NEWS: UC Santa Cruz student shares the story behind building a resume tool

William Zhao, an undergraduate student at UC Santa Cruz, reached out to UC Tech News to share tech news – an application he developed. He is a student with skills in software engineering, data and analytics. He also has a deep understanding of a customer problem – helping early career students think about their career path before using an app to help them build a resume. Learn more about his approach and try the result – his new app.

William Zhao, an undergraduate student at UC Santa Cruz, built CareerLoop* because he kept watching his friends (and himself) completely fumble the job search process.

“I saw people applying to Target cashier positions and software engineering jobs in the same week,” Zhao said. “Like, what’s the strategy here? And honestly, I wasn’t much better. I had skills all over the place but zero idea which direction actually made sense for me.”

CareerLoop is a resume builder for students* that actually starts before the resume part. Instead of assuming you have your whole career figured out, it helps you explore what roles match your skills first, then builds resumes for those specific paths.

The thing nobody talks about

Here’s the issue with most career tools: they only help at the very end. Resume builders, cover letter generators, LinkedIn optimizers. They all assume you already know what job you’re targeting and just need the formatting.

“Most students don’t have that clarity though,” Zhao said. “I had experience with data analytics, software engineering, a bunch of random stuff. But I had breadth, not depth. No clue which path was actually right for me.”

He noticed this everywhere. Students with diverse backgrounds would just apply to anything remotely related to their major, hoping something would work out. No focus, no strategy, just throwing applications into the void.

Landing page for Zhao’s resume-building app

Actually solving the problem

So Zhao built CareerLoop to start earlier in the process. The platform lets students explore career paths by their major* before they even think about building a resume.

A computer science student*, for example, can see the different directions they could go (software engineering, data science, product management, whatever) and figure out which roles actually align with what they’ve learned and what they’re interested in. Then the platform helps them build resumes specifically for those paths.

“Every other tool is like ‘okay cool, make your resume now,'” Zhao said. “But CareerLoop is more like ‘wait, do you even know what you’re applying for? Let’s figure that out first.'”

Since launching, thousands of students have used CareerLoop to get clarity on their career direction and build actual targeted resumes instead of generic ones.

Built by a student, for students

Zhao built this while at UC Santa Cruz specifically because he saw how much students (including himself) were struggling with this. The platform works for any major, but it’s especially helpful if you’re someone with interests all over the place who needs help focusing.

“Not everyone graduates knowing exactly what they want to do, and that’s completely fine,” Zhao said. “CareerLoop just helps you go from ‘I have no idea’ to ‘okay, here are three roles that make sense, let me apply to those.'”

Students can start using CareerLoop immediately. No payment, no credit card, none of that.

What’s coming

Zhao’s continuing to build based on what students actually need. Cover letters and portfolio hosting might be next. The main goal hasn’t changed: give students real guidance for career decisions, not just templates to fill out.

Students can check out CareerLoop at careerloop.app.