An In-Depth Introduction to GigMagus

The outline I wrote on this site's intro page leaves out a lot of detail for the sake of brevity, so I'm expanding on those ideas here.

If you've never seen this tool before then you're likely to have a number of questions about how it really works, what kind of accuracy and honesty it's capable of, whether it lets you edit your documents, whether you can save your documents for later reuse, and how much using the app is likely to cost.

Let's take a closer look:

How does it work, exactly?

What happens when I "attach" or "paste" my résumé and a job description?

The first thing the app does is send both documents to GigMagus's servers. From there, it uses AI to parse the job description in order to determine the role being applied for and the most important keywords related to it.

Then, it extracts the data from the résumé. It looks for the summary section and the professional experience section. It can find these even if they are not labelled. If it does not find a summary it will generate one based on the rest of the résumé.

Once it has parsed the résumé and the job description, it will rewrite the summary and the experience descriptions such that it aligns more closely with the job description. In order to prevent the document from being filtered out by aggressive applicant-tracking systems (ATS), it tries to match as many keywords and keyphrases from the job description as possible.

Finally, it takes the modified data and formats it into a new PDF document, which will be downloaded automatically. The UI will also update to allow you to make edits to the final document.

How does it help bypass aggressive applicant-tracking systems (ATS)?

As I alluded to above, it analyzes the job description for keywords and keyphrases. It considers the type of role and the seniority of the role and uses this information when deciding which aspects of the job posting are likely to be most important to the employer.

Once it has considered these things it can make better decisions about which keywords and keyphrases to select for and highlight in the final document.

Is it as easy to use as I claim?

The 3-step process

The intro page boasts a three-step process: "Attach a résumé," "Paste a job description," and "Generate." Once the generation step is complete, the new document (in PDF format) should be automatically downloaded by your browser.

If you need to edit the final document, you can do that at this point. When the new document is ready, the UI updates to display a form where you can make edits to any part of the résumé. You'll have the option to regenerate the PDF as many times as you need to.

What file formats or résumé types are supported?

When uploading your résumé you can attach a Word document (.doc or .docx), a PDF document (.pdf), or a plaintext (.txt) file. You can also change from "attach" mode to "paste" mode by using the buttons at the bottom of the file input if you'd prefer to paste your résumé instead.

The filesize limit for attached résumés is 500 MB. If you're pasting your résumé, there's a 9000 character limit.

Formatting considerations: if you're uploading a PDF document, it's worth checking whether it's formatted properly. You can test this by selecting all text in the document and pasting it into a plaintext file. If the information appears out of order, it may be difficult for GigMagus to parse properly.

The app always returns a completed document in PDF format. If you'd appreciate support for other file types as well, please let me know by writing me a message.

Can I edit and customize the documents?

On the intro page I linked above, I mentioned you should think of yourself as an "editor of the editor." AI is far from infallible, so it's important that GigMagus strikes a good balance between automation and manual tweaks. It allows you to treat it as a fully-automatic system, but it also gives you full control over every part of the document if you need it.

Once a new document is downloaded you'll notice that GigMagus also updates its interface to display the "edit document" form. You can make all your edits from there and then regenerate the final document.

How accurate is it?

Does it fabricate information? Does it outright lie?

I've explicitly instructed the AI model to avoid adding keywords to the new résumé unless those terms (or closely related terms) appear in the original. For example, if your résumé contains a lot of references to TypeScript but does not mention JavaScript, GigMagus could add references to JavaScript because of the interrelation between the two technologies, especially if the job description specifically mentions JavaScript. On the other hand, if the job description mentioned Python, and Python was never mentioned in the résumé, then GigMagus should not include it. Instead, it would try to focus on transferable skills, like programming and software development in general.

How accurate is the AI in capturing the nuances of my work experience?

Personally, I use GigMagus a lot (it started as a command-line program I was using for my own job-search), and I've found that it works best if you give it a rather verbose and informative résumé. I've seen a lot of extremely crowded résumés, and I know it can be hard to get a résumé succinct enough that it's readable but doesn't leave out vital info. I gave GigMagus some pretty strict limits around length and margins, and I instructed it to extract only the most-relevant info for a given job description. This way, you can give it a truly exhaustive résumé and let GigMagus decide which parts to highlight for a particular role.

It generally tries to keep the résumé to less than two pages in length. Every recruiter I've spoken to about this has assured me that they'd rather read two pages of well-formatted and readable text than a cluttered one-page text wall.

How well does it ensure ATS readability?

This was one of the first features I worked on. It would be a huge waste of time to build a résumé editor that only generates documents that immediately end up in virtual paper bins.

Perhaps the most consequential mistake people tend to make when it comes to ATS readability has to do with formatting. It can be tempting to use special features that change the flow of text in the document. Take columns, for example: if you put the job title and description in one column and the job start/end dates in another, the ATS might read the job dates as a separate, unrelated chunk of text, potentially missing the connection between the two.

To solve ATS-readability issues like this, GigMagus takes a conservative approach to formatting while maintaining a modern look. Each generated résumé and cover letter is structured as a simple, linear document which reads predictably from right to left and top to bottom. It does not include any columns or other uncommon formatting.

How does GigMagus compare to more traditional résumé builders?

Have you used a traditional résumé builder lately? Most of the builders I've tried assume you're creating a résumé from scratch and walk you through the process step-by-step. It takes a few minutes to complete the process. You have to type things in. Some services include AI suggestions along the way, but I've noticed these features are usually limited to small snippets of text.

It's likely you already have a résumé, and you just want to tailor it to a particular job. Are you going to go through that whole song and dance every time? It doesn't seem like a sustainable approach, and certainly not one that can be done at scale. GigMagus is NOT a step-by-step résumé builder, and this makes it possible to tailor your résumé to many more job postings than you'd otherwise be able to.

Is there any cost involved?

Costs and Pricing

For now, I do need to charge for use of GigMagus. The biggest cost of running the service is the API access costs, and this scales with usage. That is, the more people use it, the more it costs to run.

Fortunately, I've managed to keep it quite affordable. The lowest-tier plan is $6 per month, which grants you 50 tokens per month. Each token allows you to generate one document. Editing and regenerating documents is always free.

If you run out of tokens before the end of the month, you can buy additional tokens at a discount. For the Basic tier, additional tokens are $5 for 50 tokens.

Is my payment information secure?

GigMagus uses Stripe to handle payments. Stripe is a strong advocate of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS), and it significantly simplifies the PCI burden for services like this one.

Your payment info never touches GigMagus's servers. It is transmitted via a secure connection directly to Stripe.

GigMagus never stores your payment info anywhere. All storage is handled by Stripe.