Simple resume templates

How the simple templates read in our parser test

In our test of all 105 OneCV templates on 17 October 2026, one fictional resume went through four text extractors, which do the first step of most resume parsers.

Of these 32 templates, 26 are one column, 2 put the contact details in a sidebar and 4 split the sections into two columns under a full-width header. Every job stayed in one piece in all four extractors for 30 of them, and 2 came out clean in all four, with every section, heading, list and date in its place: Editorial Rule and Split Rule.

Most simple templates are one column, and the slips were small. pdfminer moved dates away from their jobs in 20 of the 32, because the dates sit on the right of each job title. The two that broke up a job, Clean Slate and Corporate Panel, are two-column designs. Setting Date & Location Position to Below Title in Customize, with skills shown as rows, made Classic Clear read cleanly in all four in our test.

When a simple template is the right choice

A simple design is the safe default when you’re not sure. Recruiters skim, and in Ladders’ eye-tracking study cluttered layouts, multiple columns and long sentences hurt how resumes performed.

Pick one for applications through large employers’ online forms, and for conservative fields such as law, finance and government.

You can still change the font, the accent color and the spacing in Customize, and each change applies to the whole resume at once.

Keep a simple resume easy to read

• Use standard section headings such as Experience, Education and Skills, so a parser can sort your content.
• Keep body text at 10 point or larger. Our test of 35 resume fonts shows how much each one fits on a line.
• Put your PDF through the ATS resume checker to see the text a parser gets from it, in the order it comes out.