Resume templates that stay readable for people and software

Start with the reader. A recruiter skims your resume on a screen, often after an applicant tracking system (ATS) has turned the file into text. A good resume template helps both: clear headings, a predictable order, and enough white space that your results stand out.

Use these questions to narrow the choice:

• Where will you apply? Big company portals and government sites read your file with parsing software. A simple resume template from the ATS-friendly group is the low-risk pick.
• How much do you have to say? Early career and one page: Clean or Harvard. Many roles or long project lists: Compact, Vector or Graphite fit more lines without shrinking the text.
• What does your field expect? Finance, law and academia lean traditional (Harvard, Ledger, Quill). Design, marketing and tech accept a bit more colour (Summit, Sienna, Cobalt).
• Will it be printed? Bands and tints print fine on a colour printer. On a black and white printer, a template with rules and plain headings looks cleaner.

You can switch templates at any time in the editor. Your text stays exactly where it is, only the design changes, so trying three layouts takes a few seconds.

"ATS-friendly" is a promise about structure, not a guarantee of a job interview. Greenhouse, a widely used applicant tracking system, lists the things that cause a failed parse: resumes with graphics, photos or word art, complex layouts with tables, headers and footers, files uploaded as an image, and spaced-out letters. Our templates are built to avoid every item on that list:

• One reading column. Side headings sit next to the text, but the text still reads top to bottom.
• Real, selectable text in the PDF, with fonts embedded. Nothing is turned into a picture.
• No tables, no text boxes, nothing in the page header or footer.
• Standard section names (Experience, Education, Skills), which parsers recognise.
• File sizes far below the upload limits Greenhouse mentions.

Every template, free and premium, goes through the same automated text extraction test before it ships. The details, including what we do not claim, are on the ATS test method page.

A simple resume template is not a weaker resume. Harvard's career office advises listing headings in order of importance and entries in reverse chronological order, and warns that formatting must translate properly when converted to a PDF. Plain layouts make that easy, which is why the free Clean and Harvard templates are popular with experienced people too.

A professional resume template with a colour band or side headings helps when your resume competes on looks as well as content, for example when you email it directly to a hiring manager or hand it out at a career fair. The premium designs add that polish without breaking the one-column rule.

Whatever you pick, the words matter most. Put results first, use numbers where you can, and cut anything the job ad does not ask for. Our guide on how to write a resume walks through each section.

Prospects, the UK graduate careers service, recommends a clear font at size 10 to 12, with headings at 14 or 16 and in bold. Our templates stay in that range for body text and use open-licence fonts that are embedded in the PDF, so the file looks the same on every computer.

In the editor you can change the accent colour and the font pair on any template, free ones included. The colour picker checks contrast as you choose. If a colour is too light to read as text, it is darkened automatically to at least 4.5:1, the WCAG AA level for normal text, and the editor tells you what changed.

Each free resume template downloads as a PDF with no watermark and no sign-up. You can also print straight from the editor or save a plain text version to paste into online application forms. The PDF is real text, so you can select and copy every word in it.

We do not offer a Word or Google Docs file yet. If an employer asks for a .docx, copy the plain text version into their template, or ask whether a PDF is acceptable; Greenhouse, for one, lists PDF among its supported upload formats.

Paper size follows the document type: US Letter for a resume and A4 for a CV, with a switch for both. If you apply in the UK, Europe or Asia, the CV templates page shows the same designs on A4 paper.

The Premium Pass is one payment of US$9, with no subscription and no trial that turns into a monthly charge. It unlocks the 12 premium resume templates plus their matching cover letter and career letter designs. You buy it through WhatsApp or email, receive a license code, and paste it into the editor once. The full terms, the refund policy and a price comparison are on the pricing page.

The free templates are not a teaser. They stay free, with full PDF download, for as long as the site exists.