Free resume templates

Two decisions, in this order. First the shape of your history: early career or a dense projects-and-internships page wants a compact layout; fifteen years of leadership wants room for scope and a second page. Then the field you are applying into: tech, product and marketing read a contemporary page as attention to detail, while law, finance, government and academia read a conservative one as authority.

What should not enter the decision is which template looks most impressive. Recruiters spend seconds on a first pass and are reading your content, not your typography. The template's job is to stay out of the way — and, when your application goes through a portal, to survive being parsed.

Simple is the safe default for any industry: single column, nothing decorative, fastest to skim. Modern keeps that structure and adds contemporary typography — right for tech, product, design-adjacent and startup hiring. Executive is built for senior histories, with serif typography and room for scope, budget and headcount.

ATS-friendly cuts across all three: it collects every design that passes cleanly through applicant tracking systems. Google Docs and Word are format collections — the same designs, filtered to what actually opens in each tool.

PDF is the default for applying: it locks your layout on every machine and every modern system reads it. Word (.docx) is for postings that explicitly request it and for recruiters who annotate — our .docx files use real heading styles and lists, not layout boxes. Google Docs is the best free editor: one click makes a copy in your Drive.

If you came for LaTeX typography, you do not need the toolchain: Jake's Resume here is typeset in the original Computer Modern and edits in the browser.