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Templates

The seven templates and how each looks, how to switch between them without touching your content, and what happens to your style changes when you do.

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A template is the base look of a resume: its typefaces, sizes, colours and the way a heading and its rule are laid out. Your content is separate from it. Every template draws the same document the same way round, so switching from one to another never changes what you wrote, only how it is drawn.

Every template is a single column. There are no tables holding the layout, no text inside images and no second column for a machine to read in the wrong order, which is what an applicant tracking system reads most reliably.

The seven templates

TemplateHow it looks
ClassicA serif face throughout, ruled section headings and a centred header. The traditional resume.
ModernA sans face throughout and a near-black accent. The rule runs beside the heading instead of under it.
TechnicalA sans body under monospace headings, at 10pt. Dates and locations are set so the digits line up.
EditorialA serif face with a larger name, a red accent, no rules and an italic headline. Hierarchy comes from type size.
CompactA sans face at 9.5pt with 0.5in margins and tight spacing, for a long history on few pages.
ProfileA sans body under serif headings, a plum accent and a header built around your photograph.
BoldAn upper-case name, heavy section headings and a thick orange rule.

Compact sits exactly on the smallest body size and margins the ATS check accepts, so a resume that fits is still one a parser and a recruiter can read. Profile has no photograph unless you add one, and without it the header is a plain left-aligned block with a rule under it. Adding one is described in Images and fonts.

Choosing a template

There are three places, and the first two change something.

  • When you make a resume, Template in the new resume dialog sets the base look. See Make a new resume.
  • In the editor, the Style tab starts with a Template group that lists all seven. Each row shows a sample in the template's accent and heading face, its name and a one-line description. Choose a row to switch.
  • Templates in the sidebar shows all seven, each with a note on how it reads to a parser. It only describes them. Nothing is applied from there.

0:00 / 0:00

The same resume in three templates, then the Keep your style changes? question when a style setting was changed by hand.

Switching, and your style changes

A template does more than draw the page. It also starts a resume off with its own style settings: its faces, sizes, colours and spacing. Those are copied into the resume when you choose the template, and from then on they belong to the resume, so changing them is yours to do in the Style tab. See Design tokens.

What a switch does with them depends on whether you have changed any:

  • If you have not changed any style setting, the switch is immediate, and the new template's settings replace the old ones. There is nothing to lose, so you are not asked.
  • If you have changed something, a dialog named Keep your style changes? asks. Use template defaults replaces your settings with the new template's. Keep my changes keeps them and changes only the template's own look. Keep my changes is the one that is focused, so pressing Enter by mistake cannot throw styling work away. Your content is untouched either way, and you can cancel the switch.

Paper size is not counted as a change. It is a property of the printer and not of the design, so changing it never makes the dialog appear.

Your own CSS is not part of the question. A switch leaves it exactly as it is. See Custom CSS.

Cover letters

A cover letter chooses from the same seven. A letter takes the template's typefaces and colours, but its own measures: a one inch margin, a body of at least 11pt, lines 1.5 apart and a paragraph's worth of space between paragraphs. A letter in Compact is a letter in that template's type and not its density. See Cover letters.

When a template is improved

A resume stores only which template it uses, not a copy of it. The templates come with Rejarsume, so if a later release improves one, a resume that uses it is drawn with the improved version, and a page can break in a slightly different place.