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CV templates: Colour, Modern and Minimal
Pick a professional colour sidebar design, or a simple single-column layout built to pass Applicant Tracking Systems — no clutter, no watermark.
Modern
Accent-colored section headings, clean and current.
Minimal
Plain black and white — the safest choice for conservative industries.
Why simple templates outperform "designer" CVs
It's tempting to reach for a CV template with icons, colored sidebars and graphic skill bars because it looks polished on screen. The problem is that most Applicant Tracking Systems — the software that scans and ranks CVs before a human ever opens them — parse documents as plain text, top to bottom, left to right. Multi-column layouts, text boxes and graphics can scramble that order, sometimes dropping entire sections like your work history into the wrong place or losing them completely.
CVBoost's Modern and Minimal templates are built the safe way: single column, standard section headings, no embedded graphics. The Colour template adds a shaded sidebar for your photo, contact details, skills and languages — it still keeps every section in standard reading order in the main column, so the content most ATS systems search for (job titles, dates, skills) stays easy to parse.
Colour template
A two-tone layout with a dark accent sidebar holding your photo, contact info, skills and languages, and a clean white main column for your summary, experience and education. This is the new default in the CV Builder and the best pick when you want a CV that looks visibly designed — marketing, sales, design, hospitality and most private-sector roles.
Modern template
Uses a single accent color on section headings and your target role line, giving the CV a bit of visual identity while keeping every section in a standard, single-column order. A good default for most industries — marketing, tech, retail, operations and general corporate roles.
Minimal template
Strips out all color, using only black text and thin dividing lines. This is the safer pick for very conservative fields like banking, law, government and academic applications, where reviewers sometimes penalize anything that looks like it's trying too hard visually.
How to switch templates
Open the CV Builder, fill in your details once, and use the Colour / Modern / Minimal switch above the live preview to compare all three instantly — your content stays exactly the same, only the styling changes, and you can download any of them as a PDF.
Template questions
Are these templates really free?
Yes, both templates are free with no watermark and no signup — fill them in through the CV Builder and download as many times as you like.
Can I add a photo to either template?
Yes. The photo upload option in the CV Builder works with all three templates — Colour, Modern and Minimal.
Which template should I pick for a first job?
Modern is a safe, versatile default for most entry-level and mid-level roles. Switch to Minimal if you're applying somewhere especially formal, like a bank or a government position.