# CV ATS structure and formatting

## Core section order

Use these standard sections unless the user's background truly requires something different:

- contact information at the top of the document body
- professional summary
- experience
- skills
- education

Keep Experience and Education in reverse chronological order. Use standard section names instead of novelty labels.

## Layout rules

- single-column layout only
- no tables, text boxes, sidebars, or floating elements
- keep margins in a normal range
- optimize horizontal space without forcing fragile layout tricks
- avoid orphan words that waste entire lines when a small rewrite would clean the wrap

## Typography rules

- use standard fonts such as Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Georgia, Times New Roman, or Tahoma
- keep body text at 10pt or larger; 11pt is the safe default
- use standard bullets or hyphens only
- avoid graphics, icons, and non-standard bullets
- avoid automatic hyphenation when the template allows it
- in LaTeX CV content, avoid em dashes; prefer commas, colons, parentheses, or a simple hyphen when punctuation is needed

## File-type rules

- prefer `.docx` or text-based `.pdf`, unless the employer requires one
- never submit an image-only PDF
- LaTeX is a strong source format for agent workflows, but the final export still needs a plain-text extraction check

## Contact and date rules

- keep contact details in the body, not in headers or footers
- write URLs explicitly
- use one unambiguous date format throughout the document
- put the full name alone on the first line of the CV

## Verification rule

Always perform a plain-text extraction sanity check before treating a CV as submission-ready.
