Are You Sabotaging Your Job Search? The Surprising Font That Recruiters Can’t Resist

Do you want to know which font is best for a resume? Here are the top 5 fonts to make your resume stand out and grab the attention of recruiters.

Switching jobs means making dozens of decisions. One thing you don’t want to skip is looking at your resume font. When you’re writing your resume, you want to make sure that it’s clear and that the recruiters can easily read what you have to say. A resume font is crucial for that.

There are many font families to choose from. You can use a modern font, a Web font, lowercase letters, or just Google’s best free fonts to add to your resume. However, there are fonts that are optimized for readability and that you should consider using in your resume. 

Here are the best fonts to make your resume stand out and get that next job!

What Font to Use for a Resume?

When you sit down to get started on your resume, using a good resume font doesn’t take priority over what you write down. Especially if you’re looking to write a resume with no experience, a presentation is important. 

According to recent statistics, a recruiter will only look at your resume for a maximum of seven seconds. That is when you have to get them interested in your resume and, ultimately, you! 

That’s what the purpose of a resume is, right? To get you hired?

To many people, what kind of font they use and the font format holds no significance. We can assure you that there’s much more to it than that. Even Forbes thinks the font for your resume is crucial.

Now, when a recruiter looks at your resume, a professionally presented yet easy-to-read font will make all the difference in the world in increasing your chances of landing that job interview. 

Although there is no hard and fast rule of what fonts are better than the others, statistics have shown that some font styles have had higher conversion rates when it comes to resumes being viewed and applicants being invited to an interview.

This is why we have designed this list, in no ranking order, of the best fonts for resumes to help you out with increasing your chances of landing a job, even if by a small amount!

Serif and Sans-Serif

First, we need to figure out the two most common typefaces and their significant difference. 

Well, the two most commonly used typefaces in a resume are serif fonts and sans-serif fonts. As the name implies, a serif font is a stylized version of a font where the alphabets usually end up in swashes, also known as feet.

A sans-serif font is a little more casual version of a font where the alphabets end with a blunt edge. 

The font you choose depends on what you think would be the most professional font and the industry you are applying to. 

Every font is different. If your preferred industry choice has something to do with creative freedom or something that incites your artistic side, you can go with a serif font. If you are looking into white-collared jobs that need high-income skills, a sans-serif font might just be the one you need.

You have more Gothic fonts that look like handwriting or calligraphy. They are more grotesque and quite different. You may think they’re visually cool fonts, but I wouldn’t recommend using them in your resume unless it’s really something that fits you or your industry.

Alternatively, you can choose a different font used as a headline font and another font for the body text. You can alternate between uppercase and lowercase letters, cursive, italic, and everything in between. You can even use all caps if you want. Just make sure you don’t overuse them. 

Best Font For A Resume

So, without further ado, let us jump straight into the list of what we believe to be the best fonts for resumes to use on a resume this year. They’re beautiful fonts that are completely free and available for everyone. 

1. Calibri

One of the newer fonts on this list, Calibri, is considered one of the best resume fonts to have ever been created. Microsoft commissions Calibri to replace Times New Roman as the default font for their office products. You can even put forward the argument that it was made for the sole purpose of professional writing and documentation.

The Calibri font is part of the sans-serif family and boasts a very natural look that looks pleasing to the eye of whoever is reading the document. Composed mainly of Latin and the extended Latin scripts and glyphs, Calibri is a font that shows professionalism while maintaining an easy-to-read atmosphere.

Lowercase Calibri mainly consists of rounded-off stems to give warmth to the characters, found in the writing style that would attract the recruiting officer at a single glance.

Why Should You Use Calibri in a Resume?

As the default font for Microsoft Office, the most widely professionally used software, it is given that Calibri holds a sense of familiarity with it. As soon as the recruiting officer reads a document written in a familiar font to the documents they are used to, they would be inclined to read it more thoroughly than the rest.

2. Georgia

Mixing things up a bit, let’s look at one of the most famous serif fonts, Georgia. Designed in the early 1990s, Georgia is a good resume font and probably the most widely used serif font worldwide. Recently updated and reworked in 2013, this resume font is found everywhere on the internet.

Used by major companies such as Yahoo, Twitter, and Amazon, Georgia is, without a doubt, the very best of what you can get.

Making exceptional use of typography and alternative thin and thick strokes, Georgia carries a sense of elegance and supremacy when it comes to serif fonts. Along with the recent addition of typographic features such as ligatures, Georgia has become one of the most versatile professional fonts in the business.

One of the biggest problems faced with serif fonts is that the font’s nodes and feet make it harder for the reader to understand the font if it is too small. 

Why Should You Use Georgia in a Resume?

With many large companies using this font, you can be sure that it works. Considered one of the most beautiful yet easy-to-read serif fonts, Georgia remains at the top of the ladder for serif resume fonts. 

It is also one of the most easily found free fonts available for you to use at your discretion, so that’s always a plus. Although the same popularity of the font may make it hard for your resume to stand out, if you are looking to provide a sense of familiarity and brilliance, Georgia would be the way to go.

3. Helvetica

With Swiss origins, you can already tell that this font is going to be beautiful! Widely claimed to be one of the most beautiful sans-serif fonts used in the world. And its popularity is very prominent for its use in the advertising industry. If you want to attract someone, Helvetica is the way to go.

Knowing the font’s popularity, it often comes off as a surprise that it was created in the 1950s. But due to its tall and oblique style and the perfect use of height references and character spacing, making it reasonably readable, it is one of the easiest-to-read fonts in the world, which has contributed widely to its fame.

Why Should You Use Helvetica in a Resume?

As mentioned earlier, a recruiting officer will only go over your resume for as little as seven seconds. That’s why you’re resume needs to grab attention from the get-go. That is where Helvetica font comes in with its fairly straightforward readability and clear font; you can rest easy that your message will get across.

4. Garamond

Probably the oldest font type family on our list, Garamond can be considered a timeless classic. Designed back in the early 1400s with the exact time of origin not entirely known, Garamond is the prime example of a font done right. Using old-style Roman square capital alphabets, Garamond is one of the classier fonts to use on a resume.

Although a later reworked version of the font is also available to the general public that takes a rather monotype approach to the font, the original font is still a fan favorite, especially in the industry where creativity means a lot more than it does in other sectors.

You cannot go wrong with the use of this playful classic font.

Why Should You Use Garamond in a Resume?

As mentioned before, sometimes all your resume is missing is that x-factor and Garamond gives you just that. In a resume written to tell the hiring officer about your creative expertise and imaginative way of life, Garamond is the way to go. With its Cyrillic typeface and calligraphic design, give your resume a stylistic touch and let the officer know you mean business.

5. Verdana

A sans-serif counterpart of Georgia, Verdana was also created for Microsoft as part of their font bundles to be used in their office products. It is safe to assume that the purpose of making this font, much like Georgia, was for it to be used in formal documentation.

This is why the font was designed to be used in documents where the font is small and needs to be clear and readable. This made Verdana one of the best resume fonts to be used on CVs and cover letters.

Why Should You Use Verdana in a Resume?

When you write a detailed resume where you need to put in a large amount of information in small, confined places, Verdana is a great option. This professional font allows you to put in maximum amounts of information without compromising your resume’s quality. Although adding too much information to the resume is not the best practice, sometimes it’s all-important. Being too good at your job can be a curse sometimes!

Formatting: What is the Font Size to Use?

Finally, moving forward from font style and the best font for resumes, it’s time to delve into the formatting.

Just as important as the content and font of your resume, the size and spacing of your font are an integral part of your resume.

For starters, your font color should always be black unless exceptional circumstances demand otherwise. Stick with black.

Your resume’s headings or headlines need to stand out, so the usual size of your headlines is 16pt classic.

The body of the content needs to be visibly smaller than the heading but not too small as it becomes harder to read with each point of size smaller. So the suggested size for the body of the content would be 12pt of the classic font.

Lastly, whether the font you use is one from the list above or something you prefer, make sure you stay consistent with the font throughout the document. 

All In All – Best Font For Resume

So there you have it, our top 5 list of fonts that will help you increase your chances getting hired. Although there is nothing wrong with using basic fonts such as Arial, it’s always nice to go the extra mile and put in a little more effort.

Also, it should be very apparent already, but just to make sure, let us put it out there. Never ever use fonts such as Comic Sans or any other dingbat font on your resume! 

Just keep in mind that the font you use isn’t everything. You also need to make sure that your resume is readable in terms of font size. Make the headings a little bigger at 16pt, and the text in the resume is generally recommended to be around 12pt.