Comparison

Skillfolio vs. Teal: which one actually gets you seen

Teal and Skillfolio solve different halves of the same problem. Teal helps you stay organized while you apply — tracking every job, drafting every resume. Skillfolio helps you get noticed once the applying is done, by turning your resume into a page an employer can actually explore and question. A lot of job seekers end up wanting both. This page is about knowing which one solves the problem you actually have right now.

What Teal actually does well

Teal built its reputation as a job application tracker first, and it's still the best reason to use it. You save a listing with the Chrome extension, Teal pulls in the details, and you get a running board of every application, its status, and your notes — all in one place instead of scattered across a spreadsheet and your inbox. On top of that, Teal's resume builder shares context with the tracker, so you can attach a saved job to a resume draft, run a keyword match against that specific listing, and get AI-suggested bullet points tuned to it. The free plan is genuinely usable: unlimited job tracking, the extension, and a basic builder with a handful of AI credits to start. Teal+ unlocks unlimited AI rewrites, unlimited cover letters, and premium templates.

If your problem is I have twelve tabs open and no idea what I already applied to, Teal solves that problem better than almost anything else on the market, including us. We're not going to pretend otherwise.

What Skillfolio does differently

Skillfolio isn't a tracker and it isn't trying to be. It starts after you already have a resume — Teal's or anyone else's — and rebuilds it into a living portfolio website: a real page with your story, your work samples, and an AI chatbot trained on your background that employers can interrogate directly. Instead of skimming a PDF for seven seconds, an employer can ask "has she led a team before?" and get a real answer, sourced from your actual experience. You also get job-fit analysis for roles you're targeting, and honest analytics — who viewed your page, what they asked, whether they came back — instead of a vanity view counter.

The thesis underneath all of it: the resume pile is a losing game no matter how well-optimized your file is. The fix isn't a better PDF. It's giving employers a better surface to find you on in the first place.

Side-by-side comparison

When Teal is the better choice

If you're early in a search and the real pain point is chaos — you've applied to twenty roles and can't remember which ones you already tailored a resume for — start with Teal. Its free tier alone will fix that problem. If you also want AI help getting a first draft resume out the door quickly, Teal+ is a reasonable, inexpensive way to do it. We'd rather tell you that straight than pretend a portfolio site solves a problem it doesn't.

When Skillfolio is the better choice

If you already have a resume you trust and the problem is that it's landing in a pile no one opens, that's a different problem, and it's the one we built for. It's also the right fit if you're in a field where a link does more work than a document — design, product, engineering, sales, anything where an employer would rather click through and ask questions than parse a PDF. And it matters most once you're past the initial screen: a portfolio with a chatbot is what turns a recruiter's five-minute glance into a real conversation before the call ever happens.

Two different kinds of "AI" — worth being clear-eyed about

Both tools use AI, but for different jobs, and mixing them up leads to the wrong expectations. Teal's AI is a writing assistant: feed it a job description and a rough bullet, and it drafts a tighter, more keyword-aligned version for a human — or an ATS — to read later. It's fast and it's genuinely useful for getting past the blank-page problem. Skillfolio's AI is conversational and outward-facing: it's not writing anything for you to submit, it's answering questions from an employer, in real time, using only what's actually true in your background. One is a drafting tool. The other is a stand-in for the elevator pitch you'd give if you were in the room. Neither replaces good judgment about what belongs on your resume in the first place — that's still on you.

What this looks like for someone changing careers

Career changers get the least out of a keyword-matched resume, because the honest version of their story rarely maps cleanly onto the exact keywords in a new field's job postings — which is precisely where Teal's matching score tends to come back low no matter how much you tweak the bullets. A portfolio handles that differently: instead of forcing a decade of adjacent experience into ten bullet points an ATS half-understands, you can lay out the actual throughline — what transferred, what you picked up fast, what you'd bring on day one — and let an employer ask about the parts a resume alone can't explain. That's less about beating a filter and more about giving someone a reason to skip it.

Why not just use both?

Plenty of people do. Track applications and draft resumes in Teal, then take the resume you're proudest of and turn it into a Skillfolio page you put in your LinkedIn bio, your email signature, and the "portfolio" field on every application. They're not competing for the same five minutes of your day — one runs in the background while you apply, the other runs in the background after you've applied, doing the work of getting a real look.

The bigger picture: stop optimizing for the pile

Here's the uncomfortable part, and it's not about Teal or Skillfolio — it's about the system both tools exist inside of. 88% of employers admit their own hiring software filters out qualified candidates. The average recruiter scan of a resume, when it does get looked at, lasts 7.4 seconds. And only 3% of applications ever reach an interview. No amount of keyword-tuning a PDF fully escapes that math, because the pile itself is the problem. A tracker helps you survive the pile longer, by making sure nothing falls through the cracks while you're in it. A living portfolio gives you a way to be found outside it entirely — a link a hiring manager can open from a referral, a LinkedIn comment, or a warm intro, with none of the filtering math applied at all.

You can see the difference for yourself — try the live demo and ask one of the sample portfolios a hard question the way an employer would.

Last updated August 2026

Common questions

Is Teal free to use?

Yes. Teal's free plan includes unlimited job tracking, the Chrome extension, and a basic resume builder with a small starting allotment of AI credits. Teal+ adds unlimited AI rewrites, unlimited cover letters, and premium templates starting around $13/week.

What is Teal mainly used for in a job search?

Teal is primarily a job application tracker — it saves listings, tracks your status on each one, and ties that saved job context into its resume builder for tailored keyword matching.

Does Skillfolio replace my resume?

No. Skillfolio takes the resume you already have and rebuilds it into a living portfolio website with an AI chatbot, job-fit analysis, and analytics. You still need a resume going in.

Can employers really chat with a Skillfolio portfolio?

Yes. Each portfolio includes an AI chatbot trained on that candidate's real background, so an employer can ask specific questions and get answers sourced from their actual experience instead of skimming a static page.

Is Skillfolio worth it if I already use Teal?

Many people use both — Teal to track applications and draft resumes, Skillfolio to give the finished resume somewhere better to live once you're sharing it with employers, recruiters, or your network.

How much does Skillfolio cost compared to Teal?

Skillfolio is a flat $29.99/month. Teal is free at a basic level, with Teal+ running $13/week, $29/month, or $79/quarter depending on the billing cycle.

Does a Skillfolio portfolio help with ATS filtering?

Skillfolio doesn't change how a company's ATS screens your application — it gives you a second surface, outside the ATS, where a human or a chatbot conversation can find you directly.