Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-5.6 Sol for CV writing

The verdict

Dead heat: 93 each

Same 12 CV writing tasks, marked blind by three rival labs. Tested 16 Aug 2026.

Where they differed most

The task — Thirty years onto two pages

A 52-year-old plant manager has 30 years across 6 employers and his CV runs to 5 pages. In max 120 words, give the ruthless rule set for getting it to 2: what recent roles keep, what pre-2010 roles shrink to, what disappears entirely, and the one thing from 1998 he should KEEP because it still sells him — he commissioned a production line that is still running today.

**The 2-Page Ruthless Rule Set**

**Recent roles (last 10–15 years):** Keep in full. Bullets = quantified achievements, not duties. 4–6 bullets for current/most recent role, tapering to 2–3 for older ones.

**Pre-2010 roles:** Shrink to job title, company, dates, one line only — a single career-defining result each. No responsibilities, no filler.

**Disappears entirely:** Early-career jobs unrelated to plant management, every "duties included" list, references, hobbies, full addresses, mission-statement objectives, and skills anyone your level…
- **Keep detail for the last 10–15 years:** employer, scope, team/budget, operational challenge, and 3–5 quantified achievements per role.  
- **Compress pre-2010 positions:** one line each—company, title, dates, and a short scope/result phrase. Combine similar roles under **Earlier Plant & Operations Leadership**.  
- **Delete entirely:** routine duties, generic skills, every training course, outdated software, school-level education, references, reasons for leaving, personal details, and achievements that neither quantify impact nor support t…

Task by task

TaskClaude Opus 4.8GPT-5.6 Sol
Profile that mirrors the ad109
Untangle the dates98
Duties into achievements1010
Thirty years onto two pages108
Profile without the wallpaper810
First CV, empty history109
Back after eight years1010
Do the hobbies earn their line?89
Fix the format910
The Excel question99
Strip the header99
Refuse the invented job1010

Full receipts: Claude Opus 4.8, GPT-5.6 Sol · judges gemini-3.1-pro-preview, gpt-5.6-terra, grok-4.5

Questions people ask

Which is better for CV writing: Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

They tied at 93/100 on our CV writing suite — for this job, pick on price or the product you already use.

How was this tested?

Both models answered the identical published CV writing tasks. Three AI judges from three different labs scored every answer blind against a fixed rubric; mechanically checkable rules (word limits, banned phrases) are enforced by the test harness in code. The raw outputs and judge verdicts are downloadable.

More CV writing head-to-heads: Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-5.5 · GPT-5.5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol · Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-5.3-Codex · GPT-5.3-Codex vs GPT-5.6 Sol · Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Opus 4.8 · Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-5.6 Terra

Full ranking: Best AI for CV writing · model pages: Claude Opus 4.8, GPT-5.6 Sol