ATS-Friendly Resume Templates

What Makes a Resume ATS Friendly?

• One column, read top to bottom
• Standard headings: Summary, Experience, Education, Skills
• Real text: nothing important inside images, tables, text boxes, or headers and footers
• Common fonts like Calibri, Arial, or Garamond
• Simple bullets, not icons or symbols
• A text-based PDF or Word file, not a scan

If you can select and copy all the text in your PDF, and it pastes in a logical order, an ATS can likely read it. More in ATS-friendly resume templates.

ATS CV Template vs. Designed Templates

Two-column and creative designs can look great, but they carry more risk with applicant tracking systems, which may read columns out of order or skip sidebar content. If you love a designed template, use it for printed copies and networking, and send a single-column ATS CV template for online applications.

CVMark makes this easy: switch templates in one click without retyping anything.

How to Test Your ATS Resume

Don't guess. Check your resume against the actual job:

1. Upload your resume and paste the job description into the free ATS resume checker.
2. Review your score and the top fixes.
3. Add missing keywords you genuinely have, and fix any formatting issues.
4. Re-run the check.

With the Job Hunt Pass you also get a full ATS report and AI tailoring for each application.

ATS Compliant Resume Checklist

• Job title in your headline that matches the posting
• Keywords from the job description in your skills and bullets
• Dates in a consistent format (e.g., "Jan 2024 – Present")
• Contact details in the body, not the header area
• One or two pages
• File named like Jane-Smith-Resume.pdf

See also keywords recruiters search for.