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Modern · Single column · ATS 4/5

Modern Elegant CV template

A centred masthead between double rules, with rule-flanked section headings.

Modern is the family to reach for when you have no strong signal about a company’s house style: current spacing, one accent colour, and nothing a hiring manager would have to interpret. 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 Modern Elegant template, rendered at full page size with an example CV. The preview is the same code that generates your PDF.

The design

About the Modern Elegant layout

Modern Elegant centres the whole document: an optional portrait above your name, thin double rules framing it, a letterspaced title beneath and contact details on one centred line. Section headings sit in the middle of the measure flanked by short accent rules, giving the page an editorial rhythm that suits a hospitality, communications or client-facing CV. Experience and education keep their dates in a left gutter, so the centred styling never costs you scannability.

Who it’s for

The readers and situations this layout was drawn for.

  • Hospitality, luxury retail and events professionals
  • Communications, PR and editorial roles
  • Senior candidates who want a formal document

Key features

What is actually different about this template on the page.

  • Centred masthead framed by double rules
  • Optional circular portrait above the name
  • Rule-flanked centred section headings
  • Date-gutter experience and education

ATS score 4/5 · Strong

How this layout behaves in an applicant tracking system

Four out of five. Nothing important is at risk; what costs the fifth point is decoration around the content rather than anything the content itself depends on.

Sections stack in a single flow, so the order you set in the editor is the order the parser records: summary, then experience, then education, then whatever you put next.

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 Modern Elegant 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 shortlist you have already reached

Past the screening stage, the document gets read properly — often printed, often circulated to a panel. The styling here is aimed at that second, slower reading. Where it earns its keep: Hospitality, luxury retail and events professionals.

Case 2

A career that reads in order

One uninterrupted flow suits a history where the last three roles are the argument: a reviewer reads titles, dates and outcomes downward, without correlating a sidebar with the job it belongs to.

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 Modern Elegant re-balances the header on its own.

Make it yours

Customising Modern Elegant

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

Modern Elegant ships with #a1662f as its accent. The accent drives headings, rules and any highlighted detail. A deep navy, a slate or a saturated brand colour all hold up — the hierarchy does not depend on the hue, so choosing is a taste decision rather than a legibility one.

Fonts and heading style

A humanist or geometric sans throughout gives the intended look. Setting a serif for headings only is the one substitution that changes the personality without breaking the spacing. 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

Summary, experience, education and skills carry the weight. Projects and certifications drop in without upsetting the rhythm, and anything you are not using can be hidden rather than left empty. 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.

Modern Elegant: 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 Modern first, then designs with a similar ATS score from other families.

Modern ATS

modern · one column

Free

Modern Clean

modern · one column

Free

Modern Compact

modern · two columns

Pro

Modern Corporate

modern · two columns

Pro

Modern Creative

modern · one column

Pro

Modern Executive

modern · two columns

Pro

Start your CV with Modern Elegant

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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