AI Resume Tools for New Grads: What to Check First

For new grads and second-career changers applying in Japan, the tool that matters most is the one that reads the job posting before it touches your resume. We checked the public specifications of refresh.cv, Rezi, Yagish, MYResume, and doda Resume Builder against five criteria: job-posting keyword extraction, separating wording from actual experience evidence, support for the 履歴書 and 職務経歴書 format split, free-tier scope, and submission convenience. No single tool wins on every criterion, and the right answer depends on whether you need a printable form today or a posting-matched application.

We build refresh.cv to compare a job posting's requirements and ATS keywords against the experience evidence actually written into a resume, so this comparison is organized around that same question: what does entering one job posting actually show you, not which tool produces the smoothest sentences.

Why Order Matters More Than Wording When Experience Is Short

If you have one or two years of working experience as a second-career changer (第二新卒), you usually cannot differentiate yourself on results and skills alone. Recruiters instead read your assigned responsibilities and your way of thinking to judge your potential after joining, according to doda's guide for second-career job changers. The Mynavi Job Change editorial team makes a similar point: even with a short employment period, what matters is organizing and communicating the tasks you handled and what you learned from them, according to the Mynavi Job Change editorial team.

The problem here is not sentence quality. It is selection. If you have part-time work, seminar projects, and club activities to draw from and you let an AI tool write polished sentences before you decide which items actually match the posting, you end up with a fluent self-introduction that has nothing to do with the job. Read the posting first, then choose which experience to surface. The same experience gets placed differently depending on which posting you are answering.

Japan Applications Use Two Documents, Not One

履歴書 carries basic information: your name, education, and employment history. 職務経歴書 carries specifics: which duties you handled and what you learned doing them, according to the Mynavi Job Change editorial team. A comparison that treats these as one document blurs which posting keyword belongs in which field.

The format itself is not fixed, either. In 2021, MHLW created a new sample resume format for fairer hiring screening: the gender field became optional rather than a forced male/female choice, and the ministry removed fields for commute time, number of dependents, spouse, and spousal support obligation, according to MHLW's resume format guidance. A template built for a different market can carry a different field structure entirely, so finishing your submission copy on a service that supports Japanese formats is the safer choice.

Five Criteria, Five Tools: What Each Publishes

The table below lists only what each service's own materials confirm. "Not disclosed" means we could not find that item in public documentation, not that the feature is absent.

Yagish provides 50 or more formats centered on 履歴書 and 職務経歴書, and creation and download are free, while convenience-store printing, ID photo printing, and subscription features carry a cost. Yagish reported 2.8 million members as of September 1, 2026, and more than 16 million cumulative users as of September 2026, according to Yagish's press release. MYResume, aimed at people in their twenties and second-career changers, offers free registration, resume creation, PDF and Word download, AI sentence generation, and AI ID photo composition, according to MYResume's official site.

Rezi lets you paste a job posting, then flags missing terms and checks off the keywords you already have, generating a bullet for each missing keyword and placing it under the closest matching job title, according to Rezi's documentation. Rezi's own blog adds a caution worth keeping: any skill you list needs to show up as evidence elsewhere in the resume, and if you genuinely cannot connect a posting's keywords to real experience, that role may not be the right target right now, according to Rezi's blog.

Running Your Own Three-Bucket Match

The method we recommend is simple: paste in one job posting you actually intend to apply for, then sort its keywords into three groups.

1. Keyword and evidence both present. Adjust the wording to match the posting's exact terms. If you aggregated survey data into a report during a seminar project and the posting says "data aggregation," this is that bucket.
2. Related experience exists, but not in that wording. This bucket carries the highest priority. If you handled new-hire training during a part-time job, rewrite it to align with the posting's "onboarding support" language, staying inside the facts.
3. Neither keyword nor evidence exists. Do not invent a sentence to fill it. Leave it blank, and either be ready to explain the gap in an interview or look at a different posting.

refresh.cv's Pro plan runs this process as ATS keyword analysis and posting-specific resume revision for $14.99 a month. The Free plan lets you draft and revise a resume and cover letter and run resume score analysis up to 5 times a month, enough to check whether the three-bucket split actually surfaces anything useful in your own resume before you pay for anything, according to refresh.cv's official pricing. Resume score analysis evaluates specificity, achievements, wording, and grammar; posting-specific keyword fit is a separate measurement. Neither one tells you your odds of getting hired or what a company's actual ATS will do with your file.

Which Tool Fits Which Moment

If your deadline is close and what you need is a 履歴書 that matches MHLW's format and a same-day print at a convenience store, Yagish or MYResume will get you there faster. We are not a Japanese-format resume service, and we do not claim an edge in that area.

If you are applying to several companies and need to place the same experience differently for each posting, a tool that reads the posting first saves the more time. You can also combine both approaches: decide which experience to use and how to phrase it through posting comparison, then finish the submission copy on a Japanese-format service.

A step-by-step walkthrough of validating a tool with one job posting is covered in How to Choose an AI Resume Builder for a Career Change; a template-and-AI-writing-focused comparison for new grads is in What Sets AI Resume Builders Apart for New Grads?.

FAQ

Can recruiters tell a resume was written by AI?

We have not found public documentation of any company's detection criteria for this. What we do know is that content disconnected from the facts falls apart in an interview. Always revise generated text back to the boundaries of your actual experience before you submit it.

Do I need a 職務経歴書 if I have no work experience at all?

If you are a second-career changer, the Mynavi Job Change editorial team advises organizing and communicating your assigned duties and what you learned, even with a short employment period, according to the Mynavi Job Change editorial team. Check the posting's stated document requirements first.

Do I have to include gender and a photo on my resume?

Under MHLW's sample format, the gender field is optional and can be left blank, according to MHLW's guidance. If a company specifies its own format, follow that company's instructions instead.

Can I finish posting-matching with free tools alone?

Free tiers vary by service. Rezi's free plan gives you one resume, limited AI features, and 3 PDF downloads, according to Rezi; refresh.cv's Free plan gives you resume score analysis and AI drafting/revision 5 times each per month, according to refresh.cv's official pricing. If you are applying to one or two companies, the free tier is often enough; once you are revising for a posting every day, the paid tier starts to matter.

Does adding more keywords always help?

Filling a resume with keywords you cannot back up creates a mismatch between the document and your interview answers. Rezi also advises that any skill you list needs supporting evidence elsewhere in the resume, according to Rezi's blog. We recommend the same approach: leave unsupported items blank, and put the effort into rewriting the experience you actually have.

Pick one job posting you intend to apply for and run it through refresh.cv for free. Start by checking how many keywords land in the second bucket, the one where you have the experience but not yet the wording.