’t blame you - after all, writing a resume isn’t all that exciting.

With the right guidance, though, writing a job-winning writer resume doesn’t have to be a matter of inspiration and we’re here to show you exactly how to nail it!

So, in this article, we will cover:

• Writer Resume Example (Better Than 9 Out of 10 Examples)
• 8 Steps to Write the Perfect Writer Resume 
• 55+ Top Writing Skills in 2022

So, let’s dive right in. 

Writer Resume Example 

The resume at the top is an excellent writer resume example because it contains all the following elements: 

• Reverse-chronological format. On top of putting the spotlight on your work experience, the reverse-chronological format is also a favorite among recruiters worldwide. For these reasons, it’s the ideal choice for a writer resume.
• Relevant contact details. This writer resume example contains relevant contact information, including the candidate’s name and surname, email address, phone number, location, professional website URL, and LinkedIn URL. 
• Impressive resume summary. The writer resume example above includes a brief but effective resume summary that highlights the candidate’s skills and top achievements.
• Quantifiable achievements. The candidate in the writer resume example above uses numbers to emphasize the impact their achievements had on their previous work.
• Short education section. A writer’s skills and experience matter more than their education. For this reason, this candidate kept their writer resume’s education section short and sweet. 
• Bullet points. Using bullet points to organize your writer makes it look clean and well-organized, and recruiters have an easier time reading it.
• Effective skills section. This writer resume only includes in-demand writing skills. What’s more, the candidate has organized their soft and hard skills into separate columns, which makes the resume easier to follow. 
• Additional sections. The writer resume example above makes good use of additional sections by including the candidate’s various memberships and their language proficiency.

8 Steps to Write the Perfect Writer Resume

Now that you know what makes an impressive writer resume, it’s your turn to write a resume that’s just as compelling as our writer resume example above (or even better!). 

Here are all the steps that will help you to write the perfect writer resume:

#1. Choose the Right Format 

Before you jump into filling in the contents, let’s address how to format your writer resume the right way.

Essentially, there are 3 resume formats you can choose from:

• Reverse-chronological
• Combination  

Your best option, however, is to pick the reverse-chronological format for your writer resume.

Generally speaking, the reverse-chronological resume format is the safest choice. That’s because it effectively highlights your work experience by listing your most recent jobs first AND it’s recruiters’ favorite format. 

Here’s what the reverse-chronological resume format looks like:

Now that we got formatting out of the way, let’s discuss your writer resume layout .

Here are all the elements of a great resume layout:

• Adjust the margins. To make sure your writer resume isn’t cluttered and looks well-organized,
• Choose a professional font style. You want your writer resume to be easy-to-read, so pick a professional and straightforward font style that looks good on both PDF and paper. Make sure to use it consistently throughout your writer resume so that it doesn’t look messy.
• Use the right font size. A small font can be hard to read, whereas one that’s too big will spill your resume over to page #2. As such, you want to go for 11-12 pts for the body of your writer resume and 14-16 pts for your resume headings.
• Make use of bullet points. Whenever possible, use bullet points to organize the information on your resume. Bullet points don’t just make your writer resume look neat - they also help the hiring manager to quickly skim through it. 
• Keep it short. Optimally, you want your resume to fit into a single page . This increases the chances of the hiring manager actually reading your resume - after all, they go through hundreds of resumes every day.
• Choose the right file format. Unless you’re asked to do otherwise, saving your writer resume as a PDF file is your safest option. This ensures that your resume maintains its formatting no matter the device or OS the hiring manager uses to open it.

Use a Resume Template to Save Time 

As a writer, you probably want to get to actually writing your resume as soon as possible.

However, if you’re making your writer resume from scratch, you have to deal with the formatting first. 

And let’s be honest - tweaking the margins and adjusting font sizes to make sure your writer resume fits into a single page can be a real hassle. 

Well, with our free resume templates , you can forget about formatting your writer resume and jump straight into filling in the contents!

Our professional resume templates will help you save time AND leave a lasting impression on the hiring manager. Designed in collaboration with professional hiring managers, they are easy to scan, well-structured, modern, and visually appealing! 

Here’s how our tried-and-tested free resume templates compare to the basic black and white traditional templates:

#2. List Your Contact Details 

Once you’ve chosen the right format for your writer resume, you can focus on filling in the contents.

So, let’s start with the basics - write down your contact information first, including:

• Your first name and last name
• Your professional title (optional)
• Your phone number
• Your email address
• Your location (city and state)
• Your writing website/portfolio/relevant social media profiles, blog, etc.

Can’t get any easier than this, right?

Just make sure not to make any mistakes (this applies to your entire writer resume) - after all, no company wants to hire a writer that can’t properly spell and isn’t attentive to detail.

Here’s an example of a contact information section that includes all of the above:

Gavin Maxwell

012-345-6789

[email protected]

Rochester, New York

gavinmaxwell.com

#3. Write an Impactful Resume Summary

Any writer knows the importance of capturing the audience’s attention with just the first couple of sentences.

Well, writing a resume is no different - actually, writing a powerful resume summary is your chance to catch the hiring manager’s attention!

In essence, the point of a resume summary is to give the hiring manager a brief, yet impressive overview of your professional background. 

As such, in just 2-3 sentences, your resume summary shows the recruiter whether you’re a relevant candidate and helps them decide if they should give your writer resume a closer look.

So, here are the elements you should mention in your resume summary to impress the hiring manager:

• Your professional title and years of experience
• Your most relevant writing skills
• Your top 1-2 professional achievements

And here’s an example of an impactful resume summary that includes all of the above:

Professional and detail-oriented Technical Writer with 7+ years of experience in writing end-user documentation, specializing in user help guides. Excellent writing, analytical thinking, research, and time management skills. Rewrote over 80% of user help guides for 30+ products at Company X, resulting in a 42% decrease in product-related customer support calls.

#4. Focus on Your Work Experience 

Once you’ve written an attention-grabbing resume summary, you’re ready to write the most important writer resume section - your work experience .

First, let’s address the formatting - here’s how to do it:

• Stick with the reverse-chronological order. To ensure consistency throughout your writer resume, begin with your latest work experience and work your way back.
• Add the job title. Make sure that it accurately describes your former role and avoid using buzzwords . ‘Copywriter’ sounds much more professional than a ‘Keyboard Wizard’.
• Include company details. Only mention key company information, such as name and location. You can also include a brief company description, especially if the latter isn’t a household name.
• Mention the employment period. Use the mm/yyyy format consistently throughout your writer resume.
• Write down your responsibilities and achievements.  Use 5-6 bullet points for recent positions and 2-3 for older roles.

By now, you should have a well-structured work experience section. However, you want your writer resume to stand out and impress the hiring manager. 

Luckily, it isn’t hard  - the key is to focus on your achievements over responsibilities. 

This way, you can show the hiring manager how well you performed in your previous workplaces and how you could benefit their company.

Lastly, follow these tips to bring your work experience section to perfection:

• Customize your work experience section for the position. If you have tons of work experience, only mention the most recent and relevant jobs.
• Use numbers to back up your achievements. Quantifying your achievements helps to really drive the point home (e.g. “Wrote 15 technical manuals” instead of “Wrote technical manuals” ). 
• Use action verbs . Nearly all resumes will include ‘Responsible for…’ . So, to make your work experience section stand out, use action verbs instead (wrote, edited, proofread, collaborated, etc.)

Here’s an example of an impactful work experience section:

Senior Copywriter

Agency X                  

06/2016 - 10/2020

• Developed unique and authentic brand voices for 15+ clients in the fashion, beauty, and health industries.
• Increased 12 landing page conversion rates by an average of 36% in 10 months.
• Helped to boost organic traffic for a fashion website from 500,000 to 2.4 million monthly users in 18 months. 
• Increased product awareness by writing 6 press releases on beauty product launches each year.
• Proofread and edited all projects, including other copywriters’ works, for grammar, consistency, and accuracy.

What If I Don’t Have Work Experience? 

Although the work experience section is by far the most important part of your writer resume, it doesn’t mean that you can’t write a job-landing resume if you lack relevant work experience .

After all, as someone who enjoys writing, you likely have different types of writing experience, even if you haven’t been employed as a writer just yet. 

So, instead of work experience, you can focus on any other writing experience you may have, including:

• Academic projects
• Volunteering
• Internships
• Extracurricular activities
• Personal projects

For example, if you run a blog, make sure to mention it on your writer resume, especially if it has a substantial following.

Here’s what your work experience section could look like if you don’t have work experience:

Soup Kitchen Townhall 

06/2020 - 12/2021

• Wrote a monthly email newsletter mailed to 1,700+ people, including local non-profit organization leaders.
• Interviewed 10+ patrons, board members, and volunteers.
• Wrote 2 press releases for the local newspaper, which enticed 8 new volunteers to join the cause.
• Wrote 3 Facebook posts each week and adapted them for Twitter to promote the soup kitchen.
• Helped to grow the Twitter follower base from 0 to 1,500+ followers in 6 months.

#5. Keep Your Education Section Short

Let’s keep it real - hiring managers care much more about your writing skills and work experience than about your education.

For this reason, you should only mention key education details in your writer resume.  

So, start with your latest degree and list your education details as such:

• Degree Name
• University, college, or other educational institution
• Location (optional)
• Years attended 

Unless you don’t have any higher education (you aren’t alone, by the way - Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury, and George Orwell are just some of the many famous writers that never got a degree ), feel free to swap your high school education details for an additional section to give your resume more flavor.

And here’s an example of a brief and to-the-point education section:

BA in English Language and Literature

University of Essex, England

08/2014 - 07/2018

#6. Add In-Demand Writing Skills 

Besides work experience, the skills section is one of the key sections on your writer resume that shows the hiring manager your abilities. 

For this reason, you want to make it count - and no, that doesn’t mean putting all of your skills on your writer resume. 

In fact, hiring managers highly value customization when assessing your resume, which is why you want to tailor the skills section of your writer resume for the specific position .

For example, if you’re applying to be a technical writer, chances are the hiring manager won’t care much about your rock-solid pitching skills. So, instead, write down skills related to technical writing, such as product knowledge, research, and analytical thinking. 

Here are some more tips that will help you to make the most out of your skills section:

• Include any skills you have that the company is looking for. To prove that you’re a great fit for the position (and an attentive reader), make sure to carefully read the job description. If they mention any skills that apply to you, add them to your writer resume. 
• Research the most in-demand writer skills. If you’re struggling to decide what skills to include, make sure to research what skills are currently most valued in the industry. Alternatively, you can also check our list of 101+ essential skills for some inspiration.
• List your hard and soft skills separately. Splitting your skills section into two allows for more straightforward navigation and makes your writer resume look more organized.

Looking for more ideas on which skills to add to your writer resume?

We’ve got you covered - here’s a list of the 55+ top soft and hard skills for writers to get you started!

55+ Top Writing Skills in 2022 

15 soft writer skills.

• Communication skills
• Time management
• Attention to detail
• Interpersonal skills
• Collaboration
• Strong work ethic
• Active listening
• Organizational skills
• Ability to follow instructions
• Independence
• Stress management
• Adaptability

40 Hard Writer Skills

• Punctuation
• Proofreading
• Wide vocabulary
• Creating outlines
• Interpreting statistics
• Establishing tone
• Identifying audience
• Google Docs
• Content Management Systems (CMS)
• Interviewing
• Note-taking
• Analytical thinking
• Data visualization
• Ethical writing
• Multilingualism
• Creative writing
• Technical writing
• Academic writing
• News writing
• Feature writing
• SEO writing
• Business writing
• Proposal writing
• Dialogue writing
• Sales writing
• Screenwriting
• Storytelling
• Fact-checking
• Product knowledge

#7. Take Advantage of Optional Resume Sections

Do you still have some space left on your writer resume?

Use it to show off your unique professional experience with one or more of these optional resume sections:

• Languages. Make sure to mention any language proficiency in your writer resume, especially if that also means you write in multiple languages.
• Publications. If you’ve published studies, interviews, research papers, or anything else of that sort, include them on your writer resume.
• Associations and organizations. Include your memberships in writers’ associations and organizations as well as your role in them.
• Conferences. List any writing or industry-related conferences in your writer resume to show your interest in the field.
• Awards. If your writing has received recognition and awards, don’t be shy and mention it on your writer resume!

Here’s an example of how to put these optional sections on your writer resume:

• Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting Award (2018)
• International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
• French - Native or Bilingual Proficiency
• English - Professional Working Proficiency
• Danish - Professional Working Proficiency

#8. Attach a Cover Letter to Your Resume 

By now, you’re just one step away from writing a job-landing writer resume - and that last step is to attach a compelling cover letter to it. 

Essentially, a cover letter is somewhat similar to a pitch - the goal is to convince the hiring manager that you are the writer they’ve been looking for.

So, you want to show that you aren’t just a talented writer but you’re also the perfect fit for the company, its vision, and mission. And yeah, that means you’ll have to research the company to get a sense of what exactly they’re looking for. 

Now, as a writer, you shouldn’t have much trouble writing a convincing 4-5 paragraph cover letter, but since “selling” ourselves is often a daunting task, here are some guidelines to get you started:

• Start your cover letter by including your contact information at the very top of the page.
• Next, address the cover letter directly to the hiring manager to set you apart from other candidates who will likely use clichés such as ‘To Whom It May Concern’ as someone who’s done their research.
• Capture the hiring manager’s attention by listing one or two of your top achievements in the first paragraph.
• Use the body of your cover letter to provide more details on your professional background, including anything that you didn’t mention on your writer resume, and express why you strive to work specifically for this company.
• To effectively close your cover letter , add a call to action (e.g. ‘I’m particularly interested in the X project and I’m eager to discuss how I could contribute to it at your earliest convenience.’)
• Lastly, make sure to check out our cover letter writing guides, including cover letter writing tips and cover letter mistakes . 

And here’s a job-winning cover letter example :

Want your cover letter to show your attention to detail? Use our cover letter templates to match it to your writer resume!

Key Takeaways 

And that’s a wrap - by now, you know exactly how to write an effective writer resume (and a convincing cover letter!) to land the job.

Before you put your writing skills to practice, though, let’s go over some of the key points mentioned in this article:

• To emphasize your work experience, choose the ever-popular reverse-chronological resume format.
• Write a powerful resume summary that highlights your years of experience, skills, and achievements to catch the hiring manager’s attention.
• Focus on your achievements to make your work experience section pop and show the recruiter what they can expect if you join their company.
• Add optional sections, such as languages, awards, and associations, to set you apart from your competitors.
• Attaching a compelling cover letter will help you win the job by persuading the hiring manager that you’re the right choice for their company.  

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How to Read a Resume: Tips and Tricks from Recruiting Experts

When it comes to finding the ideal candidate for a job, sifting through resumes can be overwhelming and time-consuming. That's why it's crucial to master the art of reading resumes to identify the perfect fit for your organization. In this guide, we'll explore common mistakes to avoid and provide valuable tips and tricks to help you extract the most insightful information from each candidate's resume.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

There are a number of things you might be doing without even realizing it that are hindering your ability to find the best candidate! For example…

Misjudging Job Changes

One of the most common mistakes recruiters make is misjudging job changes on a candidate's resume. A candidate with frequent job changes might appear unstable, but it's crucial to explore the reasons behind these transitions during the interview. For example, they may have pursued opportunities for growth or sought a better cultural fit.

Misunderstanding the Resume of a Passive Candidate

Passive candidates – those who aren't actively applying to new opportunities – may have a less detailed resume. This is because recruiters typically ask them to put together a resume quickly, as they often don’t have an updated one on hand. It's essential to keep an open mind and focus on their experience rather than the resume's format.

Look at the Experience, Not the Title

Job titles can vary significantly across different companies and industries. Therefore, it's crucial to concentrate on the candidate's responsibilities and achievements rather than their job title. This approach ensures you assess their actual skillset and suitability for the role.

Not Asking Clarifying Questions

Resumes can sometimes be ambiguous, leading to red flags or discrepancies. Don't write off an otherwise great candidate without giving them the chance to explain during the interview. This helps you gain valuable context and clarify any uncertainties.

Having Too Many Requirements

While it’s important to know what you want in an applicant, rigid requirements can unnecessarily limit your candidate pool. Instead, focus on the top three hard skills someone must have to be a fit for the role. It’s important these are not soft skills; resumes may not adequately reflect a candidate’s soft skills, so don’t use these as a vetting tool. By focusing on only the most critical skills, and only on those which a resume will reveal, you can consider a broader range of candidate resumes and increase your chances of finding the perfect match.

Getting Caught Up on Resume Design

It’s important to look past the visual design of the resume and focus on the content. Exceptional candidates may not have the most graphically impressive resume, but they could possess the skills and experience your organization needs to succeed. Remember: most candidates aren’t professional resume designers, and often, we’re asking them to put something together on the fly!

Tips for Reviewing a Resume

Now that you know what to avoid, let’s turn our attention to what you should be looking for when reviewing resumes.

Think of the Resume as CliffsNotes

While a resume provides a snapshot of a candidate's professional journey, it should never serve as the sole basis for a hiring decision. Consider it as the "CliffsNotes" version of their qualifications, and use the interview to dig deeper into their expertise and potential.

Use the Resume to Form Interview Questions

Leverage the information presented on the resume to craft relevant interview questions. If there are aspects you want to explore further or areas where clarification is needed, use the interview to address them!

Read Each Resume with an Open Mind

Avoid forming quick judgments solely based on the candidate's experience on paper. A candidate's experience might not align precisely with the role, but they could bring valuable transferable skills and fresh perspectives to the table!

Don't Get Stuck on the Resume

If you’re on the fence about a candidate's resume, always take the opportunity to schedule an interview! The initial interview will provide you with the clarity needed to make the decision to go forward.

Use Caution When Grading Attention to Detail

While attention to detail is an essential skill, remember that you're evaluating a candidate's ability to perform the job, not their resume-writing capabilities. Look for evidence of their attention to detail through their work experience and achievements. It’s important to keep in mind the role being applied for when evaluating someone’s resume details.

Look at the Work History Holistically

When evaluating a candidate's work history, consider not only the specific positions they held but also the skills and accomplishments they acquired along the way. Soft skills they developed in seemingly unrelated positions might be more valuable than a candidate who ticks all the work history boxes but lacks essential qualities for the role. It also helps to keep growth potential in mind when reviewing a candidate’s work history; visualize where you see them going and how their prior experience can contribute to that path.

Putting it All Together

Mastering the art of reading resumes is crucial for making well-informed hiring decisions. By avoiding common mistakes and following our expert tips, you'll be able to read and assess resumes more quickly and efficiently. You’ll glean valuable information from each candidate's resume and uncover hidden talents that align with your organization's needs. Remember, the resume is just the beginning of the hiring process, and the interview is where you'll gain a comprehensive understanding of the candidate's potential. With this approach, you'll build a winning team that drives your organization toward success. Happy hiring! If you want to talk to one of our experts about having perfect-fit candidates delivered directly to you, click the button below!

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Expert Resume Writing from the Pros with VisualCV’s New and Improved Career Services

Need a hand writing your resume? We’ve got you covered.

The team at VisualCV and WorkStory is excited to announce a brand new Career Services experience. If you’re looking for resume formatting help, a bit of feedback on your resume, or start-to-finish resume writing services, VisualCV can help.

Career Services include:

Professional Resume Writing

Expert resume review, resume accelerator.

Whether you’re an experienced professional making a career change, a recent graduate looking for your first job, or mid-career and seeking a promotion, VisualCV Career Services can help you write a great resume.

• What are Career Services?

VisualCV’s Career Services are resume formatting, writing, and reviews by career experts.

You don’t have to do all the work of building a great new resume by yourself. Our Career Experts can take your old, outdated resume and update it for your next job search, customizing it for your desired role and highlighting all the right skills, experience, and keywords.

Our Career Experts have years of experience in the hiring space, and they know exactly what your resume needs for you to land your next interview. They will take your resume and tailor it to your current job search. If you are struggling with your job search, VisualCV’s Career Services are the best way to get a great resume hand-crafted by someone who understands the job market.

VisualCV now offers three different Career Services to help you land your dream job. Each service can help you at any stage of your career. Our Career Services include:

If you want to get started on your job search quickly without worrying about reformatting your old Word resume, the Resume Accelerator is right for you. You can have a great looking resume by tomorrow, and you don’t have to do a thing.

When you purchase the Resume Accelerator service, our Resume Experts will take your existing resume and make it look great with VisualCV - overnight.

You don’t have to settle for your outdated Word or Pages resume anymore. Simply send us your current resume, and we will make it look great with VisualCV.

How it works

The Resume Accelerator is the best way to get started on your job search. To have your resume redesigned, the process is simple:

• Upload your existing Word or PDF resume

That’s it! Our team will take your resume and make it look great within 48 hours. Your brand new resume will be ready for you in your VisualCV account overnight. Once it’s ready, you can download it, update it, copy it, and more.

Already have a resume, but you’re not sure if it’s ready for prime time? When you purchase a Resume Review , our Resume Experts will carefully analyze your resume and create a 10-minute video with feedback customized for your job search.

If you already have a great resume but you’re not sure what’s needed to make it perfect, a Resume Review can help.

To have your resume reviewed by a Career Expert:

• Submit your existing resume
• Fill out a short questionnaire about your career goals and experience

And that’s all there is to it. A Career Expert will review your resume based on your career objectives. In a few days, you will receive a 10-minute video with specific feedback and recommendations for your resume.

Resume Writing is the best way to get a great resume with the least amount of work. When you purchase Resume Writing, our Resume Experts will write you a brand new resume, customized for your career goals and ready for your next application.

Our resume writers have decades of experience in the hiring space, with full knowledge of what words to use, what templates work best, and what skills and experience you should highlight to land a great job in your industry.

No matter where you are in your career, help from a Career Expert can supercharge your job search. VisualCV’s Resume Writing services are your ticket to your next job.

To have your resume written by a Career Expert:

• Select the Resume Writing service that suits your needs: Starter, Growth, or Expert
• Answer a short questionnaire about your career goals and experience

Our resume writing expert will write your resume based on your current resume and questionnaire responses. If they have any questions, the Career Expert will reach out to you via email.

• The new Career Services dashboard

You can see the progress of your Career Services in the Career Services dashboard. Each service that you have purchased will have its own history and timeline, so you can see exactly how far along it is and whether any action is required.

When you purchase a Resume Writing or Resume Review service, you will be asked to complete a short questionnaire with details about your experience and your career goals. These questions will help your Career Expert understand your job search so they can fine-tune your resume for your needs.

• Land Your Dream Job with VisualCV’s Career Services

Writing a resume is no easy task. Why not leave it to the experts?

If you need any help writing your resume, VisualCV has you covered. Try VisualCV Career Services today!

Community Success Manager & CV Writing Expert

Ben is a writer, customer success manager and CV writing expert with over 5 years of experience helping job-seekers create their best careers. He believes in the importance of a great resume summary and the power of coffee.

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8 expert-recommended online resume writing services to use in 2024

I n the mix of college assignments and perhaps your 9-to-5, piecing together an attractive resume for employers can be a difficult feat.

Not only is this one-pager the bread and butter of what will lead to a first-round interview (fingers crossed!), but it’s an excellent portrayal of your skillset, employment history and unique skills that help a company’s HR department gauge if you’re the right fit.

Let’s cut to the chase — more specifically, let’s answer the question, “ How can I make my application stand out? ” One of the most influential steps is, without a doubt, rendering your resume to tip-top shape. And fortunately, there are online resume services like TopResume and Resumble to help.

• Best Overall: TopResume
• Best Budget: Resume Companion
• Best Optimization for Applicant Tracking Systems: Resumeble
• Best Customizable : Brand Resumes
• Best with Career Consulting: Top Stack Resumes

Whether you’re a senior in college applying for your first full-time job or you’ve been in the biz for years and are looking to segue into a different role, we rounded up the top online resume writing services you can use to help get your application in tip-top shape. Plus, we’ve enlisted Shannon Conklin, director of career and leadership development at The College of New Jersey to help!

Hop to her picks below or check out our FAQ for more details on things to look for when picking the right resume builder for you.

• Packages with unlimited resume revisions
• Free resume review
• 60-day interview guarantee
• Several customers who wrote reviews on Trustpilot mention having poor communication with their resume writers

TopResume is a beloved favorite — and for a good reason. It has four different packages depending on your career goals, some of which include unlimited revisions, a LinkedIn makeover, a cover letter and two interview prep sessions.

“TopResume continues to be a solid option,” Conklin shares. “It has strong descriptions, where the website and interface are easy to navigate to understand its process, its three packages, as well as testimonials.”

She also loves TopResume’s FAQ section, coupled with the various packages, that makes its process clear and timeline. “There is also plenty of mention about AI and ATS technology,” she adds. “If you need a resume quickly, one that accounts for technology, and a budget of only about $150, it looks like this service would be one to strongly consider.”

With TopResume, you’ll also get a 60-day interview guarantee. If you don’t get twice as many interviews, the platform will rewrite your resume for free. It’s pretty top tier, to say the least, and is minimal investment for those hoping to find free resume writing services.

• Self-directed service
• Template-based
• Must renew subscription to edit resume in the future

“Resume Companion is a clean website with a clear message — build a resume quickly!” Conklin highlights. “It offers templates, examples and advice on how to craft a resume, as well as cover letter, as a self-directed service within about 15-minutes.”

What’s more, the service also makes it clear it offers a variety of templates based on industries and functions. “This can really help if you are trying to transition to a new field or your resume needs to be updated to reflect the latest in your industry,” she adds.

With Resume Companion, you’ll be able to build your resume step by step, from selecting a professional template to answering a few simple questions to have your experience and skills added directly to your digital file. Namely, if you’re not much of a writer, you’ll appreciate its pre-written work experience bullet points to craft your resume in minutes and then apply away.

Not to mention, it’s only $8 a month, so if you want a one-and-done service, this one’s your best bet. Keep in mind that you will have to renew your subscription to edit in the future, but it’s a great budget-friendly option to pursue if you don’t want to be completely in the dark.

• 4-day turnover on resume drafts
• Three free revisions with standard resume package
• Only the premium resume package includes a job guarantee

Resumeble not only has a fun name, but it includes a resume and cover letter in its baseline package. If you’d like to upgrade, you can receive a LinkedIn write-up, a second resume version, thank you and follow-up notes and cold emails to recruiters.

“Have you applied to dozens of jobs, only to never get through?” Conklin questions. “If this resonates because your resume is not optimized for ATS platforms, Resumeble might be the choice for you. Mention of ‘ATS,’ as well as their outcomes and ROI, are weaved throughout its site.”

Conklin told The Post that she’s seen many clients apply to dozens and dozens of companies, only to be vetted out due to ATS. “When that happens, I often advise networking to complement a revised, ATS-optimized resume.” she tips off. “This brings me to one other noteworthy element to their various packages, they support your full professional profile; resume to LinkedIn to recruiter communication support.”

For those who want to spend less than $200 for online resume writing services, this all-in-one option is fairly priced, making it one of the best affordable resume writing services. If you’re only looking to refresh your LinkedIn, you’ll just pay a one-time $99 fee. For just your resume, it’s a one-time purchase of $129 for the service.

• Has a self pace job search course
• Helpful step by step resume building guide
• Some customers who reviewed the service on Trustpilot report time delays in receiving their resume

BrandResumes made the cut as one of our top choices for online resume services for a few reasons: it’s one of the platforms best for ATS keyword optimization and formatting for interviews, LinkedIn branding and a customizable interface. If you buy the deluxe package, you’ll have your resume distributed across the 60 top job boards (including industry-specific ones), so you’ll spend less time applying.

“Learning the fundamentals of resume writing is a skill that will carry you throughout your career, and BrandResumes offers courses and resources to accomplish just that,” Conklin highlights. “Once you understand how to format a strong bullet point, or the style you find reflects your story and values, you can start crafting various resumes to appeal to different audiences and fields.”

BrandResumes also offers resources to launch your own resume writing business — a tool that can be valuable for career experts seeking professional resume writing services. “If you’re seeking to dig into how to revamp your resume, or you find yourself (like many in HR or career services) consistently asked to help a friend or family member with their materials, this service will align with your goals,” she adds.

• Pay only after you’re satisfied with resume
• According to TopStack Resume’s site, resume complete takes up to 2 weeks

TopStack Resume is a force to be reckoned with in the career development sphere. Notably, it’s one of the only services to provide career consulting. So, in addition to resume and cover letter formatting, you have the option to partake in one-on-one sessions with a career advisor.

“Five steps is all you need to follow for your resume review by TopStack,” Conklin puts it simply. “The simplicity of this service, and the range of offerings (from a resume for $139 to career consulting for its Premium Package ) can be valuable for any job seeker or career explorer.”

More, if you find yourself in need of more career support, maybe you’re changing fields or returning to work after time off, this is a strong contender. “Be mindful of your budget and timeline, so you take full advantage of a career consultant; a solid service should focus on the process, as much as a strong career outcome,” she adds.

Plus, TopStack Resume is unique in that it has a team of well-qualified writers to ensure your one-pager is the best it can be. At a fair price point, you can always upgrade to add on more benefits in the future.

• Baseline package offers a lot more than competitors, including phone consult, optimized draft and two edits
• Cover and thank-you letters are added to packages at an additional charge

ResumeSpice is ready to add that much-needed spice to your resume. It doesn’t just provide three different package options, but it specifically tells you which one would work best for you. For example, if you have no more than two years in the workforce, you should select its baseline package ($449) that includes a phone consultation, an eye-catching resume format, keyword optimization, a personalized draft, two rounds of revisions based on your feedback and finalized versions in both Microsoft Word and PDF formats.

“Solid service is evident across ResumeSpice, and its focus on Executive Resume stands out from others,” Conklin pinpoints. “If you find yourself wanting to get to that next level in your career, you really do need to consider an executive coach with an eye towards that goal for your materials.”

You might, for example, realize you have decades of experience and unsure where to start to consolidate — Conklin offers. “This is one of the most frequent concerns when making this transition, and a third-party like ResumeSpice can be an invaluable resource and sounding board,” she adds. “Finally, its site is clear in terms of turnaround, which shows they value your time and manage expectations — a positive sign on what you can expect service-wise.”

ResumeSpice offers other à la carte services, too, including cover letter help, LinkedIn profile revamping, interview preparation and career coaching.

• Unlimited revisions
• 5 day delivery
• Some reviewers mention time delays

Craft Resumes has an engaging, user-friendly interface that makes resume-building a fun, less stressful process. With ATS keyword optimization and a dedicated writer on your resume, rest assured that it will be in a healthy state to pass along to recruiters and job posters.

“Craft Resumes cleary focus on the ‘craft’ and design of writing resumes, where a distinguishing factor that caught my eye is their unlimited evaluation ‘at any reason’ for four days,” Conklin says, recommending the service. “This is valuable for job or graduate school seekers and career explorers, as you’ll likely have questions once you find an opportunity of interest.”

Similar to other services here, there is a one-on-one aspect that can be quite valuable, especially if you have the time. “There are also a variety of services and prices, not just resume writing,” she notes. “This is helpful for you budget, and evolving needs. Often times once you get a resume underway you start to realize that you’ll want other materials to be updated and aligned with your personal brand.”

For its most popular package, The Basic, you’ll have access to a single writer and unlimited revisions (which is a score compared to some other services on this list), strong and optimized words, unique formatting and a cover letter to increase your chances of landing an interview. However, Craft Resumes has other great packages worth exploring.

• Consultation included with every package
• Executive Concierge Service that includes 10 days of unlimited revisions
• Quality writers and customer service, based off reviews
• No academic CVs or federal resumes

Humorous name aside, resume service Let’s Eat, Grandma has a laser focus on punctuation (as you can tell because nobody intends to write that they’d like to eat their grandmother on a professional document) — as well as resume formatting. What’s great about this platform, specifically, is its vast packages, ranging from drafting your resume to offering cover letter and networking services to help boost your career trajectory.

“Let’s Eat, Grandma hones in immediately on its ‘custom-tailored’ approach,” Conklin says. “While every resume review should be tailored to account for your story (as mentioned above), it’s clear this is a value of this service. Client outcomes are also front and center, where a mix of employers and schools are listed; this is notable if continuing education is a goal of yours.”

With four packages available, and FAQs on the homepage highlighting its range (i.e. academic, federal government and more), Conklin appreciates how it’s clear that this service is distinguishing themselves from others, especially given the range of specialty materials they can help you create. 

What’s more, you’ll be assisted by a team of highly skilled writers who create targeted documents to help boost your chances of getting an interview. They’ll also speak to your unique strengths — and, therefore, amplify them on your resume — to tie your entire professional portfolio of experience together. They also have a package tailored for executives, making the platform a solid option for those needing executive resume writing services.

The golden question, right? This depends mostly on your career goals. A range of services are available, and many are now even offered through LinkedIn. 

“When considering a resume service, it is important to consider the extent of guidance you are seeking,” Conklin, who’s 15 years of experience in higher education — tells the New York Post.

“Are you overhauling your resume? Are you transitioning industries and need to consider a different format or approach? What are your financial resources to pay for one, or should you explore services offered from your alma mater or current institution if you are a current or graduate of higher education?”

You’ll also want to consider the resume services’ reputation, Conklin suggests: Are there reviews or endorsements of a service, especially if you are paying for one? What is the background, and is the resume service aligned with your industry of interest? 

“It depends on the service and one’s circumstances as to whether it is ‘worth’ paying for the service,” Conklin says. “There are very reputable services out there, especially for more experienced career seekers. If you’re transitioning to a new field, or you are seeking to move to a senior or executive level, it could definitely be worth the cost.”

As a preliminary step, Conklin advises to really make sure you are an informed consumer when considering a resume service, and if you should pay or if you have a network or connections you can leverage for advice first. 

“When an individual pays for a resume service, there may be a flat rate, or it is calculated on an hourly rate and requires at least two sessions,” Conklin explains. “For example, it could cost $150 for a single session.”

However, there are resume services that can significantly exceed that rate and are part of a package that might include a quick return and other support, from LinkedIn to interview coaching, that is over $600, she highlights.

“Your story is the focus of your resume, and it is critical to be honest and reflect on how you want to tell that, ultimately,” Conklin notes. “The order also depends on the stage of your career (early, mid, senior, executive) and the industry you are seeking.”

In academia, for example, you’ll see a curriculum vitae (CV) that is pages long to reflect one’s research, publications, and roles held. In financial services, you would have a one-page resume until you have significant work experience. Or, in the creative fields, you may have a one-page resume and then an online portfolio or website that exhibits your work to complement your resume, she explains.

“No matter the field you are pursuing, you always want to make sure you list your experiences in reverse chronological order, you include your education/training, think of the keywords and skills (and make sure those are prominently displayed and included), and also think of what is most relevant,” she lists. “The most relevant should be at the top.”

It is also key to consider Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), automated review systems that scan resumes as part of an organization’s vetting process. “The format could align or cause issues with an ATS system,” Conklin adds. “This is why it’s important to do your research, leverage any connections you have to gain insights into a field and their preferred format and get advice on keywords, skills and experiences to include.”

“If you do your homework, you should find clues to answer the questions above and guide your resume writing approach,” Conklin shares.

Check out the New York Post Shopping section for more content.

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How Does Writing Fit Into the ‘Science of Reading’?

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In one sense, the national conversation about what it will take to make sure all children become strong readers has been wildly successful: States are passing legislation supporting evidence-based teaching approaches , and school districts are rushing to supply training. Publishers are under pressure to drop older materials . And for the first time in years, an instructional issue—reading—is headlining education media coverage.

In the middle of all that, though, the focus on the “science of reading” has elided its twin component in literacy instruction: writing.

Writing is intrinsically important for all students to learn—after all, it is the primary way beyond speech that humans communicate. But more than that, research suggests that teaching students to write in an integrated fashion with reading is not only efficient, it’s effective.

Yet writing is often underplayed in the elementary grades. Too often, it is separated from schools’ reading block. Writing is not assessed as frequently as reading, and principals, worried about reading-exam scores, direct teachers to focus on one often at the expense of the other. Finally, beyond the English/language arts block, kids often aren’t asked to do much writing in early grades.

“Sometimes, in an early-literacy classroom, you’ll hear a teacher say, ‘It’s time to pick up your pencils,’” said Wiley Blevins, an author and literacy consultant who provides training in schools. “But your pencils should be in your hand almost the entire morning.”

Strikingly, many of the critiques that reading researchers have made against the “balanced literacy” approach that has held sway in schools for decades could equally apply to writing instruction: Foundational writing skills—like phonics and language structure—have not generally been taught systematically or explicitly.

And like the “find the main idea” strategies commonly taught in reading comprehension, writing instruction has tended to focus on content-neutral tasks, rather than deepening students’ connections to the content they learn.

Education Week wants to bring more attention to these connections in the stories that make up this special collection . But first, we want to delve deeper into the case for including writing in every step of the elementary curriculum.

Why has writing been missing from the reading conversation?

Much like the body of knowledge on how children learn to read words, it is also settled science that reading and writing draw on shared knowledge, even though they have traditionally been segmented in instruction.

“The body of research is substantial in both number of studies and quality of studies. There’s no question that reading and writing share a lot of real estate, they depend on a lot of the same knowledge and skills,” said Timothy Shanahan, an emeritus professor of education at the University of Illinois Chicago. “Pick your spot: text structure, vocabulary, sound-symbol relationships, ‘world knowledge.’”

The reasons for the bifurcation in reading and writing are legion. One is that the two fields have typically been studied separately. (Researchers studying writing usually didn’t examine whether a writing intervention, for instance, also aided students’ reading abilities—and vice versa.)

Some scholars also finger the dominance of the federally commissioned National Reading Panel report, which in 2000 outlined key instructional components of learning to read. The review didn’t examine the connection of writing to reading.

Looking even further back yields insights, too. Penmanship and spelling were historically the only parts of writing that were taught, and when writing reappeared in the latter half of the 20th century, it tended to focus on “process writing,” emphasizing personal experience and story generation over other genres. Only when the Common Core State Standards appeared in 2010 did the emphasis shift to writing about nonfiction texts and across subjects—the idea that students should be writing about what they’ve learned.

And finally, teaching writing is hard. Few studies document what preparation teachers receive to teach writing, but in surveys, many teachers say they received little training in their college education courses. That’s probably why only a little over half of teachers, in one 2016 survey, said that they enjoyed teaching writing.

Writing should begin in the early grades

These factors all work against what is probably the most important conclusion from the research over the last few decades: Students in the early-elementary grades need lots of varied opportunities to write.

“Students need support in their writing,” said Dana Robertson, an associate professor of reading and literacy education at the school of education at Virginia Tech who also studies how instructional change takes root in schools. “They need to be taught explicitly the skills and strategies of writing and they need to see the connections of reading, writing, and knowledge development.”

While research supports some fundamental tenets of writing instruction—that it should be structured, for instance, and involve drafting and revising—it hasn’t yet pointed to a specific teaching recipe that works best.

One of the challenges, the researchers note, is that while reading curricula have improved over the years, they still don’t typically provide many supports for students—or teachers, for that matter—for writing. Teachers often have to supplement with additions that don’t always mesh well with their core, grade-level content instruction.

“We have a lot of activities in writing we know are good,” Shanahan said. “We don’t really have a yearlong elementary-school-level curriculum in writing. That just doesn’t exist the way it does in reading.”

Nevertheless, practitioners like Blevins work writing into every reading lesson, even in the earliest grades. And all the components that make up a solid reading program can be enhanced through writing activities.

4 Key Things to Know About How Reading and Writing Interlock

Want a quick summary of what research tells us about the instructional connections between reading and writing?

1. Reading and writing are intimately connected.

Research on the connections began in the early 1980s and has grown more robust with time.

Among the newest and most important additions are three research syntheses conducted by Steve Graham, a professor at the University of Arizona, and his research partners. One of them examined whether writing instruction also led to improvements in students’ reading ability; a second examined the inverse question. Both found significant positive effects for reading and writing.

A third meta-analysis gets one step closer to classroom instruction. Graham and partners examined 47 studies of instructional programs that balanced both reading and writing—no program could feature more than 60 percent of one or the other. The results showed generally positive effects on both reading and writing measures.

2. Writing matters even at the earliest grades, when students are learning to read.

Studies show that the prewriting students do in early education carries meaningful signals about their decoding, spelling, and reading comprehension later on. Reading experts say that students should be supported in writing almost as soon as they begin reading, and evidence suggests that both spelling and handwriting are connected to the ability to connect speech to print and to oral language development.

3. Like reading, writing must be taught explicitly.

Writing is a complex task that demands much of students’ cognitive resources. Researchers generally agree that writing must be explicitly taught—rather than left up to students to “figure out” the rules on their own.

There isn’t as much research about how precisely to do this. One 2019 review, in fact, found significant overlap among the dozen writing programs studied, and concluded that all showed signs of boosting learning. Debates abound about the amount of structure students need and in what sequence, such as whether they need to master sentence construction before moving onto paragraphs and lengthier texts.

But in general, students should be guided on how to construct sentences and paragraphs, and they should have access to models and exemplars, the research suggests. They also need to understand the iterative nature of writing, including how to draft and revise.

A number of different writing frameworks incorporating various degrees of structure and modeling are available, though most of them have not been studied empirically.

4. Writing can help students learn content—and make sense of it.

Much of reading comprehension depends on helping students absorb “world knowledge”—think arts, ancient cultures, literature, and science—so that they can make sense of increasingly sophisticated texts and ideas as their reading improves. Writing can enhance students’ content learning, too, and should be emphasized rather than taking a back seat to the more commonly taught stories and personal reflections.

Graham and colleagues conducted another meta-analysis of nearly 60 studies looking at this idea of “writing to learn” in mathematics, science, and social studies. The studies included a mix of higher-order assignments, like analyses and argumentative writing, and lower-level ones, like summarizing and explaining. The study found that across all three disciplines, writing about the content improved student learning.

If students are doing work on phonemic awareness—the ability to recognize sounds—they shouldn’t merely manipulate sounds orally; they can put them on the page using letters. If students are learning how to decode, they can also encode—record written letters and words while they say the sounds out loud.

And students can write as they begin learning about language structure. When Blevins’ students are mainly working with decodable texts with controlled vocabularies, writing can support their knowledge about how texts and narratives work: how sentences are put together and how they can be pulled apart and reconstructed. Teachers can prompt them in these tasks, asking them to rephrase a sentence as a question, split up two sentences, or combine them.

“Young kids are writing these mile-long sentences that become second nature. We set a higher bar, and they are fully capable of doing it. We can demystify a bit some of that complex text if we develop early on how to talk about sentences—how they’re created, how they’re joined,” Blevins said. “There are all these things you can do that are helpful to develop an understanding of how sentences work and to get lots of practice.”

As students progress through the elementary grades, this structured work grows more sophisticated. They need to be taught both sentence and paragraph structure , and they need to learn how different writing purposes and genres—narrative, persuasive, analytical—demand different approaches. Most of all, the research indicates, students need opportunities to write at length often.

Using writing to support students’ exploration of content

Reading is far more than foundational skills, of course. It means introducing students to rich content and the specialized vocabulary in each discipline and then ensuring that they read, discuss, analyze, and write about those ideas. The work to systematically build students’ knowledge begins in the early grades and progresses throughout their K-12 experience.

Here again, available evidence suggests that writing can be a useful tool to help students explore, deepen, and draw connections in this content. With the proper supports, writing can be a method for students to retell and analyze what they’ve learned in discussions of content and literature throughout the school day —in addition to their creative writing.

This “writing to learn” approach need not wait for students to master foundational skills. In the K-2 grades especially, much content is learned through teacher read-alouds and conversation that include more complex vocabulary and ideas than the texts students are capable of reading. But that should not preclude students from writing about this content, experts say.

“We do a read-aloud or a media piece and we write about what we learned. It’s just a part of how you’re responding, or sharing, what you’ve learned across texts; it’s not a separate thing from reading,” Blevins said. “If I am doing read-alouds on a concept—on animal habitats, for example—my decodable texts will be on animals. And students are able to include some of these more sophisticated ideas and language in their writing, because we’ve elevated the conversations around these texts.”

In this set of stories , Education Week examines the connections between elementary-level reading and writing in three areas— encoding , language and text structure , and content-area learning . But there are so many more examples.

Please write us to share yours when you’ve finished.

Want to read more about the research that informed this story? Here’s a bibliography to start you off.

Berninger V. W., Abbott, R. D., Abbott, S. P., Graham S., & Richards T. (2002). Writing and reading: Connections between language by hand and language by eye. J ournal of Learning Disabilities. Special Issue: The Language of Written Language, 35(1), 39–56 Berninger, Virginia, Robert D. Abbott, Janine Jones, Beverly J. Wolf, Laura Gould, Marci Anderson-Younstrom, Shirley Shimada, Kenn Apel. (2006) “Early development of language by hand: composing, reading, listening, and speaking connections; three letter-writing modes; and fast mapping in spelling.” Developmental Neuropsychology, 29(1), pp. 61-92 Cabell, Sonia Q, Laura S. Tortorelli, and Hope K. Gerde (2013). “How Do I Write…? Scaffolding Preschoolers’ Early Writing Skills.” The Reading Teacher, 66(8), pp. 650-659. Gerde, H.K., Bingham, G.E. & Wasik, B.A. (2012). “Writing in Early Childhood Classrooms: Guidance for Best Practices.” Early Childhood Education Journal 40, 351–359 (2012) Gilbert, Jennifer, and Steve Graham. (2010). “Teaching Writing to Elementary Students in Grades 4–6: A National Survey.” The Elementary School Journal 110(44) Graham, Steve, et al. (2017). “Effectiveness of Literacy Programs Balancing Reading and Writing Instruction: A Meta-Analysis.” Reading Research Quarterly, 53(3) pp. 279–304 Graham, Steve, and Michael Hebert. (2011). “Writing to Read: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Writing and Writing Instruction on Reading.” Harvard Educational Review (2011) 81(4): 710–744. Graham, Steve. (2020). “The Sciences of Reading and Writing Must Become More Fully Integrated.” Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1) pp. S35–S44 Graham, Steve, Sharlene A. Kiuhara, and Meade MacKay. (2020).”The Effects of Writing on Learning in Science, Social Studies, and Mathematics: A Meta-Analysis.” Review of Educational Research April 2020, Vol 90, No. 2, pp. 179–226 Shanahan, Timothy. “History of Writing and Reading Connections.” in Shanahan, Timothy. (2016). “Relationships between reading and writing development.” In C. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (2nd ed., pp. 194–207). New York, NY: Guilford. Slavin, Robert, Lake, C., Inns, A., Baye, A., Dachet, D., & Haslam, J. (2019). “A quantitative synthesis of research on writing approaches in grades 2 to 12.” London: Education Endowment Foundation. Troia, Gary. (2014). Evidence-based practices for writing instruction (Document No. IC-5). Retrieved from University of Florida, Collaboration for Effective Educator, Development, Accountability, and Reform Center website: http://ceedar.education.ufl.edu/tools/innovation-configuration/ Troia, Gary, and Steve Graham. (2016).“Common Core Writing and Language Standards and Aligned State Assessments: A National Survey of Teacher Beliefs and Attitudes.” Reading and Writing 29(9).

A version of this article appeared in the January 25, 2023 edition of Education Week as How Does Writing Fit Into the ‘Science of Reading’?

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ChatGPT vs. Microsoft Copilot vs. Gemini: Which is the best AI chatbot?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed how we work and play  in recent months, giving almost anyone the ability to write code , create art , and even make investments . For professional and hobbyist users alike, generative AI tools, such as  ChatGPT , offer advanced capabilities to create decent-quality content from a simple user prompt. 

Keeping up with all the latest AI tools can get confusing, especially as Microsoft added  GPT-4 to Bing Chat  and renamed it to Copilot, OpenAI added new capabilities to ChatGPT and released GPT-4o , and Google plugged Bard   into its ecosystem  and rebranded the chatbot as Gemini .

Also: How to use ChatGPT (and how to access GPT-4o)

Knowing which of the three most popular AI chatbots is best to write code , generate text , or help build resumes is challenging. Let's break down the biggest differences so you can choose the one that best meets your needs. 

Testing ChatGPT vs. Microsoft Copilot vs. Gemini

To help determine which AI chatbot gives more accurate answers, I'm going to use a simple prompt to compare them: 

"I have 5 oranges today, I ate 3 oranges last week. How many oranges do I have left?"

The answer should be five, as the number of oranges I ate last week doesn't affect the number of oranges I have today. First up, ChatGPT.

You should use ChatGPT if...

1. you want the most advanced ai chatbot for free.

OpenAI lets users access ChatGPT , powered by its GPT-3.5 and the GPT-4o models, for free with a registered account. If you're willing to pay for the Plus version, you can access GPT-4, use a higher prompt limit for GPT-4o, and get early access to new features for $20 per month.

ChatGPT with GPT-4o, available for free users, answered the question correctly. 

GPT-4o is a new multimodal model available to free and paying ChatGPT users. Rather than relying on three separate models to power its features -- GPT-4 for text, DALL-E 3 for images, and Whisper for voice -- ChatGPT now uses GPT-4o to process and generate text, images, and sounds. This makes it faster than GPT-4 for paying ChatGPT subscribers, and just as good for ChatGPT users who don't want to pay.

Aside from giving free ChatGPT users access to the latest GPT-4o model, the startup also announced that free users now get most of the features that until now were exclusive to ChatGPT Plus users. These include web browsing, access to custom GPTs, ChatGPT Memory, and advanced data analysis.

2. You want to try the most popular AI chatbot

OpenAI released a widespread preview of  ChatGPT  in November 2022. Since then, the AI chatbot quickly gained over 100 million users and has been at the center of  controversies , especially as people uncover its potential to  do schoolwork  and replace some work across industries.

Also: ChatGPT will put your data into interactive tables and charts with GPT-4o

Since its release, I've been testing ChatGPT almost daily. Although its user interface has remained simple, minor changes have greatly improved the tool, including GPT-4o for free users,  Custom Instructions , and easier access to accounts.

The free version of ChatGPT using the default GPT-3.5 model gave the wrong answer to our question.

Although ChatGPT has proven to be a valuable AI tool, it can be prone to  misinformation . Like other large language models (LLMs), GPT-3.5 is imperfect, as it is trained on human-created data up to January 2022. It also often fails to comprehend nuances, like it did with our math question example, which it answered incorrectly by saying we have two oranges left, when the answer should be five.

Also: I put GPT-4o through my coding tests and it aced them - except for one weird result

The GPT-4o model answered the math question correctly, having understood the full context of the problem from beginning to end.

Next, let's consider Microsoft Copilot , which is a great way to access GPT-4 for free.

You should use Microsoft Copilot if...

1. you want to use gpt-4 for free.

Although the free version of ChatGPT lets you use GPT-4o, access to free users is limited to about 15 messages every three hours or capped depending on peak hours, to keep it accessible to more people. After reaching your GPT-4o limit, your chat session reverts to GPT-3.5, limited to generating conversational text and information only until January 2022.

Also:  How to use Copilot (formerly called Bing Chat)

Meanwhile, Copilot can access the internet to deliver more current information than GPT-3.5, complete with links to sources.

Copilot's Creative conversation style was the only Copilot mode to answer the question accurately.

There are other benefits, too. Copilot is powered by GPT-4, OpenAI's LLM, and is completely free. Unfortunately, you are limited to five responses per conversation and can only enter up to 4,000 characters in each prompt. Copilot will eventually get GPT-4o built-in, but Microsoft hasn't made this update widely available, yet.

Also: Microsoft Copilot vs. Copilot Pro: Is the subscription fee worth it?

Copilot's user interface is a bit more cluttered than ChatGPT's, but it's still easy to navigate. While Copilot can access the internet to give you more up-to-date results compared to ChatGPT powered by GPT-3.5, I've found it is more prone to stalling before replying and will miss more prompts than its competitor.

2. You prefer more visual features

Microsoft has upgraded its platform several times to add visual features to Copilot, formerly Bing Chat. At this point, you can ask Copilot questions like, "What is a Tasmanian devil?" and get a response complete with photos, lifespan, diet, and more, for a more scannable result that is easier to digest than a wall of text. 

You can also ask Copilot to generate images for you. Give Copilot a description of what you want the image to look like, and the chatbot will generate four images for you to choose from. 

Also: How to use Image Creator from Microsoft Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator)

Microsoft Copilot features different conversational styles, including Creative, Balanced, and Precise, which alter how light or straightforward the interactions are.

The Balanced and Precise conversation styles in Microsoft Copilot answered my question inaccurately.

Finally, let's turn to Google's Gemini, formerly known as Bard. It uses Google's own LLM, also named Gemini, and has received considerable upgrades in the past few months.

You should use Gemini if...

1. you want a fast, almost unlimited experience.

In my time testing different AI chatbots, I saw  Google Bard catch a lot of flack for different shortcomings . While I'm not going to say they're unjustified, I will say that Google's AI chatbot, now named Gemini and powered by a completely different AI model than the one it debuted with, has improved greatly.

Also: How to use Gemini (formerly Google Bard): Everything you should know

Gemini gives speedy answers, which have become more accurate over time. It's not faster than ChatGPT Plus, but it can be faster at giving responses than Copilot and faster than the free GPT-3.5 version of ChatGPT, though your mileage may vary. 

Gemini answered accurately, like GPT-4o and Copilot's Creative conversation style.

Bard used to make the same mistake as other chatbots for my example math problem by incorrectly using the 5 - 3 = 2 formula, but Gemini, powered by Google's new Gemini Pro -- the company's largest LLM -- now answers the question accurately.

Also: Copilot Pro vs. ChatGPT Plus: Which is AI chatbot is worth your $20 a month?

Gemini is also not limited to a set number of responses. You can have long conversations with Google's Gemini, unlike with Copilot, which is limited to five replies in one conversation. Even ChatGPT Plus limits users to 40 messages every three hours. 

2. You want the full Google experience

Google also incorporates more visual elements into its Gemini platform than those currently available in Copilot. Users can generate images using Gemini, upload photos through an integration with Google Lens , and enjoy Kayak, OpenTable, Instacart, and Wolfram Alpha plugins.

Also: 6 AI tools to supercharge your work and everyday life

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A Running Mate’s History: $1 Billion, Cocaine, a Fling With Elon Musk

Nicole Shanahan, a lawyer who was married to Sergey Brin, a Google founder, led a rarefied and sometimes turbulent life in Silicon Valley, according to a Times examination.

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By Kirsten Grind

Reporting from Oakland, Calif., and San Francisco

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was considering potential running mates for his presidential run, his shortlist was initially topped by two well-known men with unusual résumés: Aaron Rodgers, the N.F.L. quarterback and frequent purveyor of conspiracy theories , and Jesse Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota and professional wrestler known as “The Body.”

Instead, Mr. Kennedy made a surprise pick — a woman and a little-known figure with an unusual background: Nicole Shanahan .

Ms. Shanahan, 38, a onetime Silicon Valley lawyer, has never held public office and has scant name recognition. But she was selected after Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Ventura fell through as vice-presidential candidates and Mr. Kennedy’s campaign needed money to fund its efforts to get onto state ballots, three people familiar with the events said. And money was something that Ms. Shanahan could provide in abundance.

Ms. Shanahan has a fortune of more than $1 billion that stems largely from her divorce settlement last year with Sergey Brin , a founder of Google, whose net worth exceeds $145 billion , three people with knowledge of her finances said. During their five-year marriage, Ms. Shanahan partied with Silicon Valley’s elite and used recreational drugs including cocaine, ketamine and psychedelic mushrooms, according to eight people and documents reviewed by The New York Times. Ms. Shanahan and Mr. Brin separated after she had a sexual encounter with Elon Musk in 2021, three of the people said.

The incidents were part of a rarefied — and sometimes turbulent — life that Ms. Shanahan led in the nation’s tech capital before her turn to politics, according to interviews with more than 20 people who know her or were briefed on her actions, as well as property records, court documents, tax records, emails and other messages reviewed by The Times. Many of the details of her life, including those of her divorce settlement, have not been reported.

“Status is very important to Nicole, and the amount of money you have,” said Daniel Morris, a photographer based in Puerto Rico who was friends with Ms. Shanahan and her first husband, Jeremy Kranz, a technology investor.

On the campaign trail, Ms. Shanahan has depicted herself as a hardworking former entrepreneur and lawyer, a success story who once needed food stamps and a unifier who can heal a divided America. But she has omitted and embellished parts of her history, including aspects of her relationship with Mr. Brin, to make herself appear more relatable, according to the people who know her and documents reviewed by The Times.

In a February interview with The Times, Ms. Shanahan described herself as a onetime “Silicon Valley princess.” In response to questions for this article, she texted: “I’m shocked the NYT is letting you run something like this.” The Kennedy campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment. Ms. Shanahan has publicly denied having an affair with Mr. Musk.

Mr. Musk, his lawyer and a spokeswoman for Mr. Brin did not return requests for comment.

Mr. Kennedy, who is running as an independent, picked Ms. Shanahan without his advisers having looked fully into her history or where her money was coming from, two people familiar with the campaign said. By then, she had already become a crucial financier of his run.

Ms. Shanahan, who has said she is a vaccine skeptic like Mr. Kennedy, funded a Super Bowl ad for Mr. Kennedy this year through a $4 million donation to a super PAC, American Values 2024. In March, she infused Mr. Kennedy’s campaign with an additional $2 million. Last week, she said she had given an additional $8 million .

Their ticket has secured a place on the presidential ballot in Michigan, a swing state, as well as in five other states. Mr. Kennedy has enough signatures to reach the ballot in seven additional states, his campaign has said, potentially putting him and Ms. Shanahan in a position to tip the November election.

Ms. Shanahan is “exactly the right person,” Mr. Kennedy said when he announced her as his running mate in March. He called her a “fierce warrior mom” who “overcame every daunting obstacle and went on to achieve the highest levels of the American dream.”

A Yoga Festival

On the campaign trail, Ms. Shanahan, who grew up in Oakland, Calif., has said she knew what it was like to be “one misfortune away from disaster. ”

Her father, Shawn Shanahan, couldn’t hold down a job, was diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia when she was 9 years old and died in 2014, she has said. Her family struggled, Ms. Shanahan has said, needing food stamps and government assistance.

Ms. Shanahan obtained an athletic scholarship to attend Saint Mary’s College High School, a private Catholic school in Berkeley, Calif., according to the Kennedy campaign website. The school, which charges about $24,000 a year for tuition, confirmed that Ms. Shanahan had been a student but said it had never offered scholarships. Ms. Shanahan received some tuition assistance, the school said, but it declined to say how much.

Ms. Shanahan graduated from the University of Puget Sound in 2007, working at a Seattle law firm around the same time. She later worked at RPX, a patent firm, and in 2013, she founded ClearAccess IP, a patent tech company, according to her LinkedIn profile. She completed a law degree at the Santa Clara University School of Law in 2014.

Adam Philipp, the founder and managing partner of Aeon Law, the Seattle law firm where Ms. Shanahan worked, said he was impressed when she applied to be a paralegal in 2006. “She had a willingness to learn and an abundance of common sense,” he said.

In 2011, Ms. Shanahan began dating Mr. Kranz, a tech investor in San Francisco. She told people that she had converted to Judaism during that time for the relationship. Mr. Kranz bought a $2.7 million penthouse with views of San Francisco about a month before their wedding in August 2014, according to property records.

That July, Ms. Shanahan met Mr. Brin at a yoga festival in Lake Tahoe, Calif., four people with knowledge of the events said. He had recently separated from Anne Wojcicki, his wife at the time. Mr. Brin and Ms. Shanahan embarked on an affair weeks before her wedding to Mr. Kranz, the people said.

Mr. Kranz discovered the relationship several days after he married Ms. Shanahan when he saw texts between her and Mr. Brin on her phone, they said. He filed to annul the marriage 27 days after the wedding, court records show.

Mr. Kranz planned to list fraud as a reason for the annulment, the people said. But Ms. Shanahan was concerned that a fraud claim would jeopardize her ability to practice law. While negotiating with Mr. Kranz about their split, she threatened to harm herself, three people said.

Instead of an annulment, Mr. Kranz agreed to a divorce without making a fraud claim. As part of their settlement, Ms. Shanahan was required to remove any evidence of Mr. Kranz from her social media accounts and pay him $20,000 in partial wedding costs and legal fees, court records show. Mr. Kranz did not respond to a request for comment.

In an interview with People magazine last year, Ms. Shanahan said she started dating Mr. Brin in 2015. She recounted wandering Stanford University’s campus with the billionaire and discussing quantum physics.

“I was living in a fairy tale,” she said. “It was magical.”

Becoming a Philanthropist

Mr. Brin became Ms. Shanahan’s entryway to the tech industry’s upper echelons. The couple traveled the world, took trips on Mr. Brin’s yachts and stayed in the most elite camps at Burning Man, the countercultural annual festival in the Nevada desert.

They married in 2018 and had a daughter, Echo, that same year. They owned properties in Lake Tahoe; Los Altos, Calif.; Montana; and Malibu, Calif., where Ms. Shanahan now spends much of her time.

In 2019, Ms. Shanahan began building a foundation, Bia-Echo, named for her daughter, that focuses on criminal justice and fertility longevity. (Ms. Shanahan has said she struggled to become pregnant.) She used more than $20 million from Mr. Brin for the effort, according to tax documents.

To raise her profile, Ms. Shanahan hired Matthew Hiltzik, a publicist who has worked with Katie Couric and other high-profile women. Her goal was to become a famous philanthropist like MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, four people familiar with Ms. Shanahan’s plans said.

In 2020, Ms. Shanahan sold ClearAccess IP to IPwe, a patent technology firm, in exchange for IPwe stock that was valued at more than $10 million, two people familiar with the deal said. IPwe filed for bankruptcy this year.

Around the time of the sale, Ms. Shanahan and Mr. Brin learned that Echo was autistic. Ms. Shanahan has said the diagnosis made her question the use of childhood vaccines. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says childhood vaccines are safe.

In 2021, she paid more than $200,000 for a lifestyle photographer to take her photos for a San Francisco Magazine article called “Nicole Shanahan Is Fighting the Good Fight,” according to documents viewed by The Times. Ms. Shanahan was photographed in the country with horses, talking about her goals of creating a healthy and livable planet.

In the article, Ms. Shanahan said she had been sexually assaulted by an unnamed male co-worker while working for RPX. The episode caused her to sink into a severe depression and ultimately give up law, she said.

Daniel McCurdy, the chief executive of RPX, said in a statement that the company hadn’t been informed of the claim before the article was published, and that it had engaged a law firm to conduct an investigation. It was inconclusive, he said.

A Marriage Crumbles

Mr. Brin and Ms. Shanahan found the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns challenging, three people close to the couple said. Among other things, they struggled with their daughter’s autism diagnosis, the people said.

Ms. Shanahan began going out more without Mr. Brin, according to five people and documents viewed by The Times. At a party in early 2021 in Miami, Ms. Shanahan was so intoxicated by drugs and alcohol that she required an IV infusion, the documents show.

That fall, Ms. Shanahan threw a Studio 54-themed birthday party for herself at a New York club. Mr. Musk, a longtime friend of Mr. Brin’s, attended. In December 2021, Ms. Shanahan saw Mr. Musk again at a private party in Miami that his brother, Kimbal Musk, was hosting in connection with the Art Basel festival.

At that party, Elon Musk and Ms. Shanahan took ketamine, a popular party drug that is legal with a prescription, and disappeared together for several hours, according to four people briefed on the event and documents related to it. Ms. Shanahan later told Mr. Brin that she had had sex with Mr. Musk, three of the people said. She also relayed the details to friends, family and advisers.

Mr. Brin and Ms. Shanahan separated about two weeks after the party, and he filed for divorce the next year, citing “irreconcilable differences,” according to court documents.

In 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported Ms. Shanahan’s encounter with Mr. Musk. Mr. Musk and Ms. Shanahan have denied an affair.

In her interview with People last year, Ms. Shanahan said she and Mr. Musk had been talking about her daughter’s autism treatment that night. She also said it was humiliating to be known for a sexual act and called a cheater.

Ms. Shanahan and Mr. Brin took nearly 18 months to reach a divorce settlement, according to court records. During that time, she threatened to harm herself, two people briefed on the matter said. Their divorce became final last year.

Into Politics

For years, Ms. Shanahan donated to Democrats, according to donor filings. In 2020, she gave $25,000 to a political action committee backing President Biden. Then last year, she gave $6,600 to Mr. Kennedy — the maximum allowed for an individual contributor — when he was running as a Democrat for the presidential nomination.

In her February interview with The Times, Ms. Shanahan said she had initially been disappointed when Mr. Kennedy announced that he would run as an independent. But she began to pour money into his campaign, including the Super Bowl ad, which showed images of Mr. Kennedy superimposed on those of the 1960 presidential campaign of his uncle John F. Kennedy. At the time, Ms. Shanahan had spoken to Mr. Kennedy once and had never met him, she said.

In March, Ms. Shanahan and her new partner, Jacob Strumwasser, met Mr. Kennedy and his wife, Cheryl Hines, for dinner. During the meal, Mr. Strumwasser, who has worked in the crypto industry, suggested Ms. Shanahan for the vice president’s job, she said in a podcast this month with Sage Steele, a former ESPN anchor. Mr. Kennedy liked Ms. Shanahan’s story, people familiar with the campaign said.

In recent weeks, Ms. Shanahan has largely scrubbed her social media feeds, two people familiar with her and the Kennedy campaign said. Her social accounts are now populated with shots of herself without makeup at a farmers’ market as well as wearing Western gear and posing with rifles in Texas with Mr. Strumwasser. In the past, her feeds showed her dressed up for high-end events and posing for selfies.

Ms. Shanahan began attending campaign events with Mr. Kennedy this month. At a fund-raiser in Nashville last week, she announced that she had given another $8 million to the campaign and said, “I think I know what they’re going to say — they’re going to say Bobby only picked me for my money.”

Her remark drew laughter from the crowd.

Rebecca Davis O’Brien contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Kirsten Grind is an investigative business reporter writing stories about companies, chief executives and billionaires across Silicon Valley and the technology industry. More about Kirsten Grind

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