The Nitty-Gritty of Resume Font, Size and Resume Formats

It’s always good to stand out and make an impression. When entering the workforce, you should strive to be creative, unique and let your individual skills shine.

However, one area where you don’t want to get too artistic is on your resume. Resumes actually do need to follow a rather standard resume format and use an appropriate font. Let the content of your resume stand out, not the resume formats.

While most people know not to use scented paper, graphics and colours, here are a few more additional tips on how to write a resume:

Resume Font

The most common resume font to use Times New Roman, black, 12 point font. This resume font conveys the information you are trying to get across in a clear and accessible way.

Times New Roman is called a serif font, as the letters contain “tails” which you can see on the‘t’, ‘n’ and ‘r’.

However, some do not like the letter- spacing or word-spacing of Times New Roman.

Other serif fonts to consider that are easy to read and appropriate as a resume font include Bell MT, Garamond, Georgia and Goudy Old Style. Sans serif fonts do not have the “tails” on the letters and look a bit more block-like.

Popular serif fonts include Arial, Century Gothic, Lucida Sans and Tahoma. Any of these fonts would be reasonable for a resume as long as you only use one font.

Using two fonts looks unintentional and unprofessional. To make your headings and name stand out while using only one font, you can bold, italicize, capitalize or underline and increase the size of the font to 14-16 point. Just be sure that all of your headings are consistent.

Resume Formats

Resume Formats are a bit more debatable than resume font or size. But, obviously you want the most important information first.

List your full name, address and contact information at the top of the page. You should center the information and be sure to bold and capitalize your name.

After that, you should state your value proposition where your objective used to be. To prevent your resume formats from looking like a standard form you submit to every job, state why your skills and experience will make you the best candidate for this specific job and mention the company and job title.

Clearly state your schooling from the most recent institution you’ve attended, with all dates, locations and certification received including any accomplishments such as grades and programs participated in.

However, if education is not the strongest component of your resume, go ahead and list your experience first, starting with your most current job and all your responsibilities.

After bolding and capitalizing your place of work, location and job title, you can use bullets to categorize the responsibilities you held at your job.Try and only include the most relevant information.

After education and experience, you can list your professional skills and any relevant awards or certifications. Many agree that your resume formats should be contained to one page, although two pages are acceptable if you have a lot of relevant experience you want to highlight and it remains easy to read.

Overall, just make sure your resume format has a clean and functional design. Leave enough white space so that your resume doesn’t look crowded, be positively certain there are no typos or errors and if you are sending your resume as an email attachment, be sure to send it as a PDF, so you don’t lose any of your original resume formatting or spacing.