You spent two hours making your resume look beautiful in Canva. It has a dark sidebar, skill bars, tasteful icons for your phone and email, a two-column layout, and a headshot. It looks fantastic. And when you upload it to an ATS portal, half of it disappears.
This is not a bug. It is a fundamental mismatch between how design tools create documents and how applicant tracking systems read them. Let me walk you through exactly what works, what breaks, and why.
How ATS reading order works
An ATS reads your resume like a simple text processor. It starts at the top, reads left to right, top to bottom, and expects content to follow a single linear flow. That is the key insight. It expects one reading path.
When you create a two-column layout, you are actually creating two parallel reading paths. A human brain switches between them naturally. An ATS does not. Depending on how the PDF or DOCX was built, the system might read all of column one first, then all of column two - or it might alternate between them line by line, merging your job title with an unrelated skill from the sidebar.
The result? A recruiter searches for "project management" and your resume does not appear - even though those words are right there in your sidebar skills list - because the parser mapped them to a garbled field.
Element-by-element breakdown
Tables
Tables in Word documents are a common way to create column layouts. Some ATS platforms handle simple tables acceptably - a basic two-column table with one cell for content and one for a sidebar. But many platforms, including Workday and older versions of Taleo, read tables cell by cell in unpredictable order, especially when cells contain multiple paragraphs.
The safe rule: do not use tables for layout. If you need to present tabular data (like a comparison or a certification list), a simple table is fine. But using tables as invisible structure to position content is asking for trouble.
Columns (multi-column layouts)
Word has a built-in column feature that creates newspaper-style text flow. Most ATS platforms handle this poorly. The text may be read in the wrong order, or entire column blocks may be skipped.
This also applies to the "text box" approach - placing content inside text boxes and positioning them side by side. Text boxes are floating elements. Many ATS parsers ignore floating elements entirely, which means anything inside them (your contact info, your skills, your entire sidebar) vanishes from the parsed output.
Icons
Those cute phone, email, and LinkedIn icons you see on template sites? An ATS cannot read them. They are images. If your phone number appears next to a phone icon with no text label, the system might correctly extract the number - or it might not, depending on how the icon was embedded.
The safer approach is simple: just type "Phone:" or "Email:" before the number. It is less pretty and significantly more functional. Recruiters do not need an icon to understand that a string of digits is a phone number, but an ATS sometimes does need that text label to map it to the right field.
Graphics and images
ATS platforms ignore images entirely during parsing. This means:
- A headshot takes up space but contributes nothing to your parsed profile.
- A logo of a company you worked at is invisible to the system.
- An infographic-style skills chart with your proficiencies is just a blank spot as far as the ATS is concerned.
- If your name or contact details are part of a header graphic (common in Canva templates), the ATS might parse your resume as having no name at all.
Skill bars and progress indicators
These are images or CSS shapes - not text. The ATS gets nothing from them. And from a human perspective, they raise the question I mentioned in our common resume mistakes article: what does "JavaScript 75%" actually mean? It means less than you think, and it parses as nothing.
Headers and footers
Content placed in the document header or footer is ignored by most ATS platforms. This is a significant problem because many templates put the candidate's name and contact information in the header. You end up with a beautifully formatted document where the most important information - who you are and how to reach you - does not exist in the parsed output.
What actually works
| Element | ATS-safe? | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Single-column layout | Yes | Use this as your default |
| Standard headings (H2/bold) | Yes | Use "Experience," "Education," "Skills" |
| Bullet points | Yes | Standard round bullets; avoid custom symbols |
| Bold and italic text | Yes | Fine for emphasis; does not affect parsing |
| Hyperlinks | Yes | Use for LinkedIn and portfolio links |
| Colour (for text or headings) | Yes | Colour does not affect parsing - just ensure readability |
| Two-column layout | Risky | Avoid for ATS submissions; fine for direct emails |
| Text boxes | No | Content inside text boxes is often invisible to parsers |
| Icons | No | Use text labels instead |
| Skill bars / charts | No | List skills as text; let the bullets prove proficiency |
"But my resume looks boring without design elements"
I hear this a lot. And my response is always the same: your resume's job is not to look exciting. Its job is to get you an interview. A well-organized, clearly written single-column resume with strong content will outperform a beautiful two-column template with weak content every time.
That said, "ATS-friendly" does not mean "ugly." You can absolutely use clean fonts, subtle colour accents on headings, consistent spacing, and professional alignment. Those choices create visual appeal without breaking parsing. Check the best resume format for ATS page to see examples that balance both.
The Canva problem specifically
Canva is the most common culprit I see. People create stunning resumes in Canva, export as PDF, submit to job portals, and then wonder why they get zero callbacks. The issue is that Canva creates PDFs where text positioning is determined by absolute coordinates, not by document structure. Each text element is an independent object placed at specific pixel coordinates. An ATS trying to reconstruct the reading order from those coordinates can produce wildly scrambled output.
If you want to use Canva for the visual version (the one you email directly or hand to someone at a job fair), go ahead. But always maintain a plain Word version for ATS submissions. The templates library has ATS-safe options you can start from.
Testing your own resume
Want to know exactly how an ATS will see your document? Here are two quick tests:
- The copy-paste test: Open your resume, select all, copy, and paste into Notepad or a plain text editor. If the text comes out in logical order with all sections intact, you are probably fine. If it is scrambled, your layout is the problem.
- The free parser test: Several free ATS simulation tools exist online. Upload your resume and see what it extracts. If your name is missing, your dates are wrong, or your skills disappeared, you know the issue is structural.
For the full picture on ATS parsing mechanics, read how ATS actually parses your resume. For file format considerations, see PDF vs Word for ATS.
Trusted external resources
Useful next steps
Now that you know which design elements are safe and which ones create problems, the next step is understanding why. The articles below cover the parsing process itself, file format choices, and clean layout options you can start from today.
- How Applicant Tracking Systems Actually Parse Your Resume
- PDF vs Word for ATS: Which File Type Is Safer?
- Best Resume Format for ATS
- Resume Templates
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use a two-column resume if I email it directly?
Yes. When you bypass the ATS entirely - emailing a recruiter directly, handing a printed copy at a career fair - layout creativity carries no parsing risk. Just keep a single-column version ready for online portals.
Are there any ATS platforms that handle columns well?
Greenhouse and Lever have improved their multi-column parsing in recent years. But even with those platforms, the results are inconsistent enough that a single-column layout remains the safer choice.
Should I avoid all images on my resume?
For ATS submissions, yes - images add nothing to the parsed output and take up space. The one exception is if the posting explicitly asks for a photo, which is common in some countries and industries.