What “ATS-friendly” actually means (and what it does not)

What an ATS actually does

When you apply through a job board or a company site, your CV is usually not read by a person first. It is uploaded to an applicant tracking system, which turns the file into structured fields — name, email, phone, employment history, education, skills — and stores those fields in a database. A recruiter filters or searches those fields. Only then does a human open the document.

So the format question is not really “does this look nice”. It is “does this file contain readable text in a predictable order, or did I accidentally convert my CV into a photograph of a CV?”.

Two columns are not automatically wrong

You will read advice online saying any second column disqualifies your CV. That is out of date and overstated. Most parsers in use today read the main column first and then the sidebar — the order you read it in, and the order we build ours in.

The real risk is older software that flattens columns in DOM order rather than reading order. When that happens your job history ends up filed under “Skills”, and a recruiter searching for your last employer never sees it.

So it comes down to one question: do you know how your target employer screens applications? If you do not, and the role matters, send a single-column file. We offer both, and we will always tell you which of ours use two columns. Style is not worth a filtered-out application.

What actually breaks parsing

Text inside images. A layout where the sidebar is read before the main column. Tables and text boxes used for alignment, which most parsers flatten in an unpredictable order. And headers, footers and columns that put your name or contact details somewhere other than the top of the document.

None of these are fatal on their own. Together they are the difference between your dates being read correctly and a recruiter seeing a blank employment field.

What you should actually do

Use one column, top to bottom: name and contact details, then summary, then experience, then education, then skills. Use real headings the parser recognises — Experience, Education, Skills — rather than clever ones like “Where I’ve been”. Keep selectable text, never text baked into an image. Save the file as a real PDF or Word document rather than a screenshot.

That is the entire formula. Every single-column template on this site already does all five, which is why we describe them as ATS-friendly.

Why there is no ATS score

Some services advertise an “ATS score” out of 100. There is no such universal measure. Vendors disagree about it, most do not publish their scoring method, and the employer’s actual configuration is unknown to you. A high number from one tool tells you very little.

Be sceptical of any product that turns this into a number. Being readable, single-column and honestly written is all you can actually control — and it is enough.

The bit that actually gets you interviews

Formatting decides whether you are filtered out. Content decides whether you are chosen. A perfectly parseable CV that lists twelve unrelated responsibilities gets rejected exactly as fast as an unreadable one.

Mirror the language of the job description. Cut anything you would not defend in the interview. Two genuinely strong bullets beat twelve vague ones every time.