Are two-column resumes ATS-friendly? Sometimes, but you can't count on it. Some applicant tracking systems read a sidebar layout fine. Others read straight across both columns and mix your skills into your job history. You can't see which system an employer uses, so the safe choice when you apply through an online portal is a single-column resume. Keep the designed version for the times a person will read it first.
This post covers why columns cause trouble, which other formatting habits do the same, a two-minute test you can run on any resume, and how to switch layouts in Curri without retyping anything.
Why two-column resumes confuse some ATS parsers
When you upload a resume, the ATS turns it into fields: name, contact details, job titles, dates, skills. To do that it pulls the text out of the file in some reading order. A PDF doesn't store "this is the left column". It stores pieces of text placed at positions on the page, and the parser has to guess the order.
With one column the guess is easy: top to bottom. With a sidebar, a parser might:
- read the main column first and then the sidebar, which is fine
- read the sidebar first, so your contact details and skills show up before your name or summary
- read straight across, so a line of the sidebar ("TypeScript, React") lands in the middle of a job bullet
If the last one happens, a recruiter searching the ATS for "React" may still find you, but the profile they open can show a garbled work history, wrong dates or an empty skills field. An ATS usually doesn't reject a resume on its own. It stores and ranks it, and recruiters search and filter what it stored. A bad parse makes you harder to find and harder to read.
Job seekers keep telling the same story in online communities: a two-column resume made in a design tool got ghosted or rejected fast, and a plain one-column rebuild with the same content started getting replies. That isn't a controlled test, but it matches how parsers work.
Other formatting that breaks ATS parsing
Columns are the best known problem. These do the same kind of damage:
- Tables and text boxes. Many Word and design templates use invisible tables or text boxes for layout. Their contents can come out in the wrong order or not at all.
- Contact details in the page header or footer. Some parsers skip those areas. Put your name, email, phone and city in the body of the page.
- Icons in place of words. A phone icon next to a number is fine for a person. A parser just sees a number. Skill ratings as bars or dots carry no text at all.
- Images of text. A scanned resume, or a PDF exported as an image, has no text to extract.
- Creative section headings. "Where I've been" or "My toolkit" can leave the parser unsure what the section is. "Experience", "Education" and "Skills" are boring for a reason.
The plain-text test: check any resume in two minutes
You don't need a special tool to see roughly what a parser sees:
- Open your PDF and select all the text (Ctrl+A or Cmd+A).
- Copy it and paste it into a plain-text editor, such as Notepad or TextEdit in plain-text mode.
- Read it from the top.
Check that your name and contact details come first, each job's title, employer and dates stay together, bullets sit under the right job, and no text is missing. If you can't select the text at all, the PDF is an image, and you need to export it again from the original document.
This test isn't perfect, since every ATS has its own parser. But if the pasted text is jumbled, assume at least some parsers will jumble it too.
PDF or Word?
If the posting asks for a format, use it. If it doesn't, a text-based PDF from a simple single-column layout is a sound default: it looks the same on every screen and most systems accept it. If a portal rejects your PDF or asks for a .docx, upload one.
When a two-column resume is fine
The design isn't wrong. It just doesn't belong in every place. A sidebar layout works well when:
- you hand the resume to someone at a career fair or an interview
- a contact or referrer passes it straight to a hiring manager
- you send it by email to a person rather than through a portal
- you work in a design field and the resume is part of your portfolio
A simple setup is to keep two copies with the same content: a single-column version for online applications and a designed version for people. If you already juggle several resumes, how many resume versions you actually need covers how to keep that under control.
How to switch to an ATS-friendly layout in Curri
In Curri your content and your design are separate. A CV's text comes from your profile and whatever you edited on that CV. The template only decides how it looks. So moving from two columns to one is a click, not a rewrite.
1. Know which templates use columns
The Templates page lists every template, and every account gets all of them.
There are eight built-in templates:
- Single column: ATS Modern, ATS Corporate, Modern Professional and Classic Professional. The first two and Modern Professional carry the ATS style tag. Classic Professional is also one column, with skills laid out in a small grid.
- Columns or a sidebar: The Executive and Corporate Creative Fusion (sidebar layouts), Classic Harmony (two columns), and Classic Columnar (section titles in a narrow left column beside the content).
For online applications, start with ATS Modern or ATS Corporate. Keep the others for resumes a person will read first.
2. Switch the template on your CV
Open a CV and go to the Design tab. The template grid is at the top, and the current template is highlighted. Here is a CV in Corporate Creative Fusion, with skills in a right-hand sidebar next to the summary and experience:
Click ATS Modern and the CV is laid out in one column instead. Here is another of the demo CVs in ATS Modern: name and contact details at the top, then Summary, Experience and Education with standard headings, one after another.
Only the design changes when you switch. Your content stays the same. Below the template grid you can still adjust fonts, sizes and spacing for this CV, and the toolbar shows the page count as you go. If a switch pushes you onto an extra page, how long a resume should be has advice on what to cut.
3. Keep the headings standard
Section headings on a Curri CV are editable in place, so you can rename "Experience" to anything you like. For an ATS version, don't. Stick with Summary, Experience, Education and Skills.
4. Keep a designed copy if you want one
From the CV's menu, choose Duplicate to make a copy, then give one copy a sidebar template and the other ATS Modern. Both start with the same content, so you have a version for portals and a version for people without typing anything twice.
5. Download and run the test
Use Finalize and PDF (or Download PDF once a CV is finalized). Curri builds the PDF from the CV's text, with your contact details in the body of the page, not in a header or footer. Run the plain-text test on the file anyway. It takes a minute, and it's the only check that counts for the exact file you're about to upload.
If your current resume is a two-column design
You can import an existing resume from a PDF to fill your Curri profile. Heavy graphics, tables and columns can confuse that import too, so check the profile afterwards and fix or add anything that came through wrong. Once the profile is right, every CV you make from it can use whichever template fits the application.
The short version
- Use a single-column, text-based resume for anything you submit through an online application.
- Keep contact details in the body, use standard headings, and avoid tables, text boxes, icons and images of text.
- Paste your PDF into a plain-text editor and read it top to bottom before you apply.
- Save the two-column design for when a person sees it first.
Curri's templates let you switch between the two without retyping, and the ATS optimization page explains how Curri tailors the content itself to each posting. You start with $5 of free credit, and the pricing page has the details.