Resume builder for federal job applications

The idea

Federal resumes are a different document from private-sector resumes, and USAJobs HR screeners reject applications over missing hours-per-week, absent supervisor contacts, or bullets that fail to mirror the announcement’s specialized-experience language. Normal builders like Rezi actively make this worse — they optimize toward the tight one-page corporate format that federal screening penalizes. Applicants find this out after their first rejection, then search for what went wrong.

The wedge is encoding the USAJobs ruleset itself: per-position detail requirements, GS series and grade handling, announcement keyword matching, and the 3-5 page structure screeners expect. That is a fixed, documented, slowly-changing spec — ideal for a small product. Rezi has no reason to specialize here, and the search terms (federal resume format, USAJobs resume rejected) are specific, high-intent, and winnable with a free compliance checker as the front door.

Who pays

The job seeker pays: $39 one-off per targeted resume or $19/mo while actively applying — federal searches run months and span many announcements, so the subscription earns its keep. Government hopefuls include transitioning military, who cluster in advice communities (Reddit’s fedjobs, veteran transition programs) where a genuinely compliant output gets recommended. SEO on federal-resume terms is the primary channel.

MVP scope

• Free compliance checker that scores a pasted resume against the federal ruleset
• Guided intake collecting every required federal field per job entry
• Announcement matcher that extracts keywords and rewrites bullets via Claude with a diff view
• 3-5 page PDF export plus plain-text version for USAJobs builder fields
• Stripe checkout for one-off and subscription
• Skip for v1: KSA essay writing, SES/executive formats, cover letters, application tracking, mobile apps

Build FedFormat, a web app that turns a normal resume into a USAJobs-compliant federal resume. Stack: Next.js (App Router), Claude API for rewriting and gap detection, Stripe for payments, react-pdf for PDF generation.

Core flow: user uploads an existing resume or fills a guided intake. The app runs a compliance check against the federal ruleset: every job entry must have month/year start and end dates, hours per week, employer address, supervisor name and phone (or may-contact flag), salary, and for federal roles the GS series and grade. Missing fields become a checklist the intake walks through one at a time. User then pastes a USAJobs announcement URL or text; Claude extracts specialized-experience keywords and rewrites each duty bullet to mirror announcement language in first person, flagging any bullet it could not honestly map so the user edits rather than fabricates. Output is a 3-5 page PDF and a plain-text version formatted for the USAJobs resume builder fields.

Pages: landing with free compliance checker (paste resume, get a scored gap report — this is the SEO and conversion engine), intake wizard, announcement matcher, editor with side-by-side original and federal version, export, account/billing.

Non-obvious details: never let Claude invent employment facts — generation is constrained to rephrasing user-provided content, with a diff view; store the ruleset as versioned JSON so OPM guidance changes are config edits, not code.

Pricing: $39 one-off per announcement-matched resume, or $19/mo unlimited during a search.