Why the parser reads columns in the wrong order
The mechanism is simple. According to Jobscan, an ATS-tool vendor, most parsers read a document "as a continuous linear stream" — left-to-right, top-to-bottom — so a clean single-column flow is what lets the software correctly identify your contact info, skills, and work history. In a single column that works fine: the reader moves straight down the page in the order you intended.
A two-column layout breaks that assumption. When the parser sweeps across a line that contains two columns, it can pull in text from both sides at once, interleaving a job title on the left with an unrelated skill on the right. The University of Pittsburgh career center specifically advises avoiding "mid-line columns," alongside images and complex designs, and notes that plain text is preferred.
Tables and text boxes are usually the real culprit
Here's the part most people miss: a two-column resume is almost always built with a table or a set of text boxes underneath, and those are flagged just as hard as the columns themselves. The MIT career center warns against putting information in tables or text boxes because the ATS "may distort or recombine the information." So the layout you see as two neat columns can reach the recruiter's system with your dates, titles, and bullets shuffled together.
Both UConn and UT Austin group tables and text boxes with columns for the same reason — they all interfere with a clean read. That's the practical takeaway: it isn't only the two-column look that's risky, it's the tables and boxes people use to create it.
What a clean, ATS-friendly layout looks like
The consensus fix is a single column. The Ohio Northern University resume guide recommends a "single-column, left-aligned layout with no tables, multiple columns, or text boxes" as the ATS-friendly format. That gives the parser exactly the linear top-to-bottom flow it expects.
Two more small things help the software file your content correctly:
- Use standard section headings. UConn notes that standard headings like "Experience" act as "pre-programmed keywords" that help the ATS parse your resume into the right buckets. A creative label the parser doesn't recognize can leave a whole section unclassified.
- Keep it as plain as the content allows. Pittsburgh's guidance to avoid images and complex designs applies here too — the fewer graphical tricks the parser has to interpret, the less can go wrong.
See what your resume is missing — before you apply.
CVder reads the job posting and your resume side by side, then shows the exact terms to add and the formatting a parser would trip on.
Test your own resume in five minutes
You don't have to guess whether your layout survives the parse. MIT's career center suggests a quick check: save or copy your resume into plain text (a .txt file) and read it back, looking for missing text or text that lands in the wrong order. If your two columns come out interleaved or scrambled in the plain-text version, that's roughly what the ATS sees — and your signal to switch to a single column.
For a check that also scores your wording against a specific role, paste the job description and your resume into our free ATS checker to see the match. It's a fast way to catch both a broken layout and missing keywords before you apply.
- Two-column layouts often confuse the ATS because parsers read a resume as one linear top-to-bottom stream and can read the columns out of order.
- The tables and text boxes used to build columns are flagged just as hard — they can distort or recombine your information.
- Switch to a single-column, left-aligned layout with standard section headings like "Experience."
- Test it: save your resume as plain text and check that nothing is missing or out of order.
- For the full picture on layout, headings, and keywords, see our guide on how to pass an ATS.