Centrefold: centred serif resume template
Everything centred: name, contact, section heads. Formal without a single graphic.
Centrefold centres the top of the page and every section heading. Your name is set large in a serif of regular weight, the contact line sits under it, and each heading falls on the centre line of the page. The body text below stays left-aligned and reads normally. There are no rules anywhere, which gives the page the feel of a printed programme.
- Audience
- Academia · Teaching · Research
- Colour schemes
- Ink, Olive, Maroon
- Photo slot
- No
- Paper
- A4 and US Letter
That ceremony suits applications to universities, colleges, schools and research institutes, where a selection committee often reads a printed copy around a table. Teachers, lecturers, librarians and academic counsellors are the people it was drawn for. It also helps a short resume, because centred headings fill the width visually. Centrefold is ATS-safe and free, and the PDF carries no watermark.
Pick Centrefold if…
- You are applying to a university, college, school or research institution.
- A selection committee will read a printed copy of your resume.
- Your resume is short, and you want it to fill a page with some dignity.
- You want a formal look that still parses as one column.
What centring changes, and what it leaves alone
- Only the header and the section headings are centred. Roles, organisations, dates and bullets start at the left margin, so a parser reads them in the usual order.
- The page has no rules, boxes or fills. Text is the only thing printed on it.
- Your name is set in a regular weight where most templates use bold, so the page feels calmer than Ledger even though the name is larger.
- Bullets are small middle dots with a narrow indent, which keeps each list close to the text it belongs to.
How much fits on one page
Centrefold is happiest with three or four entries per section, and a long corporate career reaches a second page sooner here than in Ledger. Academic CVs handle that well: publications, conference papers and funded projects can go on page two under their own centred headings while page one holds education and appointments. A school teaching application usually fits on one page: qualifications, then each school with the classes and subjects you taught, then any board results or student achievements you can put a number on.
When to use something else
Centred headings slow down a recruiter scanning a long work history, because the eye has no fixed left edge to follow. With more than about eight years of corporate roles to show, Ledger keeps the formality and gives you a straight left margin. For a printed interview copy with more presence, Ashford takes the centred idea onto cream stock.
Centrefold works well for these roles
Teaching, library and academic roles, where a centred, formal page suits the institution reading it.
Questions about Centrefold
- Is a centred resume ATS-friendly?
- Centrefold is. Centring changes where a heading sits on its line, not the order of the text, and every entry below starts at the left margin. There are no columns, tables or graphics, and the editor's ATS checklist runs beside the preview while you write.
- Can I use Centrefold for an academic CV with publications?
- Yes. Add a Publications section from the section list and each paper or talk becomes an entry with its venue and year on the right. Conference presentations can share that section or get one of their own. If one application does not need a section, hide it from the download instead of deleting it.
- Does Centrefold have room for a photo?
- No. It belongs to the ATS-safe set, which keeps photographs off the page. If a school or college has asked for one, Ashford gives a similar centred, formal header with a round photo above the name, for the printed copy.