ATS-friendly resume template and the formatting rules behind it

Copy this into a blank Word or Google Docs file, keep the section names, and replace everything in square brackets. The contact details are placeholders.

FIRSTNAME LASTNAME
City, State or Country · +1 555 010 0000 · [email protected] · linkedin.com/in/yourname

SUMMARY
[Job title from the ad] with [N] years of experience in [field]. [One result
with evidence]. [Two or three core skills the ad asks for].

SKILLS
[Hard skill] · [Hard skill] · [Tool] · [Tool] · [Method] · [Certification]

EXPERIENCE
[Job Title] | [Company] | [City]                        [MM/YYYY] – Present
- [Verb + what you did + measurable result]
- [Verb + what you did + measurable result]
- [Verb + tool or method from the ad + result]

[Job Title] | [Company] | [City]                        [MM/YYYY] – [MM/YYYY]
- [Achievement]
- [Achievement]

EDUCATION
[Degree], [Subject] | [University] | [YYYY]

CERTIFICATIONS
[Certification name] | [Issuer] | [YYYY]

It works for most roles in the US, UK and Europe. For UK applications, add a right-to-work line and use UK spelling (see the UK CV format guide); for German-speaking countries, see the German CV format, which expects some extra personal details.

None of these rules is about looking boring for its own sake. Each one removes a common cause of scrambled text after parsing: columns read across instead of down, text boxes skipped entirely, a skill bar that becomes a meaningless symbol.

Parsers look for familiar headings to decide where your work history starts and stops. Use the plain names, in a consistent style, on their own line:

• Summary (or Profile; UK CVs often say “Personal profile”)
• Skills (or Key skills, Technical skills)
• Experience (or Work experience, Employment history)
• Education
• Certifications, Projects, Languages, Volunteering as needed

Reverse chronological order (most recent first) is the safest structure. “Functional” resumes that group skills and hide dates tend to parse poorly and make recruiters suspicious, so if you have a gap, explain it in a line instead (our guide to an employment gap on your resume has wording).

Put each job’s title, employer and dates on one or two lines, in the same order every time. Use the same date format throughout: “03/2022 – Present” or “Mar 2022 – Present” both parse well. Mixing formats, or writing only years for some roles and months for others, is a common reason a parser calculates your experience wrongly.

Use your real job title. If your internal title was unusual (“Customer Happiness Hero”), you can add the common equivalent in brackets: “Customer Happiness Hero (Customer Support Specialist)”. That helps both keyword search and the human reader without misrepresenting anything.

Recruiters search their ATS for skills, tools and titles, so the words matter. Use the ad’s exact terms when they’re true for you: if it says “stakeholder management”, don’t write only “working with partners”. Spell out acronyms once (“Search engine optimisation (SEO)”), so a search for either form finds you.

Keep the skills section to hard skills and tools, roughly six to fifteen items, and make sure the important ones also appear in your experience bullets with evidence. A keyword listed once in a skills block and never used anywhere else is weaker than one shown in action.

To see which skills employers actually ask for, the resume keywords by role pages count them across live postings, for example for a data analyst or a project manager. Don’t paste lists of keywords in white text or hidden sections; recruiters see the parsed text, and it looks exactly like what it is.

Modern applicant tracking systems read text-based PDFs and Word files well. Follow the application form: if it asks for .docx, send .docx. Otherwise a PDF keeps your layout identical on every screen.

The important word is text-based. If you can’t select and copy the words in your PDF, it’s an image, and the parser will get little or nothing from it. Export from Word or Google Docs with “Save as PDF” or “Download as PDF” rather than printing to an image or scanning a paper copy. Name the file plainly: “Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf”.

Before you upload, check what a parser is likely to see:

1. Open your PDF, select all the text and paste it into a plain text editor (Notepad, TextEdit in plain text mode).
2. Read it top to bottom. Is your name first, and your contact details right after it?
3. Does each job title sit next to its employer and dates, or have they been separated?
4. Do any words run together, appear in the wrong order or disappear?
5. Are your skills readable words, not symbols?

If something is scrambled in plain text, it’s likely to be scrambled in the ATS too. Then work through the free ATS resume checklist, which covers file type, layout, sections, dates and keywords in 21 quick checks and scores the result.

Systems like Workday and iCIMS parse your resume into form fields and then ask you to review them. This is where a messy parse becomes visible: a job title in the employer field, a start date missing, a degree split in two. Fix these before you submit, because recruiters often see the form data, not just the file.

Our guide to Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby and Workday applications explains what each system asks for. If you apply often, the FindAJobAI Chrome extension fills those standard fields from your profile so you only review them; it never submits for you.

• Downloading a “designer” template with columns, photo circles and skill bars, then filling it in. Start plain instead.
• Using the same resume for every job. ATS-friendly formatting gets you parsed; relevance gets you shortlisted. Adjust the summary, skills and top bullets for each application.
• Putting dates in a separate column with tabs or a table. Keep them on the same line as the role, aligned with a right tab if you like the look.
• Leaving out the city or country. Many recruiters filter by location, and remote roles often have location limits.
• Over-long documents. Format doesn’t fix padding; see how long a resume should be.

Once the format is clean, test the content against a specific job: the free CV score checker gives a 0–100 match and lists the keywords from that ad that your resume is missing.