An ATS-friendly template is not a plain look. It is a file whose text, dates, and contact details survive when a parser reads the PDF.
Job titles, employers, and dates must be real text in a normal reading order. Contact details belong in the body, not only in a header the parser skips. Skills you name should also appear in a role.
A score without the extracted text does not tell you if the phone number survived. Export the PDF, select all, and paste it into a plain editor. That paste is the test.
They fail when text is a graphic, trapped in a header, or read out of order. Test the export. Do not assume a plain file is safer than a tested one.
No. A clean parse means the recruiter can search the document. Hiring still depends on whether the evidence matches the job.