Do two-column resumes fail ATS?

Two-column resumes are popular because they fit more on a page and look designed: contact details, skills and education in a narrow sidebar, experience in the wide column. People read them easily, because we know to read one column and then the other. A parser does not know that.

Why columns confuse parsers

A PDF does not store "a sidebar" and "a main column". It stores pieces of text, each with a position on the page. The parser has to work out the reading order, and there are two common strategies, both of which can go wrong with columns:

• Read across the full width, line by line. Text at the same height on the left and right becomes one line, so a skill from the sidebar ends up glued to a bullet from your experience.
• Group text into blocks, then order the blocks. This keeps each column together, but the sidebar often comes first, so contact details, skills and education appear before your summary and experience, or a block lands in the middle of another section.

Either way, the system can lose track of which text belongs to which section. Skills may stop being recognised as skills, and dates can attach to the wrong job.

What we saw

When we tested seven resume templates with four PDF text extractors, the two-column template was the only one that every extractor mixed up, in both of the ways described above:

• Three extractors put the whole sidebar first. Their text read Contact, Skills, Education and Certifications, and only then Summary, Experience and Projects. A parser reading top to bottom meets your education before your work history.
• The fourth printed both columns side by side. Sidebar text and main-column text shared each line, so not one section heading stood on a line of its own, and none could be found.

The six single-column templates kept their sections in the right order in all four extractors.

How to convert your resume to one column

1. Move the sidebar into sections. Contact details go in a line under your name. Skills becomes a "Skills" section, education an "Education" section, certifications a "Certifications" section.
2. Order sections by importance for the job. Usually summary, experience, projects, skills, education. Early-career candidates often put education or projects before experience.
3. Use the width you gained for a skills list grouped by type, such as "Languages: Go, Java, SQL", rather than a column of single words.
4. Keep it to one page if you have less than about ten years of experience; the extra width usually makes that easier, not harder.

When a two-column resume is fine

If you are handing a printed resume to a person, emailing it directly to a hiring manager, or posting a portfolio PDF, people read it and the layout is fine. The risk is specific to applications that go through an applicant-tracking system, which today is most online applications at companies of any size.

FAQ

Can any ATS read two-column resumes?

Some modern parsers detect columns and handle them well, but you cannot know which parser a given employer uses. A single column works with all of them.

Are tables as risky as columns?

Similar. Tables are often used to fake columns, and parsers may read them cell by cell across the row. Use plain sections and lists instead.

How do I know if my resume is affected?

Upload it to the free ATS checker and read the extracted text. If sidebar content appears before your experience, or lines from both columns run together, a tracking system sees the same.