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ATS Can’t Read Tables and Columns: Most ATS parsers read linearly (left to right). Using grids or side-by-side columns causes text-layer scrambling, which turns your information into unreadable “word salad.”
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Stick to Single-Column Layouts: A clean, top-to-bottom flow ensures the software correctly identifies your contact info, skills, and work history without skipping sections.
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Simplify Skill Lists: Instead of using a table to organize skills, use vertical bars (|), bullet points (•), or commas to keep your qualifications readable for the parser.
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Use “Umbrella” Formatting for Promotions: When listing multiple roles at one company, list the company name once at the top to ensure the ATS attributes all roles to the correct employer.
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Minimize Design Elements: Avoid graphics, text boxes, and non-standard fonts. While these look good to humans, they often cause catastrophic data collisions in a digital parser.
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Verify with a Jobscan’s Resume Scanner: Use Jobscan to test your resume. It reveals exactly how a machine “sees” your data and checks if your formatting is hiding your keywords.
You spend hours perfecting your resume layout. Two columns, maybe a table to organize your skills, and just the right amount of design to make it pop. But what if the ATS can’t read your tables and columns?
Multi-column layouts and complex tables frequently scramble the parse, so it’s safest to avoid them for anything you need the ATS to read.
A side-by-side style might look visually stunning to a human reader, but to a parsing algorithm in an applicant tracking system (ATS), it is a catastrophic data collision.
When you use ATS tables and columns to organize your skills or multi-role tenure, the software reads straight across the page, mashing unrelated sentences together into an unreadable block of gibberish.
Here is the technical breakdown of why resume grids, tables, and columns fail, and the three parser-safe layout methods you should use instead.
Are tables and columns ATS-friendly? A quick answer
Some modern ATS platforms can handle a simple, one-row table. However, platforms vary, and most ATS software can’t read multi-column layouts and complex, nested tables. The more visual structure a layout has, the more likely a parser is to misread the order of your content or drop sections entirely.
The safe move is a single-column layout with no tables for anything the ATS needs to read, like your work history, skills, or contact information. A decorative divider rarely breaks a parse; a two- or three-column layout built for visual design almost always risks it.
Not sure which category your resume falls into? See exactly how an ATS parses your current layout with Jobscan’s free resume scanner.
So can the ATS read tables and columns? Some do, but it’s not worth the gamble to test your application.
The technical reason tables break ats parsers
The core table and column readability issue lies in how Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) process data. Most parsers are designed to read a document as a continuous, linear stream of text; moving strictly from left to right and top to bottom, just like a human would.
When you introduce a table, you are asking the software to understand a two-dimensional grid. And instead of the ATS reading all the content within “Cell A” before moving to “Cell B,” the parser often slices through the table horizontally across the entire page.
This is often referred to as text-layer scrambling.
Text-layer scrambling explained
Text-layer scrambling is a technical phenomenon that occurs when a PDF’s visual layout doesn’t match its underlying data structure. For a job seeker, this is the invisible killer of a resume.
When you’re creating a resume in a design tool like Canva or Adobe Illustrator, your resume is being structured in layers, rather than a linear, top-to-bottom reading order. When the file is transformed to plain text, the content will appear out of order or missing, leading to incorrect parsing.
So, while a human sees a perfectly organized document, an ATS sees a “word salad” because it reads the text layer based on the order the code was written, not the way it appears on the screen.
This scrambling can effectively hide your qualifications. When the machine can’t find the logical connection between your experience and your skills due to a fragmented text layer, you’re making one of the worst ATS formatting mistakes that can cost you interviews.
Here’s an example of a design-heavy resume with columns and table.
Here’s how the ATS parsed the information from the above resume.
The ATS picked up the work experience section, but ignored everything else. No skills, no “About” section, no contact info, and no links to work samples.
This is why you shouldn’t use complex elements: the ATS can’t read tables and columns on your resume.
How to format a “skills” section without ATS tables and columns
You can still include your skills in a list without adding a separate column the ATS can’t read. The two primary readable methods are the vertical bar method, or the comma-separated list.
The vertical bar method (|)
Vertical lines are a clean, modern format to list your skills and outline your proficiencies without breaking the parser that reads your resume.
Product Vision | Roadmap Development | Product Lifecycle Management | Market Research | Data Analysis | SQL | Google Analytics | Product Metrics | A/B Testing | User Research
The comma-separated method
Basic commas are a tried and true method to list out your skills, and you don’t need any columns to organize your list.
Product Vision, Roadmap Development, Product Lifecycle Management, Market Research, Data Analysis, SQL, Google Analytics, Product Metrics, A/B Testing, User Research
The bullet-separated method
Separating your skills with a bullet point (•) is also available to you if you want more than a basic comma. It creates a readable list that doesn’t include any elements the ATS can’t read.
Product Vision • Roadmap Development • Product Lifecycle Management • Market Research • Data Analysis • SQL • Google Analytics • Product Metrics • A/B Testing • User Research
Whichever list separation method you use, keep them out of grids, tables, and columns to ensure you have a readable document to submit to the ATS.
NOTE: If you want a more visually designed version of your resume to showcase in interviews or on a portfolio site, that’s fine. But always use the ATS-friendly resume when applying online.
Handling multi-role tenure at one company (without ATS tables or columns)
Many job seekers struggle with showing off their promotions or job changes within a single organization.
Without the crutch of columns or tables, you must rely on font hierarchy and indentation to show the ATS (and the recruiter) that these roles belong under one “umbrella.”
The goal is to list the company name once so the ATS doesn’t think you jumped to a different employer every two years.
The “Umbrella” method
This is the gold standard for linear formatting. It uses a top-down approach that keeps the company name at the top of the “stack,” ensuring the parser attributes all subsequent roles to that specific organization.
For example, it would look like this:
[Company Name] | [Location] | [Total Dates of Tenure]
[Most Recent Job Title] | [Dates for this Role]
- [Bullet point highlighting a key achievement]
- [Bullet point highlighting a key achievement]
[Previous Job Title] | [Dates for this Role]
- [Bullet point highlighting a key achievement]
- [Bullet point highlighting a key achievement]
Read more about the ATS friendly resume format, our master compliance checklist for your resume.
How to check whether your resume’s tables will parse
You don’t have to guess whether an ATS can read your resume. There’s a quick manual check and a more thorough real check.
The quick check: Copy your resume text out of Word, Canva, or your design tool and paste it into a plain text editor (like Notepad). If your columns merge into one scrambled line, or sections jump out of order, that’s a sign the same thing is happening inside an ATS and it can’t read the tables and columns.
The real check: Run your resume through Jobscan’s resume scanner to see the actual parsed output the way an ATS sees it, including whether your tables, columns, and skills are being read correctly.
The fix: If your resume isn’t parsing cleanly, rebuild it in a single-column, ATS-ready format. Jobscan’s ATS resume builder can help you rebuild it from the ground up in a layout that’s designed to parse correctly the first time, so you’re not troubleshooting formatting issues one application at a time.
Here’s an example of Jobscan’s layout checklist:
The resume scanner does this by comparing your resume to a target job description, which is where recruiters are taking their keywords from.
It works like this:
- Paste your resume into the scanner.
- Paste the job description into the scanner.
- Click the “Scan” button.
You can try the resume scanner for free here:
And if you’d rather start clean, build on an ATS resume template that uses a single-column layout by design, or use the ATS resume builder to build one from scratch.
FAQs
Generally, no. Most ATS parsers read left to right across the page, so a two-column layout can merge unrelated text from both columns into a single scrambled line. If you’re using a two-column template, switch to a single-column layout for anything you need the ATS to read correctly.
Some can, but many still misread the order of the content, especially in complex or design-heavy templates. Because the risk is high and the workaround is simple, single columns are the safer default for any resume you’re submitting through an online application.
Tables built for visual layout, especially ones used to organize skills or work history side by side, are a common source of scrambled parsing. When in doubt, use a vertical bar, comma, or bullet-separated list instead.
