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ATS-friendly · Single column · ATS 5/5

ATS Resume template

Centred header, ruled headings and a tight rhythm built to land on one page.

Nothing here is drawn for effect. Each choice — plain headings, a single flow, text-only contact details — exists because it is what a parser reads back correctly. It runs as one column with no photo, which is the combination most application portals and most UK, US and Irish employers prefer.

Live preview of the ATS Resume template, rendered at full page size with an example CV. The preview is the same code that generates your PDF.

The design

About the ATS Resume layout

ATS Resume follows the North American convention a recruiter expects to see: name and contact details centred at the top, then left-aligned headings each underlined by a full-width rule. The vertical rhythm and the education and certification entries are deliberately more compact than our other ATS layouts, so ten years of history still fits on one page without dropping the type size. The body remains a single text column, which is what keeps the section order you chose intact when the file is parsed.

Who it’s for

The readers and situations this layout was drawn for.

  • US and Canadian job applications
  • Candidates who must fit a single page
  • High-volume applications through career sites

Key features

What is actually different about this template on the page.

  • Centred name and contact header
  • Full-width rule beneath every section heading
  • Compact education and certification entries
  • Tightened section rhythm for one-page documents

ATS score 5/5 · Excellent

How this layout behaves in an applicant tracking system

A perfect parsing score: the document is a single sequence of headed text blocks, so an extractor recovers your history in the order you wrote it rather than in the order elements happen to sit on the page.

Headings are real headings and lists are real lists, so the boundaries between one role and the next survive extraction intact.

There is little left to fix here. If you want to see how the rest of the parser-safe range compares — and what a 5 out of 5 is actually measuring — the ATS CV templates page scores every layout on the same criteria.

Parsing checklistATS score 5 out of 5
Reading order
Single flow
Headings
Real text
Tables
None
Images
None
Selectable text
Yes

Scores are our own assessment of how a parser handles the layout — never a guarantee about one specific employer’s system.

In practice

Three situations ATS Resume is the right answer to

Templates are chosen badly when they are chosen in the abstract. Here is what sending this one actually looks like.
Case 1

A recruiter who will re-format your CV

Agencies routinely re-key a CV into their own house template before sending it to a client. Starting from a plain, correctly structured document means what arrives at the client end still resembles what you wrote. The reader it was drawn for: US and Canadian job applications.

Case 2

Straight through the portal

Plain headings, plain lists and one text flow mean the file you upload is the file the system reads back: no reordered sections, no dropped job titles, no dates attached to the wrong employer.

Case 3

A UK, US, Canadian or Irish application

Employers in these markets discourage photographs outright — some screening teams remove them before a hiring manager sees the file, to keep the process defensible. Starting without one means nothing has to be removed. ATS Resume has no photo slot to remove, so the same file works in every market you send it to.

Make it yours

Customising ATS Resume

The template sets the structure; everything inside it is yours. Colours, fonts, spacing, section order and paper size are all controls in the CV builder, and the preview updates as you change them — nothing is applied blind.

Accent colour

ATS Resume ships with #000000 as its accent. Colour is deliberately minimal. A dark accent on the headings is safe and makes the printed page easier for a human to scan; nothing about the accent affects parsing, because a parser reads text and ignores hue entirely.

Fonts and heading style

Stay with a common sans or serif. Unusual faces can export with non-standard character mappings, which produces a PDF that looks correct and extracts as gibberish — precisely the failure this family exists to prevent. Heading case — uppercase, capitalised or as typed — is a separate switch, and it changes the character of the page more than most people expect.

Spacing and density

Font size, line height, section spacing and page margins are all sliders. On a single column they behave predictably: reduce section spacing first, margins second, and only then the type size — a CV set below 9.5pt starts to look like an attempt to hide its length.

Sections and order

Use the conventional section names. A screening system matches on headings it recognises, so “Experience” earns matches that “Where I’ve worked” does not, however much better the second one reads. Every section can be renamed, reordered or hidden, and Pro adds custom sections for anything the standard set does not cover.

Paper size and export

A4 or US Letter, switched in one control, with the layout re-flowing to the new page rather than being scaled to fit. The PDF is generated from the same code you see in the preview, so what you approve on screen is what downloads.

ATS Resume: common questions

Yes — this is one of the safest layouts we publish. The page is a single sequence of headed text blocks, which is exactly the structure parsers were written to handle.

Alternatives

Related templates

Other layouts worth comparing before you commit — the closest matches from ATS-friendly first, then designs with a similar ATS score from other families.

Accountant CV

ATS-friendly · one column

Pro

ATS CV

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

Entry-Level Resume

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

ATS Simple

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

Student CV

ATS-friendly · one column

Free

Modern ATS

modern · one column

Free

Start your CV with ATS Resume

Open it with the example content already in place, replace it with your own, and download a PDF when it reads the way you want. Switching to another template later keeps every word you have written.

Free plan, free download, no credit card.