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Are Canva resume templates ATS-friendly?
Some are, many aren’t, and you can’t tell by looking. The text in a Canva PDF is usually real text. The trouble is the layout: sidebars, columns and text boxes are often read in the wrong order, and icons and skill bars aren’t read at all. The same applies to two-column templates from Word, Google Docs and Etsy.
The 30-second test
Open your PDF, select everything (Ctrl/Cmd+A), copy, and paste into a plain text editor such as Notepad or TextEdit. That paste is close to what an applicant tracking system receives. Or drop the file into our checker, which shows what a machine can read and scores it.
- Is every line there, including your name, email and phone number?
- Is it in a sensible order, or do lines from the sidebar cut into your work history?
- Are your section headings there as words? Are your dates next to the right jobs?
What usually breaks
- Two columns. A parser reads left to right across the page, or one text box at a time in the order they were created. Either way, a sidebar of skills can land in the middle of a job description.
- Contact details in a header, footer or graphic. Some systems skip them, and then your application has no phone number.
- Skill bars, star ratings and icons. They are pictures. “Python” followed by four filled dots is read as just “Python”, and an envelope icon standing in for the word “Email” is read as nothing.
- Decorative headings. Letter-spaced headings can come out as “E X P E R I E N C E”, which no system recognizes as a section.
- A flattened export. Choosing a flattened PDF turns the whole page into one image. The result scores 0 everywhere.
How to fix it without starting over
- Pick a single-column template, or move the sidebar content into the main column under its own heading.
- Type your contact details as plain text at the top of the page body.
- Replace skill bars with a comma-separated list: “Python, SQL, Tableau, Excel”.
- In Canva, download as PDF Standard and leave “Flatten PDF” unticked. Then run the test again.
- Keep the designed version too. Send it by email, bring it to interviews, and use the plain one for online applications.
Questions
Do recruiters prefer designed resumes?
Once a person is reading, a clean design helps a little and a cluttered one hurts. But for online applications a parser comes first, so readability wins. Designers and other creative applicants show their taste in a portfolio. See the guides for graphic designers and UX designers.
Is a Google Docs or Word template safer?
Single-column ones, yes. But several popular templates in both are built on invisible tables or text boxes and have the same ordering problem. Run the same copy-and-paste test on any template before you trust it.
Is a photo on my resume a problem?
The ATS ignores it. In the US, UK and Canada employers generally prefer resumes without photos, to avoid any suggestion of bias. In parts of Europe and Asia a photo is normal. Follow the custom where you’re applying.