ATS-Friendly Resume Template Kit

This is a set of resume, cover letter and references templates for Word and Google Docs, with a writing guide, designed for job seekers who want a clean resume that applicant tracking software can read.

Most employers now collect applications in software called an applicant tracking system (ATS). It pulls the text out of your file and stores it so recruiters can search it. Resumes with columns, text boxes, tables, icons or contact details in the header often come out muddled. These templates are built without any of those, and they still look good to the person who reads them.

What is in the kit

• Three resume layouts. Classic, for steady work in one field. Career Change, which leads with the skills that carry over and keeps a short dated work history. First Job, for students, school leavers and graduates, which puts education and projects first.
• A matching cover letter and references page for each layout, with the same name line, font and spacing.
• Two editions of everything. A US Letter resume with US wording, and an A4 CV with UK wording: UK spelling, dates and phone formats, degree classes and A levels, and the spelling checker set to UK English.
• 18 editable Word files (.docx) in all. They open in Word 2013 or later, Word for Mac and Google Docs, and use only fonts both programs have: Georgia, Arial and Calibri.
• A 29-page guide with pictures, worked examples and before-and-after rewrites.
• A job application tracker, a facts sheet and a final checklist, in the guide and as a PDF you can type into.

How you use it

1. Pick a layout. One page of the guide helps you choose.
2. Open the file in Word, or upload it to Google Docs. The steps for both are in the guide.
3. Type over the example. Each template is filled in for an example person, so you can see what goes where and how a finished line reads.
4. Use the guide while you write: how to turn a duty into a bullet point with a number, how to write the summary and skills section, how to match your words to a job advert.
5. Run the three checks in the guide, then the 20-point checklist, and send.

What the guide covers

• The parts of a resume, shown on the real template
• How to write a bullet point, with six before-and-after examples from office, shop, care, technical, warehouse and team-leading work
• How ATS software reads a file, in plain words, and what trips it up
• US resume or UK CV: what differs, line by line
• Changing career, and writing a first resume with little paid work
• Gaps, short jobs and long work histories
• The cover letter, paragraph by paragraph, with fill-in frames
• Who to ask for a reference and how
• Saving, naming and sending the file
• 90 action verbs, grouped by what you did

What "ATS-friendly" means here

Every one of the 18 Word files was read back by a program and opened in Microsoft Word before it went into the download. Each one was checked for: a single column, no tables, no text boxes or pictures, nothing in the header or footer, one standard font, real heading styles, standard section headings, no tab characters, text that reads back in the right order, and a fit of one page. The guide lists the checks and shows you how to run your own on your finished resume.

The templates have not been run through every applicant tracking system. There are hundreds, and employers set them up differently. No template can promise an interview or a pass in every system. What this kit gives you is a layout without the features known to cause misreading, and a method for writing what goes in it.

What you download

• The guide (29 pages) in US Letter and A4, for reading on screen. The Letter guide shows the US resumes; the A4 guide shows the UK CVs.
• One ZIP file with all 18 Word templates, a white copy of the guide for printing in both sizes, and a one-page Start Here sheet.
• The tracker, facts sheet and checklist as a fillable PDF in US Letter and A4.

Good to know

• Both paper sizes and both sets of wording are in the download. You do not have to choose when you buy.
• You need Microsoft Word or a free Google account. These are not Canva, Pages or Photoshop files.
• The examples are invented. Every word is there to be replaced with your own.
• The fillable PDF is made for a desktop PDF reader such as the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. Many phone apps do not keep typed entries.
• For your own job applications, as many as you like. Not for resale.