In this round of “Is it worth a damn?” we will look at Zety.
Zety claims to be the ultimate career toolbox that can fix your career.
They also claim to “be the best online resume builder and provide free professional advice from career experts.” And also claim to “guide [users] through the entire recruitment process all the way to [their] dream job.”
These are bold statements…
Quick History
Let’s start with a brief history lesson. Zety initially launched as InterviewMe.pl in 2014 and were devoted to Polish speaking users.
Eventually the team decided to branch out with an English language site in 2016 and rebranded as uptowork. Eventually they landed on Zety as the finally branding in 2018.
From launch, the Zety team “went from the classic built-in-a-garage startup to a thriving business employing over 120 staff members and used by 100+ million people at its peak.” (tech.eu)
All of the hard work paid off, as Zety were acquired by Bold, LLC in 2019 for an undisclosed amount. Under Bold, LLC’s ownership, Zety continues to see tens of millions of site visits a year.
Revenue Generation and Pricing Structure
Zety’s revenue generation is straightforward–SaaS with the following options:
14-day trial: $2.70
12-month subscription: $71.40 ($5.95/month)
(For the record, the “2,342 people have used the 14-day trial in the last 24 hours” claim is false. The number never changes on this page. I noticed this after visiting the page multiple times over a week.)
I truly thought the trial plan was required because I didn’t see how to change plans. The faint check boxes in the upper left corner of the 14-day access card and in the upper right corner of the Monthly Access card, allowed me to toggle between the two options though.
What struck me as fishy is that the monthly access price is being discounted by 77% but there’s no monthly subscription option.
Well, have I some news for you. Post 14-day trial, subscribers move into a monthly plan which is $23.70 a month.
Zety Marketing
If you’ve Googled “resumes” or “cover letters,” Zety has probably popped up in search results. At the time of writing, Zety ranked #6 for the search term “resume” on Google.
These folks are content marketing machines. It’s hard to say how much traffic they generate from search, but certainly 10’s of millions of page views can be attributed to search engine optimization and their content marketing efforts. Nice work!
Social media, well, it is not really their thing. They post regularly, but that’s the extent of engagement. Here’s their follower breakdown:
LinkedIn: 6,987 followers
Facebook: 29,320 followers
Twitter: 1,478 followers
Sign Up Process
The sign up process is frictionless. Basically, you just select one of Zety’s 18 resume templates and then select to upload an existing resume or create a new one.
Both options lead you to a personal information page which needs completed before really accessing the full resume builder app.
Overall, things are super easy!
But is it too easy…?
Product Experience
From what I can tell, Zety offers 18 resume templates, all of which are 2 column “modern” layouts. I like modern resumes layouts but it would be nice having some traditional, single column options. Some also claim that ATS software favors single column resumes as well. (Hiration).
Filling in resume details is simple. And great news, if you have an existing resume, it can be uploaded and Zety does a pretty good job of parsing out the text into appropriate fields.
If you’re not starting with an existing resume, follow the prompts and fill in details. Zety helps fill in job details by recommending bullet points. The bullets provide a good starting point but they are not very results oriented. Soft skills galore.
Formatting is rather flexible using Zety’s resume builder. New sections can be added to the layout and moved around. For example, I moved “Education” to the very end so my professional certifications would appear after “Work History.” Reordering sections is easy but a bit clunky since you have to view the entire resume while dragging and dropping sections. Would be easy if you could move sections in the “Resume Sections” column on the left.
Additional formatting controls include font size and style, spacing, margins, and header size. If you’re goal is to keep your resume at 1-page, these settings will help optimize the layout.
As a new user, once you’ve created a resume and hit the Save and Next button, you’ll be prompted to create an account password and then “Finalize” your resume. Proceeding to finalize is when the app’s paywall appears for the first time.
If you continue to stay the course with Zety, all features on the account dashboard become available. Namely the secondary menu options on the dashboard page.
The “Improve my resume” (Strength score) feature is okay for simple things but is faulty. For example, it missed some capitalization inconsistencies in the skills section and docks points for not using Zety’s Expert Recommended bullet points.
The “Online Resume” is a nice feature as it can be synced to a specific resume and gives you a URL to share. Since it is possible to manage multiple resumes on Zety, you can decide which resumes have online versions simply by toggling the option in the My Resumes section. Templates and other design options are available for online resumes and some tracking metrics are available.
“Search for jobs” feature doesn’t really provide a ton of value in its current form. It seems like a job title is pulled from a resume/account and is passed as a parameter to the job board you click on. Great, I don’t have to type a job title into ZipRecruiter.
Zety’s own job board leaves much to be desired. This is accessible by using the search box on the “Search for Jobs” page or via “Jobs” in the main navigation bar. Searching for “Digital Marketing Manager” yields some expected results, but also includes a manager role at Panera Bread. Once I saw this, I decided using an external job board might be best.
A Chrome extension is offered to aid job searching. The extension evaluates your resume against the job description, provides a match score and allows you to save the job posting to Zety. This triggers an interesting workflow called Smart Apply, where Zety prompts you to tailor your resume and cover letter based on the job description. The tailoring is minimal but serves as a nudge to be more thoughtful.
Finally, cover letters, everyone’s favorite. I actually didn’t mind Zety’s wizard style cover letter creator. Select a template; answer a few questions related to Skills & Strengths, Experience, and Working Style; and then preview the cover letter. The cover letter provided isn’t perfect but it’s at least a starting point. My chief complaint is that you have to guess which cover letter template matches your resume. Perhaps others remember the template name, but I for one did not.
Here’s the resulting resume and cover letter, both of which I could download as a PDF, DOCx, or TXT.
Customer Support
Support offered is centered around account and technical issues which makes sense. Support options are limited to phone support, contact forms, and a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.
Self-service support is limited to the small aforementioned FAQ, so expect to use phone or contact form support for complex issues.
User reviews
Zety is clocking in at 4.2/5 (3644 reviews) on Trustpilot which is pretty good, er “great” according to Trustpilot.
The 5-star reviews are enthusiastic and are from people who have little to no experience in creating resumes. Reviewers found the creation process to be simple and were satisfied with the resulting resumes and cover letters.
The 1-star reviews are mostly about pricing transparency and subscription auto-renewals. The lack of pricing transparency prior to signing up is frustrating. Users are likely spending hours working on a resume before discovering the cost. Short term access is relatively cheap which makes this less annoying but it would be useful to better clarify pricing details.
I’d imagine users are signing up rather hastily, having spent time creating a resume, and are failing to read the fine print. Once day 14 hits, they “unexpectedly” receive a receipt for a monthly subscription which results in RAGE.
Final Thoughts
The resume building experience of Zety is easy enough and could be useful to people new to the workforce or in need of a resume facelift.
There is still something predatory about Zety’s user acquisition. The sign up process is frictionless and new users are quickly thrown into the resume builder, where they spend hours writing a resume, and then discover the cost and eventual monthly subscription. It just doesn’t sit right.
If you need a resume and don’t know where to start, I think Zety could work well. Take some time to click through the application and review the available templates. If it works well for you, complete the resume creation process and sign up for the 14-day trial. It’s cheap enough and within 14 days you could have a few resume and cover letter iterations to get started with.
Zety is designed to be a long term solution to job hunting and career growth, but I don’t think the features are powerful enough for a recurring yearly subscription. This probably isn’t a problem for Zety since they’re making a good chunk of sunk cost fallacy revenue.
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