ATS-Friendly Resume Templates

What breaks an ATS

• Text inside images or graphics. A skills chart, a logo with your name in it, or a heading made from an image is invisible to the parser.
• Icons instead of words. A phone icon next to a number is fine for a person, but the software needs to see a phone number it can recognise.
• Unusual section headings. "Where I've been" instead of "Experience" can leave your whole job history unlabelled. Standard names — Profile, Experience, Education, Skills — are matched reliably.
• Information in headers and footers. Some systems skip them entirely, so contact details placed there can go missing.
• Complex multi-column layouts. Some parsers read straight across the page, mixing text from two columns into one line.

How these layouts are built

The layouts on this page use standard section headings, keep your contact details in the main body of the page, and set every word as real, selectable text. They are designed for the person who reads your resume after the software, too — clean spacing, clear dates and a consistent hierarchy.

No template can guarantee that every ATS will read it perfectly, because every system is different. A reliable self-check: download your PDF, open it, select all the text and paste it into a plain text editor. If the result reads in a sensible order with your headings, titles and dates intact, most systems will read it correctly too.

Beyond the template: matching the job

Recruiters search the ATS using terms from the job description. If the listing asks for "stakeholder management" and your resume only says "worked with clients", you may not appear in the search. Mirror the exact wording of the skills you genuinely have — don't invent them, but do name them the way the employer does.