The best fonts for resume and cover letter
Getting a job is not easy nowadays, with stiff competition and tons of applicants per available job opening. You need each part of your resume to demonstrate that you are ideally suitable for the role. Once you've weighed your experience, expertise, schooling, and credentials, you have yet another decision to consider, what's the right font to include on your resume?
With too many choices open, choosing the right font for a resume can often be a tough call. When the interviewer scans the cover letter for the first time, they usually check for 6 seconds. Employers spend several hours per week scrolling through the endless influx of applications submitted to them.
Picking a font size and style that is quick and easy to understand is the secret to building a solid initial impression. A decent font reflects your integrity and improves functionality, allowing your resume a shot to get it to the top of the stack. Font choice is a vital aspect of your resume as it lays the groundwork for your entire job application. You may consider various fonts for the resume sections and the headers, and you don't have to choose more than two.
The font types stated in this guide are all formal, decent, and clean font options. A selection of a lot of font styles risks being invalid to the applicant monitoring software. Your resume font type should look like an expert, not overshadow your content. Here is a list of the cover letter and resume fonts;
- Garamond
Times New Roman is the known resume font—that's why you should stop using it. The times new roman is quite old, and if you do not want your resume and cover letter to appear outdated, you have to pick something else. And Garamond is a suitable option for that. The new edition has the option of providing your resume a timeless, professional look that is even more compelling than the cliched Times New Roman. As an advantage, if you're unable to compress to a single or two sheets, Garamond can allow you to add more content to your resume without losing functionality by reducing the text size or clogging your template by restricting the resume space.
- Helvetica
Helvetica is the most elegant font style for your cover letter and resume. Due to its positive and tidy nature, it has rapidly become a corporate typeface. It's also clear to understand and appealing without getting distracted. Apply this style for a position in a corporate office environment, like customer support or marketing. This san-serif is known to be the master of font styles by several artists and typographers. Due to its sleek, straight lines and outstanding transparency, many company logos have Helvetica font styles like American Airlines, Microsoft, etc. To offer your cover letter and resume a fresh, modern feel that's formal.
- Georgia
Many corporations such as New York Times use this formal iconic typeface. In reality, Georgia was mainly for digital screens and handheld devices. It enables it the perfect font option if you submit an email resume and cover letter. This typeface is ideal if you submit for an online position or if you want to make your resume and cover letter a clean, formal appearance. This font style has letter shapes with heavier strokes that enable it easily-readable even in small sizes. And, it works perfect on any online document, like you're submitting your resume and cover letter as a Pdf file format.
- Arial
With sharp lines and elegant style, it is one of the familiar font styles in the world. It is the default font for Microsoft Word, which ensures that every computer can view it precisely. A few employers, though, see Arial as very ordinary. But if you're applying for a job with an innovative or cutting-edge business, a much more versatile font might be preferable. Including a font style that is so popular can be seen as a casual preference, not investing a lot of consideration or work into your resume and cover letter.
- Didot
This stylish typography will add some design to your resume and cover letter. It is popular with sectors such as fashion and photography. Even so, the serifs are more shown in high volumes, so you'll do your utmost to keep Didot for captions instead of body copy.
- Calibri
While it is the generic MS Word typeface from 2007, Calibri still isn't much famous as Arial. However, this type does have other aspects to it. Like a 12 pt font size in Calibri can generate between 500-750 phrases, the optimal length of a two-page resume.
- Avenir
This flexible font style has a very smooth, sharp look that will offer an up-to-date typeface to a cover letter and resume. It has several levels that you can choose to distinguish the various parts and aspects of your application, and you can likely ignore any compressed variants that might be tough to interpret. Avenir Next is another successful choice; it was launched as a sequel to Avenir to enhance the typeface on-screen display functionality. Avenir may be a less secure option than other typography on this cover letter font collection but consider it. Its unusual form and quirky designs lend it a colorful feature that will enable your resume and cover letter to succeed in a pool of applications.
- Gill Sans
This clear, elegant sans-serif font style, created in England, will provide your resume and cover letter a feel that is both traditional and unique. British Railways network was using this font style and also in other areas. You may also note that Gill Sans is quite identical to the design typeface used in the iconic Stay Calm and Carry On poster, reintroduced in the British bookshop in 2000. And then it became famous with several copies of the style. Mac OS X and few Microsoft applications include Gill Sans.
- Cambria
Conventional and easily readable, Cambria is a perfect typeface option for resumes and cover letters of all varieties. Its simple style works well on every channel on paper or a pc display. This font is perfect if you want to submit your resume and cover letters for a position in a highly technical sector, like finance or bookkeeping. It is a component of a set of fonts named the ClearType typography series and spread with Microsoft Office systems. Such fonts like Cambria, Candara, have been specially prepared to facilitate properly on computer screens. The company that crafted Cambria designed it for on-screen comprehension while still in use for printing, thanks to its durable letter structure, which maintains readability even in small sizes. It allows Cambria a perfect fit for both online and published resumes and cover letters.
Here is another guide on How to choose the best fonts for your resume
Selecting the right resume and cover letter font and size
With tons of typefaces to pick from, it can be tough to select the font that will make the ultimate impact on the recruiter and raise the likelihood of going forward in the recruitment process. It might be appealing to pick a font type that reflects your character, but remember that headhunters will eliminate your application if the typeface makes it difficult for them to read your cover letter and resume. Although, your name should not have a similar font size as the rest of the resume. A simple principle is to create the font for your name double, the font size used in the resume and cover letter text.
Most hiring managers still use the candidate monitoring system to document and arrange work applications. This software can not often read and comprehend complicated typefaces well, so difficult or specific font choices often transform into empty frames or other improper letters.
If you develop a job application for graphic design or advertising, there are more options regarding aesthetics. Sometimes, imaginative interviewers see the job application as a demonstration of artistic skills and talents, and it should reflect your work. And then, maintaining that your resume is easily readable is a primary goal. Here, we're going to go over a few suggestions to ensure you pick the right font style and size for your resume and cover letter.
- Integrate a formal, easily readable font style
Intricate fonts can make it challenging to understand the resume, which may cause hiring managers to skip it. So use a fresh, clear resume typeface that ensures your content is visible to the recruiter. There are two primary font types, Serif and Sans-Serif. These typefaces are usually decent fonts for cover letters and resumes because of their wide legibility. There have been some Serif font types that recruiters acknowledge as easy and formal, Garamond and Didot.
- Identify the correct size of the resume and cover letter font.
The ideal font size for your cover letter and resume is between 10-12 points. The size you decide will mainly dictate how the font size influences your resume style. Since it's usual strategy to have a single or two pages resume, proceed with a font size of 10 and explore with size if you feel there is scope.
Although it can be easy to keep the overall resume on a single-page, ignore lowering the font size under 10 points. It's going to make the text rough on the viewer's eyes. If your resume is more than a single-page, then update the text and generate more descriptive suggestions by deleting redundant terms or statements. Just the most appropriate material that best shows your knowledge and expertise as per the job position.
- Incorporate style to the resume and cover letter typeface
You may also insert individuality or meaning by choosing font types for your name and segment titles, like bold text and italicize. Although your whole resume should have a single font, you may stylize or raise the size of essential parts like Skills or Employment. Be compliant with aesthetics, and pick one or two font style to verify that your resume and cover letter is formal and pleasing to the eye.
You may use examples of standard resumes available online to help you get started.
Avoid using these resume fonts and cover letter fonts.
- Futura
Futura was made in the 1920s and crafted in Germany with a more abstract shape. But it's a tidy, appealing font, and the font structure is a little conventional and peculiar. Futura bends more towards aesthetic and intriguing than functional for text-heavy papers such as resumes, with inconsistencies including tall lowercase letters and a distracting difference between sharp and circular letter-forms.
- Courier
Crafted to imitate the feel of a typewriter and finally tailored for use on a real electrical typewriter. This typeface certainly looks like you printed your application on a typewriter. Since this is a fixed-width typeface, it may seem a little irregular, even for complete pages of information.
- Century Gothic
It has a clean, industrial look, but it's maybe too unusual for cover letters and resumes. This font's thin size can be confusing, mainly in small sizes.
- Impact
To make a professional and strong impression with the cover letter and resume. There is no requirement to use the bold, strong typeface. The impact is to employ in resume headlines, so if it contains lowercase characters, individuals use it for body duplication, it is difficult to read.
- Brush Script
You don't have to incorporate the Brush Script typography, which was predictable that it now seems inexpensive and obsolete instead of vintage and nostalgic. Though a few design professions give some leniency to experiment with the presentation of your cover letter and resume. But it's still a decent option to conform to traditional font preferences.
- Trajan Pro
Trajan Pro has a confident, significant style, but it is more fitting to gravure it in concrete than to characterize it on your cover letter and resume. It is due to the typography was driven by the letterings set into the Pillar of Trajan, a temple devoted to the Roman monarch of a similar name. The font has only upper-case and small caps rendering it inappropriate to write clear statements on your cover letter and resume.
Conclusion
After choosing your font type and tweaking your resume and cover letter correctly, carefully check and receive reviews. Because hiring managers while glancing at your resume can publish it to discuss with company executives or carry it for the interview, so print a sample version and ensure the typeface is visible. And the visual style is stable and does not impact the quality of the cover letter and resume.
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