Revamp Your Resume How to Choose Fonts

Revamp Your Resume How to Choose FontsWithin the bounds of taste and good judgment, a resume can be a distribution policy to express your best professional self. While Best Resume lists often focus on formatting and use of white space, dont forget to think about your font choicesyour first presentation of words to a potential employer. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display(div-gpt-ad-1467144145037-0) ) Patricia Antonelli over at TalentEgg has some more specific guidance for those of you who dont know your Papyrus from your Antigua Bold. Generally you want a font size that is legible, even on mobile devices, but not so big that it looks like a sign posted on a billboardshoot for size 11, except for your headers.1. Serif FontsOpen up a Word document and try out some of these, like Baskerville or Georgia. Serif fonts have little lines at end of each letter stroke. Fonts with serifs come across as more traditional and reliablethey tend to look better in print than on a screen, so select one of them if youre going to be handing out your resume in hard copy.Avoid Times New Roman Its an obvious choice that signals employers you dont know how to make your work stand out.2. Sans Serif FontsFonts like Helvetica and Calibri lack the little tails on serif fonts, and read more cleanly on-screen. These are safe choices for business jobs or any online application process. Coordinate your choice with your cover letter for a cohesive, polished look.Formal and traditional? Serif is the way to go. Contemporary and sleek? San serif probably sends the right message.3. Script FontsYou can get away with a script font for your name at the top, but fancy fonts like Zapfino or Bickham Script can look messy in print or fail to translate on another operating system. The brde thing you want is an unintelligible resume, so dont try to make yours look like someone wrote it with a quill pen.4. Display FontsAnything in the other category like Giddyup or Jazz is a big risksome people may see them as fun and creative, but unless youre applying for visual arts jobs (like a graphic designer or teaching artist) its probably better to err on the side of professionalism. Check out the companys website to see what their visual style is, and try to find something complementary.You want your resume to show off your experience and achievements, and any font that distracts from that is the wrong choice. Have a friend glance over your resume before your submit it if the font is the first thing they notice, before your name or objective, keep looking until their first response is, What a great-looking resume