Layouts, columns and ATS – Page 3

List them as short entries in a single "Projects" section, each with a name, context, dates and one or two bullets. Then link to a portfolio for visuals.

Example:
"Projects
Retail Sales Dashboard | Personal project | 2025

• Built an interactive dashboard in Power BI from two years of sample sales data.

Clinic Booking App | Team project, University of Doha | 2024

• Designed the booking flow and tested it with 15 users."

Choose the projects most relevant to the job. A grid of project tiles, often built from text boxes or images, is much harder for software to read.

Run a short layout check on the final PDF:

• Your name is the first line when you copy all the text and paste it into a plain text editor.
• Contact details follow straight after, complete and on one or two lines.
• Every section heading appears before its own content.
• Each job shows title, employer, location and dates together, followed by its bullets.
• No lines from different sections are mixed.
• Nothing important is missing, especially skills and qualifications.
• Page breaks do not separate a job title from its details.

If all of these pass, your layout is unlikely to be the cause of any problems.

Yes, it helps. Styles such as "Heading 1" for section names and "List Bullet" for achievements give your document real structure instead of manual formatting. That makes formatting consistent, makes changes quicker, and, when you save as PDF, can produce structure tags that help accessibility tools and some software understand headings and lists.

How to start:

• Apply a heading style to each section name, then change its font, size and colour once in the style.
• Use the bullet list style for achievements.
• Use paragraph spacing settings for gaps.

Styles keep your layout in the normal flow of text, which is exactly what applicant tracking systems handle best.

Yes, frames in LibreOffice work much like text boxes in Word: they hold content separately from the main text and can be placed anywhere on the page. Software reading the exported file may read frame content out of order or skip it.

To make the file safer, cut the text out of each frame, paste it into the main document in reading order, and delete the empty frames. Then export to PDF (File, then Export as PDF) and run the copy-and-paste test.

It carries some risk. Many popular LaTeX CV templates place dates in a narrow left margin column beside each entry. Depending on how the PDF stores the text, software may read the date and its entry together or separate them.

Check it:

• Run the copy-and-paste test and see whether each date appears next to its job.
• If dates are grouped together or misplaced, switch to a template style where dates sit on the same line as the employer, or edit the template to do so.

If you are emailing a CV directly to an academic contact, layout risk matters less, but for online portals the copy-and-paste result is the best guide.

Often reasonably safe, because browsers usually export text in the order it appears in the page's code. But visual layouts built with columns can still produce a different order from what you see, and print settings may add headers, footers, page URLs or dates.

Before using it:

• In the print dialog, turn off headers and footers.
• Check the page size (A4 or US Letter) and margins.
• Run the copy-and-paste test on the PDF.
• Make sure links display as readable addresses, not just "click here".

Test the result before you rely on it. Export a PDF, run the copy-and-paste test, and check whether each column comes out as a complete block with jobs intact. If it does, you may be fine for many applications.

If the text is mixed up, or you are applying through many company portals, consider:

• Using a different tool that offers single-column templates.
• Copying your content into a simple word processor document.

Your content is the valuable part, so keep a plain text copy of it, which makes moving between tools easy.

Here is a skeleton of a single-column layout, shown as it would appear from top to bottom (details are illustrative):

"LAYLA HASSAN
HR Officer
Abu Dhabi, UAE | +971 50 000 0000 | layla.hassan@example.com | linkedin.com/in/laylahassan

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
HR officer with five years in recruitment and onboarding for hospitality groups...

WORK EXPERIENCE
HR Officer
Desert Pearl Hotels, Abu Dhabi | Mar 2022 – Present

• Coordinated hiring for 120 seasonal roles each year using an applicant tracking system.

EDUCATION
BBA, Human Resource Management | Zayed University | 2019

SKILLS
Recruitment, onboarding, payroll inputs, HRIS data entry, MS Excel"

Everything is normal text, in one column, under clear headings. You can still add colour and a nice font on top of this structure.

Here is an illustrative example of pasted text from a two-column resume read line by line across both columns:

"Senior Accountant SKILLS
Gulf Star Trading, Dubai IFRS
Prepared monthly financial SAP FICO
statements for four LANGUAGES
subsidiaries English, Arabic"

The skills, languages and job bullet are interleaved, so a parser may attach "IFRS" to your job description or treat "LANGUAGES" as part of a sentence. If your own copy-and-paste test looks like this, move the side column content into the main flow or choose a single-column template.

Yes, potentially a big one. Some templates and converted documents place all the content inside a single text box or frame. Systems that skip text boxes may see an almost empty document, leaving your profile blank.

To check, click on your text: if a border with handles appears around everything, it is in a box. Fix it by selecting all the text inside the box, cutting it, deleting the box and pasting the text into the main document. Then reapply simple formatting and test the exported PDF.

No. Grouping shapes and text boxes together, or using "Bring to front" and "Send to back", changes how they behave visually, not where their text sits in the main flow of the document. Software may still read grouped text boxes separately or at the end.

The only reliable fix is to move important text out of boxes and shapes into normal paragraphs. Keep any remaining shapes purely decorative, with no words in them.

Better not. Bullets describe what you did in a role, and splitting them into two columns makes them easy to read out of order. Software may read across rows, joining the end of one bullet with the start of another, and recruiters scanning down may miss half your achievements.

To save space, shorten bullets instead:

• Keep each to one or two lines.
• Remove duplicate or weak bullets.
• Combine related tasks into one result-focused bullet. Example: "Cut supplier delivery delays by setting weekly order schedules with five key vendors."

It is better to start with your name. Some systems assume the first line of your resume is your name, so a quote or tagline above it may be read as your name or confuse the contact fields. Recruiters also expect to see who you are first.

Put your name on the first line, then a short professional title underneath. Example:
"Rahul Verma
Supply Chain Analyst"

Skip motivational quotes entirely; they take space without showing your skills.

Not usually for software, as alignment on its own rarely affects how text is read. For people, too many alignments make a page look messy and harder to scan.

A clean pattern:

• Name and contact details: centred or left-aligned.
• Headings: the same alignment as each other.
• Job titles, employers and bullets: left-aligned.
• Dates: right-aligned with a tab stop, consistently for every job.

Pick a pattern and use it throughout.

They can. Empty text boxes, table cells and shapes left over from a template add hidden structure to your file. Usually they are harmless, but they can produce stray blank lines or odd breaks in extracted text, and sometimes they contain invisible placeholder text.

Clean them out:

• Use the Selection Pane to find and delete unused boxes and shapes.
• Delete empty table rows or columns, or remove the table if it only serves layout.
• Check with Inspect Document for hidden text.

A clean file is also easier to edit next time.

Keep it simple and flexible. The two sizes differ slightly in width and height, so a layout that fills one page exactly on A4 may spill onto a second page on Letter, or leave a gap.

Tips:

• Use a single column, which reflows easily.
• Leave some space at the bottom of each page rather than filling it to the edge.
• Avoid fixed-position elements such as text boxes and shapes, which do not move with text.
• After changing the page size, check page breaks so no job is split badly.

Export a separate PDF for each size if you apply in different regions.

Yes. Software reads both pages as one document, and a sudden change, such as a sidebar that appears only on page one or headings styled differently on page two, can confuse both parsers and readers.

Keep consistent:

• Same column structure on every page.
• Same heading style, fonts and spacing.
• Same pattern for job entries.

If page two has only a few lines, trim content to fit one page or add relevant detail so it looks intentional.

Use a grouped skills section in the main column, near the top, with each line covering one category. Example:
"Technical Skills
Languages: Python, Java, SQL
Frameworks: Django, Spring Boot
Cloud and DevOps: AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins
Tools: Git, Jira, Postman"

Then show the most important tools in action within your job bullets. Example: "Migrated three services to Docker containers, cutting deployment time from hours to minutes."

This reads cleanly for software, groups skills logically for recruiters, and avoids long sidebar lists or skill bars.

Get the layout to "safe enough", then spend most of your effort on content. Layout matters because a resume that software cannot read properly may never be found or may be misread. But once your file passes basic checks, further layout tweaks rarely make a difference, while better content usually does.

"Safe enough" means:

• Text-based file.
• Single column, or a tested simple design.
• Name and contact details in the main body at the top.
• Standard headings and consistent job entries.
• A clean copy-and-paste test result.

After that, focus on what persuades people: a targeted summary, relevant achievements with results, the right skills for the job, and clear, error-free writing. That is what moves a recruiter to call you.

Yes. Sections in ResumeBuilder.ae can be reordered, so you can, for example, put Education before Work Experience as a graduate, or move Skills higher for a technical role. Available sections include Work Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications, Projects, Languages and more, plus a Custom Section with your own heading.

For applicant tracking systems, the order matters less than clear headings and a simple layout, so choose the order that puts your strongest, most relevant information first. Single-column templates such as ATS Classic or ATS Professional are the safest default.

No, convert it to standard pages. Some design tools and web exports create a single tall page with a custom size. Portals and printers may shrink it to fit one sheet, making text tiny, or cut it off, and some systems handle unusual page sizes poorly.

Set the document to A4 or US Letter, let the content flow onto two pages if needed, and check page breaks so no job is split awkwardly. Then export again and run the copy-and-paste test.

Yes. If an employer, agency or institution provides a template or form, use it exactly as instructed. Their systems and reviewers are set up for that format, and ignoring it can look as if you did not read the instructions.

Tips:

• Fill every relevant field, keeping wording consistent with your own resume.
• Do not change the template's structure unless allowed.
• If it is a Word file with tables or boxes, type inside the provided areas rather than redesigning.
• If they also accept your own resume, attach it separately where allowed.

No. Word clouds are usually images, so software cannot read the words, or scattered text pieces with no order. They also make it hard for a recruiter to tell which skills are strongest, since size and position are arbitrary.

Use a plain skills list grouped by category, and show your main skills in your job bullets with real examples. Example: "Tools: AutoCAD, Revit, MS Project". This is easier for both software and people to read.

It is not recommended. Pull quotes and testimonial boxes are usually text boxes placed beside the main content, so software may read them in the middle of your work history or skip them. Recruiters also tend to give unverified quotes little weight.

If you have strong feedback, turn it into evidence in a bullet. Example: "Rated top trainer by participants in the 2024 regional programme." Keep longer recommendations for LinkedIn or for references when asked.

It can be. Colour does not survive text extraction, so software sees only the words, and printing in black and white or reading on some screens can remove the distinction too. If the only thing marking a section or a type of skill is its colour, that meaning is lost.

Use words and structure as well:

• Clear section headings and labels. Example: "Technical skills:" and "Languages:".
• Spacing and bold to separate items.
• Colour only as an extra accent.