ATS-Friendly Resume Examples 2025 Templates: Simple Layouts That Still Parse in 2026

ATS-friendly resume examples 2025 templates work best when they stay simple. Use one column, familiar headings, readable text, and standard contact details. The same structure remains a safe choice for applications in 2026.

This format helps an applicant tracking system read your information in a predictable order. It also gives a recruiter a quick document to scan. The goal is not to make the resume look empty. The goal is to make every important fact easy to find.

The recommended resume structure

Use this section order for most applications:

1. Name and contact information
2. Professional summary
3. Skills
4. Professional experience
5. Education
6. Optional extras, such as certifications, projects, languages, or volunteer work

Keep the order consistent. Use clear headings such as SUMMARY, SKILLS, EXPERIENCE, and EDUCATION. Do not rename a section to something decorative, such as “What I Bring,” when a standard heading says the same thing more clearly.

Section-order wireframe

YOUR NAME
City, State | phone number | email address | LinkedIn URL

SUMMARY
Two or three lines connecting your experience to the target role.

SKILLS
Skill or tool | Skill or tool | Skill or tool | Skill or tool

EXPERIENCE
Job Title | Company | City, State | Month Year to Month Year
• Accomplishment or responsibility with a specific result.
• Accomplishment using a relevant tool, method, or skill.

EDUCATION
Degree | School | City, State | Graduation Year

OPTIONAL EXTRAS
Certifications, projects, languages, publications, or volunteer work.

Place optional extras after education unless a qualification is required for the job. In that case, a CERTIFICATIONS section can appear before experience or after skills.

For a deeper layout reference, see this ATS-friendly resume template. If you prefer Microsoft Word, the Microsoft Word ATS-friendly resume template covers the same kind of clean structure.

Plain-text example you can copy

This example is deliberately plain. Use it as a content and order reference in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

Jordan Lee
Austin, TX | 512-555-0148 | jordan.lee@email.com | linkedin.com/in/jordanlee

SUMMARY
Operations coordinator with four years of experience supporting vendor management, inventory reporting, and process improvement. Reduced purchase-order errors and improved reporting accuracy through spreadsheet automation and clear procedures.

SKILLS
Vendor management | Inventory control | Excel | Purchase orders | Process improvement | Reporting | ERP systems

EXPERIENCE
Operations Coordinator | Northstar Supply | Austin, TX | May 2022 to Present
• Manage purchase orders, vendor updates, and inventory reports for a regional distribution operation.
• Built Excel reporting workflows that reduced weekly manual reporting time by six hours.
• Review order data, resolve discrepancies, and coordinate corrections with vendors and finance.

Operations Assistant | Cedar Office Products | Austin, TX | June 2020 to April 2022
• Processed purchase orders and maintained supplier records in the company ERP system.
• Created standard procedures for order checks and trained three new team members.
• Reconciled inventory records and reported recurring discrepancies to the operations manager.

EDUCATION
Bachelor of Business Administration | Texas State University | San Marcos, TX | 2020

The sample uses facts that can be verified. Replace them with your own experience. Do not add a tool, certification, job title, or result only because it appears in a job description.

Font, spacing, and file rules

A clean design does not require a special resume font. Use one of these options:

Element	Recommended rule	Why it helps
Font	Calibri, Arial, or Georgia	Common fonts are less likely to change during file conversion
Body size	10 to 12 pt	Keeps text readable without creating a crowded page
Name	16 to 20 pt	Makes your identity easy to locate
Margins	Standard margins, about 1 inch	Protects content from clipping and keeps the page balanced
Headings	Consistent size, spacing, and capitalization	Makes sections easy to identify
Bullets	Simple round bullets or hyphens	Keeps achievement lines readable after parsing
File	Use the employer's requested format	The instructions control whether you submit DOCX or PDF

Create the document in Word or Google Docs. If the application requests a Word file, upload a .docx file. If it requests a PDF, export or download a PDF and inspect that exact file before uploading. Do not assume the original document and exported file are identical.

Use standard margins. If the resume is too long, edit weak content before shrinking the font below 10 pt or reducing margins sharply. A shorter, targeted resume is usually easier to read than a dense page with tiny text.

Three layouts that can fail parsing

1. Two-column resumes

A two-column design may place skills, dates, and experience in an order that differs from the visual reading order. The parser may pull the sidebar first, mix dates into job descriptions, or separate a heading from its content.

A single-column resume removes that uncertainty. Put skills in a normal section below the summary rather than in a side panel.

2. Text boxes and floating elements

Text boxes can look aligned on screen but behave like separate objects in the file. Contact details, skills, or an entire experience section may be skipped or extracted in the wrong place.

Type content directly into the document body. Use paragraph settings for alignment and spacing. Do not use floating shapes to position text.

3. Tables used for layout

Tables are useful for some business documents, but they can create problems when used to arrange resume sections. A parser may read cells across a row, down a column, or in an unexpected order. Tables can also break when converted between Google Docs, Word, and PDF.

Do not use a table to create columns for dates, employers, or skills. Use normal paragraphs, tabs only when needed, and consistent spacing instead.

Other risky choices include contact icons, photos, logos, decorative graphics, headers containing essential information, footers with phone numbers, and multi-column skill grids. Keep important information in the main text area.

How to customize one template for one job

Tailor the content, not the structure. You can change the wording inside the same sections without adding design elements.

Start by reading the job description. Mark repeated requirements, named tools, certifications, job-specific tasks, and preferred qualifications. Then compare those terms with your real background.

Put relevant skills near the top. Adjust the summary to mention the type of work, tools, or outcome that matches the role. Rewrite experience bullets so the most relevant work appears first. Keep the headings unchanged.

For example, a general bullet might say:

• Managed weekly reports for the operations team.

A targeted version, when accurate, might say:

• Managed weekly inventory reports in Excel, reviewed variance trends, and reported issues to operations leadership.

The second bullet adds searchable terms and useful detail. It does not claim a new skill. Only use a keyword when your experience supports it. If the job requires a system you have never used, do not add that system to your resume. You can address related experience in a cover letter or learn the tool separately.

Run the job description through the job description keyword extractor to sort must-haves, tools, and nice-to-haves. You can optionally add your resume PDF to see which keywords already appear in the file. Then paste the same job into YourUnique.cv if you want a draft based on your actual profile facts. Still review the draft and complete the plain-text paste test.

What to check before exporting

Review the document visually, then review its text. Look for these problems:

• The name and contact details are in the main body, not a header, footer, image, or text box.
• Headings use the same wording and style throughout.
• Dates are written consistently, such as May 2022 to Present.
• Job titles, employers, and dates stay together.
• Bullets begin with direct verbs and include results where you can verify them.
• Skills match your actual experience.
• The target job's important terms appear naturally in the summary, skills, or experience sections.
• The file opens correctly after export.

A plain-text paste test is simple. Select all text in the final file, copy it, and paste it into Notepad or another plain-text editor. Confirm that the order is still name, contact, summary, skills, experience, and education. Check that bullets are not missing and that symbols have not replaced letters.

A public checker can identify likely issues, but it cannot prove how a specific employer's system will process your file. Use it as a diagnostic step, not as a guarantee. The ATS resume checker accepts a resume PDF and a pasted job description, then reports a match score, missing keywords, and gaps. The PDF is scanned for the result and is not saved to an account. Its result is not a Workday or Greenhouse number.

If you want to build from your existing resume while preserving its facts, YourUnique.cv lets you keep the current layout or select a built-in template, add a job description or job link, and export a PDF after reviewing the tailored draft.

Apply-today checklist

• Save the final resume in the file type requested by the employer.
• Use one column with standard margins and a 10 to 12 pt Calibri, Arial, or Georgia font.
• Keep the headings clear: Summary, Skills, Experience, and Education.
• Remove text boxes, layout tables, contact icons, photos, and multi-column skill grids.
• Tailor the summary and skills to the job using only accurate information.
• Review at least five experience bullets and improve the most relevant ones.
• Open the exported file and confirm that it looks correct.
• Complete the plain-text paste test.
• Run the file through the ATS resume checker with the target job description.
• Upload the checked file to the company site or LinkedIn Easy Apply.