Simple resume templates
Five quiet, text-first layouts for when the reading matters more than the look: conservative industries, senior applications and recruiters who skim in seconds.
A simple template is not the absence of design; it is design spent entirely on readability: one clear column, generous headings, nothing competing with your evidence. In law, finance, government, healthcare and most senior hiring, this is not the safe choice, it is the correct one.
Simplicity also buys certainty at the parsing step: single-column, real-text layouts are the case every parser handles perfectly, old or new. The formatting guide explains what goes wrong with busier layouts; these five simply never meet those problems.
The templates
- Minimal · Use this template free
- Direct · Use this template free
- Heritage · Use this template free
- Executive · Use this template free
- Blueprint · Use this template free
When simple is the right call
- Conservative professions: law, accounting, banking, government, medicine.
- Senior roles, where dense evidence needs room to breathe.
- Long work histories that must stay skimmable across two pages.
- Anywhere the resume will be printed or read on paper.
- Any application where you cannot know how old the employer’s parser is.
Common questions
Does a simple template make my application look lazy?
Recruiters read hundreds of resumes; clarity reads as confidence, not laziness. What reads as lazy is thin content, which no template fixes. The writing guide is where the effort belongs.
Are "simple" and "ATS-friendly" the same thing?
Overlapping, not identical. Simple layouts are automatically parser-safe, but a well-built modern layout parses too; see the modern collection. Choose by audience, not by fear.
Which of the five should I pick?
Minimal and Direct are the plainest; Heritage reads classically formal; Executive suits management applications; Blueprint is built for technical roles. All five pass the same extraction test, so the choice is purely about tone.