About this template
The ATS Clean Slate template uses a single-column layout in Lato with airy spacing and an emerald accent. Skills are kept as plain inline text, never icons, so the main ATS engines — Workday, Taleo, Greenhouse, SmartRecruiters, iCIMS — parse every keyword cleanly. It is a safe default choice for the vast majority of applications at Fortune 500 companies and global scale-ups.
Who is it for?
It is designed for senior tech and finance profiles applying at companies where every CV is parsed first: software engineers, product managers, strategy consultants, financial analysts, FP&A leads. Fitted to applications at the Big Four (Deloitte, KPMG, EY, PwC), MBB (McKinsey, BCG, Bain), large banks (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley) and global tech scale-ups (Stripe, Datadog, Snowflake, Anthropic, OpenAI).
How to use it
Favour a 'Skills' section in plain text with exact role-specific keywords (Python, SQL, AWS, Power BI, IFRS, M&A). List experience in reverse chronological order, with one to three short bullets per role focused on impact figures (revenue generated, team managed, costs saved, users grown). Avoid undefined acronyms — spell them out at first occurrence. Add a one-line professional summary at the top for senior profiles.
Frequently asked questions
Why no icons for skills?
ATS engines read icons as noise or ignore them entirely, which can drop critical keywords. Plain text guarantees that 'Python' or 'Kubernetes' is indexed in the candidate database. Visually, the spacing and accent colour of the skills section provide sufficient hierarchy without relying on icons that risk fragmenting on the parsing side.
What's the ideal length?
One page for 0-7 years of experience, two pages for 7-20 years, and exceptionally three pages for executive-level CVs with a dense project track record. Beyond that, a separate long CV can be attached as an annex. Recruiters at large companies spend on average 30 to 90 seconds on a first-pass review.
Does the template work for US applications?
Yes. Lato typography and single-column structure are universally recognised across US Fortune 500 ATS pipelines. Remove the photo (banned by convention in US, UK, Canadian CVs), add a Professional Summary of 3-4 lines at the top, and write bullets with action verbs in simple past (led, designed, optimised, scaled, shipped, owned).
