An ATS-friendly artist CV, in minutes.

An artist CV (curriculum vitae) is a chronological record of your professional art practice: exhibitions, education, awards, residencies, collections, publications, and teaching. Galleries, residencies, grants, and academic positions all ask for one. It's different from a regular resume — there's no objective statement, no skills list, and entries are reverse-chronological by year.

ATS (Applicant Tracking System) software is used by universities, museums, and arts organizations to filter applications. An ATS-friendly CV uses a single column, standard fonts (Helvetica or Times), no images or text boxes, real text (not graphics), and clear section headings — so the parser reads every line. Our builder exports a clean, single-column PDF that ATS systems read correctly.

Standard sections in order: contact, education, solo exhibitions, group exhibitions, awards & grants, residencies, collections, publications & press, lectures & teaching. Skip any section you don't have yet — emerging artists often have only education and group shows. Each entry is one line: year, title, venue, city.

One page for emerging artists, two pages once you have 5+ years of exhibitions, longer for mid-career and established artists. Unlike a regular resume, there's no hard length cap for an artist CV — but cut anything older than 10 years from group shows if you've outgrown it.

Yes. The export uses a single column, Helvetica for headings and Times for body, real text (not images), standard section labels, and no tables or text boxes. It passes parsing in Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, and university HR systems.

Your CV is saved locally in your browser. Nothing is uploaded or sent to a server. Come back to the page on the same device and your draft is still there.

Yes — large institutions, universities, and museum departments increasingly use ATS software (Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, Taleo) to manage high volumes of applications. Even mid-size galleries may use applicant portals that auto-parse uploaded PDFs. An ATS-friendly artist CV ensures your exhibitions, awards, and education are read correctly by the system rather than skipped or garbled.

An artist CV is comprehensive and chronological — every exhibition, award, and residency listed by year. An artist resume is a shorter, targeted document (1–2 pages) that highlights the most relevant experience for a specific job. Both should be ATS-friendly, but a CV is standard for galleries and grants, while a resume is common for teaching or curatorial positions. Our builder exports a CV that works as both.

Use a single-column layout, standard fonts (Helvetica, Arial, or Times), clear section headings (EDUCATION, SOLO EXHIBITIONS), real text instead of images, and avoid tables, text boxes, headers, footers, and graphics. Include keywords from the job or grant description — the ATS scans for matching terms. Our builder enforces all of these rules automatically in the PDF export.

Never embed images on a document you expect an ATS to parse — the software may reject the file entirely or skip the page. Instead, add a plain-text website or portfolio URL in your contact section. The ATS reads the URL as text, and human reviewers can click it later. Keep the CV itself image-free.

Stick to widely recognized system fonts: Helvetica, Arial, Times New Roman, or Georgia. Avoid decorative, script, or custom fonts — ATS parsers may not recognize them and will drop or misread the text. Our builder uses Helvetica for headings and Times for body text, the safest pairing for universal ATS compatibility.

Absolutely. Museum educator, adjunct faculty, gallery assistant, and curatorial intern applications all require a CV uploaded through an applicant portal. The single-column, text-only PDF our builder produces is designed specifically to survive parsing in university and museum HR systems while still looking clean for human reviewers.