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Classic · Single column · ATS 4/5

Elegant Serif CV template

A portrait inside a double hairline frame, over centred small-caps headings.

A traditional document for a reader who expects one: measured type, plain hierarchy and no ornament that a formal committee would read as flippant. One column, with a place for a photograph that the layout closes up cleanly when you decide not to use one.

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

The design

About the Elegant Serif layout

Elegant Serif treats the top of the CV as a title page: a portrait centred above your name, the role in italics beneath it, and the whole block held inside two hairline rules set a fraction apart. Section headings are centred small caps with a rule that spans only the words themselves, so the structure is marked without cutting the page into bands. It is built for a serif body font — EB Garamond, Lora or Libre Baskerville — and prints as calmly as it reads on screen.

Who it’s for

The readers and situations this layout was drawn for.

  • Academics, editors and researchers
  • Arts, heritage and culture applications
  • Candidates who want a portrait on a formal CV

Key features

What is actually different about this template on the page.

  • Double hairline frame around the header
  • Centred portrait with an italic job title
  • Centred small-caps headings on a text-width rule
  • Generous leading tuned for serif body fonts

ATS score 4/5 · Strong

How this layout behaves in an applicant tracking system

At 4 out of 5 the substance comes through cleanly — headings, dates, employers and titles all parse — and the missing point is for styling that a small number of older systems simplify rather than read.

Because there is only one text column, an extractor never has to decide which block to read first — the page has exactly one reading order and it is the one you can see.

The portrait is an image, so no parser reads it, and a handful of large employers’ systems flag documents that contain images at all. Switching the photo off in the editor takes one click and the layout closes up around it.

For most applications this is safe. Where the employer is very large, or the advert names a specific tracking system, a plainer single-column layout removes the remaining doubt: compare it against the ATS CV templates, which trade this template’s styling for the highest possible parsing score.

Parsing checklistATS score 4 out of 5
Reading order
Single flow
Headings
Real text
Tables
None
Images
Photo only, optional
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 Elegant Serif 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 named hiring manager

Sent to a person rather than a system: enough visual polish that the document looks considered on screen, and enough structure that it still parses if it is forwarded into a tracking system afterwards. Where it earns its keep: Academics, editors and researchers.

Case 2

A long formal record

One column with generous leading suits a document that may legitimately run to three pages — an academic or legal CV is not trying to be a one-page pitch, and compressing it signals the wrong thing.

Case 3

A personal introduction

Following up a conference conversation or a warm introduction, a face on the page reconnects your name to the person the reader met. Turn it off again for the portal version and nothing else about the document changes. If the employer asks for a document without one, the photo toggle in the editor removes it and Elegant Serif re-balances the header on its own.

Make it yours

Customising Elegant Serif

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

Elegant Serif ships with #4a3728 as its accent. Near-black or a very dark neutral is the honest choice. These layouts are designed to survive being photocopied and scanned by a committee secretary, and a mid-tone accent is the first thing to disappear when they are.

Fonts and heading style

A serif body is the point of this family. If you switch to a sans, drop the font size a notch — the spacing is set for serif text and looks loose without it. 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

Three sliders control density — type size, line height and the gap between sections — and on a one-column page each of them affects the whole document evenly, so fitting two pages into one is a matter of small adjustments rather than deletions.

Sections and order

Education often outranks experience here, and publications, awards and references all have a legitimate place. Reordering takes one drag, which matters because the convention differs by field and by country. Every section can be renamed, reordered or hidden, and Pro adds custom sections for anything the standard set does not cover.

Photo

The portrait can be circular, rounded or square, and it can be switched off entirely — the header reflows rather than leaving a hole, so one CV serves both a market that expects a photograph and one that does not.

Paper size and export

Switch between A4 and US Letter and the document re-flows to the new page instead of being scaled into it. The exported PDF is rendered from the same component as the preview, so nothing shifts between the screen and the file.

Elegant Serif: common questions

Largely, yes — it scores 4 out of 5. Headings, dates, employers and job titles all extract correctly; the point it drops is for visual styling that a small number of older systems simplify. For a national employer or a government portal, a 5 out of 5 layout is the safer choice.

Alternatives

Related templates

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

Academic CV

classic · one column

Pro

Classic Professional

classic · one column

Free

Executive Classic

classic · one column

Pro

Formal CV

classic · two columns

Pro

Government CV

classic · one column

Pro

Legal CV

classic · one column

Pro

Start your CV with Elegant Serif

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.

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