Blue ink
Students · New graduates
Ink-blue serif type and thin rules, neat for first-time job seekers.
Accent colour
Get through applicant screening
ATS-friendly CV templates
A single-column layout, clear type and no distracting decoration. Employers’ applicant tracking systems read your details correctly.
Every line is machine-readableNo tables or text boxes that make screening systems miss information.All the sections employers needExperience, skills and education in the right order.Download a PDF or share a linkExport a crisp PDF or send employers a link.
Standard
All industries
A familiar single column, easy to read and suitable for any industry.
Accent colour
Minimal
All industries
Plenty of white space and no rules.
Accent colour
Formal
Accounting · Finance
Formal serif type in a trustworthy deep green.
Accent colour
Legal
Legal · Public administration
Deep wine red with formal serif type.
Accent colour
Accounting
Accounting · Internal audit
Neat ledger-style lines in a dependable navy.
Accent colour
Administration
Office administration
Neutral stone grey with a thin border frame.
Accent colour
Audit
Independent audit
Rigorous forest green with fine vertical lines.
Accent colour
Warehousing
Logistics · Warehousing
Shelf-like grid in a solid amber orange.
Accent colour
Driver & delivery
Driving · Delivery
Clean white and clear navy, easy to read in print.
Accent colour
Researcher
Research · University lecturers
Academic serif in black ink with no patterns.
Accent colour
ATS-friendly CV templates: how screening software reads a CV and how to avoid rejection
At banks, foreign companies and corporations that receive hundreds of applications for a single job post, your CV is read by an applicant tracking system (ATS) before it reaches a person. The software extracts your name, contact details, experience and skills into a data table, and the recruiter then filters by keyword. The 11 ATS-friendly CV templates on Việc Hot all use one column, with no tables and no text boxes. The sections below explain what the software reads and where to take your keywords from.
What an ATS is and who uses one
An ATS (applicant tracking system) is recruitment management software: it collects applications from job boards, email and the company website, parses each CV into data fields, and lets recruiters search and filter them. Recruiters rarely open PDFs one by one. They type "general accountant", "MISA" or "SAP" into the search box, filter by years of experience and location, and only then read the applications that remain. A CV that was parsed incorrectly stays in the system but never appears in the search results.
How screening software parses a CV
The software converts the PDF into lines of text, reads them from top to bottom and left to right, then looks for familiar headings such as "Work experience", "Education" and "Skills" to work out which passage belongs to which section. Anything that disturbs that order causes errors:
| Layout | What the software reads | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Two parallel columns | What the software readsLines from both columns mixed together | Do this insteadOne column, top to bottom |
| Ruled tables | What the software readsOrder lost, or the whole table skipped | Do this insteadBullet points |
| An icon instead of the word "Phone" | What the software readsAn unlabelled string of digits | Do this insteadText labels |
| Unusual headings such as "My journey" | What the software readsExperience section not recognised | Do this insteadFamiliar section headings |
The one-column layout of an ATS-friendly CV and the order of sections
A safe order: full name and the position you are applying for, contact details, a three-line summary, work experience (most recent first), education, skills, certificates. For each position, put the company name, job title and the months and years on separate lines, using the same date format throughout, for example 03/2022 - 08/2025.
The contact section needs only your full name, phone number, email and the province or city where you live. Your place of residence, ID card number and health status are things you provide when entering into a labour contract under Article 16 of the Labour Code 2019 (Bộ luật Lao động 2019), not when you submit a CV.
Take keywords from the job post, not from memory
Recruiters search with the exact words used in their own job post. Open the post, underline the job title, software, certificates and areas of expertise, then work those words into your skills section and into each experience bullet, spelled exactly as the post spells them: if the post says "tax accountant", do not just write "in charge of tax".
The same job, written two ways
Before: Responsible for the company's accounting work, preparing reports for management.
After: General accountant for a trading company with 3 branches; booked entries in MISA, prepared quarterly financial statements and tax returns; brought the month-end close forward from the 12th to the 7th of the following month.
Do not stuff keywords or hide white text at the bottom of the page; the recruiter sees it as soon as they open the CV. To find out which words your CV is missing compared with a particular post, paste the post into the job post matching tool.
File name, text-based PDF and fonts
Name the file in the form FullName-Position.pdf, without diacritics or spaces; recruiters save hundreds of files a week, and "CV.pdf" or "final (2).pdf" are the ones most easily lost. Export a text-based PDF rather than a screenshot: open the PDF and try to highlight a passage; if you cannot select the text, the software cannot read it either.
Use Arial, Calibri or Roboto at 10.5 to 12 pt. The ATS-friendly templates on Việc Hot use a one-column layout and text contact labels, and export text-based PDFs.
Common mistakes in ATS-friendly CVs and how to check your own
- A two-column template with chart-style skill bars; the software cannot read "Excel 80%".
- Name and phone number placed in the document header or inside a coloured box.
- Sending the same CV to every post without adjusting the keywords for each position.
To check it yourself: open the PDF, select all, paste it into Notepad as plain text and read it from top to bottom. If you can still tell who did what, where and when, the software can too.
Frequently asked questions
It is not required. The software does not read images, and recruiters at banks and foreign companies usually do not ask for one; if the job post explicitly asks for a photo, put a small portrait in the top corner.
Not necessarily, but the risk of the data being jumbled is much higher. When applying through a recruitment portal, use the one-column version; when sending it directly to the person referring you, two columns are fine.
A text-based PDF keeps its layout on every device and is read correctly by most software. Send a Word file only when the job post clearly asks for one.