ATS Resume Template: The Exact Structure That Passes Automated Filters

You’re ready to build a resume that actually passes automated filters — but you don’t know where to start. The short version: most popular templates, including the ones trending on design tools, will get you rejected before a human ever sees your name.

This post walks through the exact structure of an ATS-friendly resume, section by section, with the concrete rules that make or break your score.

The rules your template has to follow

• Single column. No exceptions. No sidebars.
• Standard fonts: Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Times New Roman.
• No tables, no text boxes, no columns, no headers or footers with contact info.
• Plain bullet points (•, -, or *). No decorative icons.
• Save as PDF with selectable text. Never as an image.
• Keep to one or two pages.

The section order that works

1. Header: Name, phone, email, city, LinkedIn URL. In the body — not in a page header.
2. Professional summary: 3–4 lines that anchor you to the target role.
3. Experience: Reverse chronological. Company, title, dates, 3–5 bullets per role.
4. Education: Degree, institution, year.
5. Skills: A flat list — the ATS reads these as discrete tokens.
6. Optional: Certifications, languages, publications — only if they add signal.

How to write bullets that score

Lead with a verb, include the outcome, and cite a number. Three examples:

• Reduced customer onboarding time from 14 to 6 days by automating account-setup steps previously done manually.
• Led a 6-engineer team to ship a payment feature used by >40% of monthly active users within two quarters.
• Grew organic traffic 3× in 9 months through a content strategy informed by keyword gap analysis.

Common mistakes that tank your score

• Putting contact info in a Word header — most ATS parsers skip headers entirely.
• Using a two-column layout with skills on the left — parsers read column-by-column, scrambling the order.
• Exporting the resume as a scanned image or flattened PDF.
• Embedding a photo (most ATS strip or fail on embedded images).
• Using “résumé” characters the parser doesn’t recognize — stick to plain text encoding.

What to do next

Rebuild your resume against this template using a plain tool — Google Docs or Word, not a design-heavy template gallery. Then test it with our free ATS analyzer to see the score a real ATS would give you before you submit.