What Is the Best Font for a Resume? (Professional Size & Proper Type for 2024)

Your resume shows who you are as a professional.

It should tell a great story about your accomplishments and growth. Your resume is often the first thing a recruiter will read about you. What impression do you want to make?

Font With Serif For Resume — Hyogo is a very readable modern font available through Envato Elements.

The best font for a resume is the one that catches their attention. It should catch their attention in the right way. Use job-related keywords, quantifiable accomplishments, and power words. These often does the trick.

Poor spacing, spelling typos, and unreadable resume font, leave a bad impression on recruiters.

Looking for the best font for a resume?

This article will show you some resumes with good resume fonts. It'll also explain what fonts you should avoid so your application doesn’t get trashed.

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Who’s Going to Read Your Resume?

The first question you should answer is who will read your resume?

For most entry-level and experienced professionals, it'll be a recruiter. They scan hundreds of applications a week. These people don’t have time to go over your resume line by line.

Senior-management and executive-level applicants, have a bit of leeway. But perhaps not so much. Fewer candidates qualify for senior level roles. Plus the experience required for such roles are often very specific and stringent. The executive recruiter handling their application is more likely to read their resumes carefully.

Either way, the font you use should be legible enough to read without squinting.

You'll find some good examples of professional resumes in this article:

30 Best Contemporary Resume CV Templates (New Modern Styles For 2023)
Dacia Egurrola
04 Jul 2023

Looking for the best fonts for your CV? Keep reading!

7 Factors to Consider When Deciding What Font to Use for Resume

Wondering what's the best font for a resume? Not all fonts are created equal. Some are better for creative uses while others tend to occupy a lot of space.

Here are some factors you should consider when deciding on a resume font:

1. Style: Serif vs Non-Serif

A serif refers to the little line or tail you sometimes see at the end of a font. Font types with this tail are classified as serifed typeface or just ‘serif’

These little ‘tails’ are said to date back to the Roman ages and make letters easier to distinguish from one another.

Sans-serif fonts are fonts without those little tails and are called as such because ‘sans’ means without in French. Sans-serif fonts are considered modern and fresh looking compared to their serifed counterparts.

There’s no right or wrong answer to this because each font type has its own pros and cons. If your resume is squeezed tight into one page with a 10-point font, however, it might be better to use a serifed font to make it more readable.

This quick tutorial with video from Design Tuts+ shows the difference between serif and sans-serif fonts and will hopefully help you decide the best resume font.

Serif vs. Sans Serif Fonts: What Is the Difference?
Melody Nieves
07 May 2020

2. Avoid Thin Fonts

Thin or light font types have thin brushstrokes that sometimes make them harder to read on screen.

Examples of thin fonts include:

Agency FB
Arial Unicode

3. Resume Font Size

So what's the best font size for resume?

The best font size for resume falls between 10 and 12 points. That could be considered standard font size for resume. This is especially used for the main text.

If you’re not sure what the standard font size for resume, start with font size 10. Then increase it if your resume has extra space at the end.

Tale a look at the resume template below. It’s obvious what the section headers. That's because the resume font size used is bigger than the body of each section.

creative-resume-template-with-different-resume-font-sizes — Creative Resume uses the best font size for resume. This is a template from Envato Elements

Don’t use a 9-point font just to squeeze your resume into one page. That'll make your application hard to read. Plus, there are better ways to make your resume shorter. Avoid giving the recruiter a hard time.

Check out the articles below. Learn how to make your resume shorter without sacrificing resume font size:

4. Font Kerning and Spacing between Lines

Vladimir Gendelman, Founder and CEO of Company Folders, shared his thoughts about font Kerning – the space between letters. This is how it affects your resume font on screen and print:

Gendelman says, “The best font uses an equal amount of spacing between each letter. In most cases, you won’t have to worry about kerning unless you’re designing a logo but certain letters are harder to read when put together such as ‘v’ and ‘w’ (vw) and ‘i’ and ‘l,’ which is why use of legible fonts are important.”

Line spacing is also important. Especially if your bullet points are long and you’re using a 10-point font.

“In addition, you have to be mindful of the leading or space between lines. If your lines are too close together, your text won’t be legible. Set your leading level to 1.5 pt. for the greatest readability,” adds Gendelman.

Learn more about kerning and other related topics:

Kerning, Spacing, and Other Text Tricks in Inkscape
Aaron Nieze
05 May 2014

5. Cursive Fonts

Resist the urge to use a cursive resume font even in your resume’s headers. You're writing a resume, not a scrap book or journal.

Plus, cursive fonts are harder to read the longer the text is. The best resume font doesn't have to look fancy; it just has to be readable.

Resume Fonts to Avoid

There’s no one specific answer to the question, ‘what is a good font for a resume?’

It’s absolutely true that not all fonts are created equal. So it goes without saying that there are fonts you must absolutely avoid.

You probably have an idea of what some of these fonts are, but here’s a list just in case.

1. Comic Sans

People automatically associate this font with childishness or jokes. To be viewed as a professional, don’t use it.

2. Courier

The Courier font was designed to mimic the font you’d see using a typewriter. Unless you want to give recruiters the impression that you’re old and not used to working on computers, don’t use this font.

Courier is also a mono-spaced font, which means the all the letters are equally spaced. While that looks okay for a few words, it could look unnatural for a whole page. Not to mention, it'll waste a lot of your precious resume real estate.

3. Wingdings

Wingdings are not readable because they’re just symbols or icons. The recruiter will just throw your resume after seeing this font.

4. Papyrus

The Papyrus font reminds me of old scrolls you’d probably read if you went to a museum. It’s a cliché font meant only for history-related school projects.

5. Bradley hand ITC

Bradley hand ITC is meant to look like a person's handwriting. This can look sloppy and unprofessional on your resume. This font can also be hard to read.

6. Harrington

Harrington is not the best font for a resume because it has many little curls on the letters. Because of that, this font is best left for an invitation and not for a resume.

7. Chalkduster

Chalkduster looks like writing on a chalkboard, making this another font that isn’t the best for a resume. This font would look unprofessional and possibly even childish.

7 Professional Fonts for Resume Use

Below are seven good resume fonts to choose from:

1. Calibri

Calibri is one of the best fonts for CV. It was created by Dutch designer Lucas de Groot. He made this after he was commissioned by Microsoft to create a font that would replace Times New Roman. As you know, that's the default font for the Office suite of programs.

It’s a modern typeface that’s easy to read even when you use it as a 10-point font. It’s the default font for Microsoft Word. You can be sure that your resume will not have formatting, spacing or font-related problems when the recruiter reads it. It's one of the best resume fonts.

Go for the best professional font in your next resume. Calibri is a great choice.

2. Roboto

Roboto is an open-source serifed font created by Google. Unlike other serifs, Roboto is still easy to read when using a smaller resume font size. The letters are a bit rounded and have good spacing. That makes it one of the best fonts for a resume.

Resume with Roboto font — Resume Set that uses the Roboto Font from Envato Elements

3. Verdana

Verdana was designed to back in 1996 to appear well in small, low-resolution screens. It was common at the time. It was created by Mathew Carter, who worked for Microsoft at the time. It’s one of the good resume fonts for your resume to be read on a mobile device.

4. Gill Sans

Gill Sans is one of the best fonts for CV. It was designed around 1920 as a simple yet elegant sans-serif font resume font. It’s the typeface used by the BBC and he British Railways system.

Gill Sans is available in Mac computers and in Microsoft as Gill Sans MT. That's why this is one of the best fonts for a resume.

5. Book Antiqua

Looking for the best fonts to use for resume? Book Antiqua is a classic looking serifed font. It's also a great option for job applicants who wish to pursue a career in humanities and arts. It’s said to be Microsoft’s version of the Palatino font.

Yes, using this font might make your resume look dated but it does work for some people and industries.

6. Source Sans Pro

Source Sans pro is a great font for headlines because its letters are well spaced and clear-cut. An article on Huffington Post shares that Designer Jack Harvatt thinks the Source Sans Pro is good for ‘large bodies of text.’

Resume with Source Sans Pro Font — This resume template from Envato Elements uses the Source Sans Pro Font

7. Georgia

Looking for the best fonts for a CV? Georgia font is used by New York Times online, Amazon, and Yahoo. It’s not just for online publications though, it’s one of the best fonts for resume in 2019 because of its modern design.

As a serif font that uses thick strokes, it looks great and easily readable on a computer screen. Best of all, even if it’s a serifed font, it looks contemporary enough. It won’t make your resume look old. That makes it one of the best fonts for a resume.

You have plenty of options to choose from! Use one of the best fonts to use for resume.

A Word on Creativity and Style When Using Good Resume Fonts

Applicants in creative fields don’t use cursive fonts just to be creative.

Add style and creativity in your resume with standard yet beautiful looking fonts. Use colors, and emphasis (bold, italic, underline) to make your resume stand out.

For best results, pick two to three good resume fonts. Use the same resume font type for all your headings to give your resume an easy to understand structure as well.

Consistent style makes your resume look professional and easy to read.

The resume template below uses the color red for contrast. Also uses bold formatting to emphasize key information.

Graphic-resume-template-resume-font — Graphic Resume template from Envato Elements

Learn More About Resumes

Your resume is an important part of your job search. Before finding the best fonts for a CV, learn some resume tricks.

Learn more about how to create a professional resume in our ultimate guide to creating great resumes. Or, review one of the resume tutorials below:

Find the Best Fonts for a CV

Still looking for the best fonts for a CV? Go for the best professional font in your next resume.

Here are some of the best fonts to use for resume:

Free vs Premium Fonts: What Font to Use for a Resume?

It’s true, you don’t need to buy a premium font to write a resume. In fact, most of the resume templates on Envato Elements use free fonts.

Try out premium fonts if submitting a resume on PDF. It's great for a resume you'll carry to an interview.

A readable yet unique looking premium font will catch the recruiter’s attention.

A selection of premium fonts from Envato Elements

Plus, now Envato Elements has introduced an AI-powered search feature!

Are you in a creative field and are working on other projects? Try using Envato's AI Search!

Find out what digital assets you can use in your project. All you've got to do is put in the details of your project. This feature will tell you what digital assets you can use. Try it today!

Download a Premium Font Today!

The recruiter reviewing your application will probably review your resume on a screen. They might print it just in time for your interview.

It’s always a good idea to check how your resume looks like in print.

You learned what the best fonts to use for a resume. Start by downloading a premium font today!

Also find resume templates that already have legible fonts and great formatting. Choose the right fit for you on Envato Elements.

Editorial Note: This content was originally published on April 27, 2019. We're sharing it again because our editors have determined that this information is still accurate and relevant.