Most Attractive Font For Resume

[Ramya Bradbury]

Youmight want to consider whether a serif or sans serif font is best for you. If you want to make your resume look more modern (if, for example, you work in tech) you might choose a sans serif font like Arial or Calibri, and avoid serif fonts like Times New Roman and Georgia, says Muse career coach Debra Boggs. But if you work in higher education or the medical field, a serif font like Georgia would be appropriate.

You can also choose to use multiple fonts on your resume, but make sure to keep it simple. Pick one font for your name and section headings and another, complementary font for the rest of your content, Yurovsky says. More than two fonts will start to distract the reader.

Ultimately, the most important component of your resume is the content. Your font and font size choices should be about making sure your content is clear so you can convince the reader you're right for the job.

To evoke a sense of style, professionalism, and uniqueness, you must put effort and consideration into your font choice. When speaking with recruiters, it quickly became apparent that classic fonts are still the best options.

The critical takeaway is to make your resume clear and easy to read, which means keeping the font size around 12, sticking to classic fonts with modern twists, and forsaking your favorite script font.

A font refers to the representation of text in a document. Most often, fonts are used in Microsoft Office programs, particularly in Microsoft Word. MS Word is the predominant word processor used in writing resumes.

The first three characteristics can be adjusted by the writer for any font. For example, with the font Times New Roman, the writer can elect to use a size 8, bolded, and in blue color. The last two characteristics, however, are inherent to each font and a user cannot change how the font looks in respect to those features.

The serif is the tiny tail or flourish that you see at the end of most letters, as seen in the Times New Roman example above. By contrast, Arial lacks serifs, ergo it is called sans serif. The lines in Arial are cleaner and straighter, with no tails. Both fonts are deemed as professional. Selecting a Serif or Sans-Serif font is more of an art than a science.

The above is certainly not an exhaustive list of all acceptable, or even desirable, fonts to use for resumes. They are, however, considered among the best fonts to use. The fonts convey professionalism and a mindset centered around a good work ethic.

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So, while your resume with the beautiful fonts, specially formatted indents and nice graphics on the border might look attractive to you, it does not look good to the hirer. In fact, all that great, creative work it took to make your resume layout stand out might actually block it from successfully passing the ATS.

Remember, it's not about what you think looks pretty or will stand out or guessing what the company wants from you. A resume is about telling the company what you can do for it. Your accomplishments matter, not the font or fancy resume layout. Stop worrying about whether to use script or italic and start figuring out how to explain all the ways you have helped companies you've worked for stay in the black or expand. Or how you helped improve the office somehow. Companies like that.

I know the default setting (Computer Modern's family) is a very good choice.However, I want something a bit less "by default", a bit less "used by everyone else"...Also, I would like something with an increased readability (relative to the default setting, i.e. Computer Modern) both for on paper reading and for on screen reading, and something that is at least as good with math typing and printing.Finally, I would like a solution that I could easily use on other computers or give/suggest to a friend (i.e. it should ideally come with most standard LaTeX distributions at the present time (June 2012)).These are my motivations or goals.

Initially, I used pslatex which uses Times, Helvetica, and Courier (or slightly modified versions of them).But then I discovered that pslatex is outdated, and that I should use either (just) txfonts or (the three) mathptmx, helvet ([scaled=.90]), and courier.Then I read that tgtermes is better (or at least prefered by some people).Even later (June 2012), I then heard that newtx is even better (\usepackage[varg, cmintegrals, cmbraces, ]newtxtext,newtxmath).

Added "bonus" problem: I would like to keep the characters per line ratio to a nice, comfortable level (i.e. between 60 and 75), and, ideally, to be able to set it. (Please directly see, answer, and refer to: Nicely force 66 characters per line)

Here I present you a reduced version of my template, relevant to this question (for you to play with if you want to). Note that I added a second, updated version of this template as edit at the end of this question post. Feel free to use it.

The following image represents the output of the MWE listed at the end of this posting using the Computer Modern fonts. (All subsequent images use the same MWE but load one or more additional font-related packages.)

If the following image strikes you as near-identical to the one above, that's of course no accident, given the close dependence of the Latin Modern fonts on the Computer modern fonts. (Hint: When comparing the two images, look closely at the word "Let" that starts the theorem's statements. In this word, the space between the "e" and the t" is ever so slightly wider for CM than it is for LM. I was able to detect this difference only by switching back and forth rapidly between the two images. To detect any more-significant differences between the two fonts, it's probably necessary to display various accented characters.)

The math alphabet that comes with the mathptmx package is passable, but if you really want good-looking mathematics in Times Roman, consider purchasing the MathTime Pro 2 package. This commercial package, which provides only math-mode fonts, provides optically scaled small glyphs for use in first- and second-level sub- and superscripts, good-looking large operator symbols (sums, integrals, ...), as well as many other goodies. Notice, in particular, the shapes of the integral and summation symbols in the following screenshot.

The Linux Libertine font family, to be loaded via the libertine package. If you like this text font and wish to employ it with the newtxmath package, be sure to load the newtxmath package with the libertine option; doing so will set up a special set of math-mode fonts that is meant to harmonize well with the Libertine text fonts.

(Addendum 2019/11/28) The Linux Libertine font family, to be loaded via the libertine package, along with the libertinust1math math font package. (Many thanks to @campa for bringing the Libertinus T1 Math package to my attention.) Overall, the "look" created by this math font family is very similar to that produced by loading the newtxmath package with the option libertine; this is not surprising, given that the same person (the incomparable Michael Sharpe) produced both the newtxmath and the libertinust1math package (as well as many other font packages!).

Addendum, 7 Feb 2013: Upon the request of @mforbes (see also his/her separate answer), I'm reproducing here the output of the MWE if one uses the Palatino text font together with the AMS Euler (eulervm) math font. Since both fonts were designed by the same person (Hermann Zapf!), it's not a coincidence that they work together rather well. Note also that because the "Euler" fonts have an upright rather than slanted appearance, the text part of the Residue Theorem's statement is set in upright letters rather than in italics.

There are, of course, many other font packages, most of which provide "only" text-mode fonts. Among these are the "TeX-Gyre" font families Termes (a Times Roman clone), Pagella (a Palatino clone), and Schola (a Century Schoolbook clone); one would load the packages tgtermes, tgpagella, and tgschola, respectively, to access these fonts. However, as these are text fonts, you still need to choose a suitable math font.

As AMS Euler is an upright math font, it does not look very nice when inserted in the midst of extended italic text. As a result, I felt it necessary to restyle the theorem environment somewhat to use roman text.

Direct you browser to FontPro and read the README on how to install the MinionPro` font for LaTeX. If this package does not work, you may try the original package you will find at this directory at CTAN.

Then you can start using one of the most beautiful fonts made. In my documents (agreement, memos, legal opinions, etc.), I do not use any sans serif fonts (neither any boldface). Have look at the package classicthesis to get tips on how to compose nice looking documents.

Here are two options using garamondx, which is free but not included in texlive out-of-the-box, although I think it might be available in MikTeX. It has to be downloaded separately if you're running texlive, which the getnonfreefonts program will do for you.

I really like Bitstream Charter. It has been designed for low-resolution laser printers and is very readable but still good looking. It has been donated by Bitstream to the X Consortium and is thus freely available (\usepackagecharter, CTAN). It does not contain real small caps though.

The code at the bottom would amount to a "font section" of a LaTeX Preamble, use it as a Template. You'd need to comment out every Serif (Roman) font except ONE, and also every Sans Serif font except ONE. The color effects of having the font packages stand out shows the package names well, with a description grayed out to make it more noticeable.

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