Choosing a Font

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"Choosing font styles always depends on your target audience"

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A job resume is built on what you have been doing for a particular time period, be it your educational qualifications, work experiences and other important information. Try to think of a resume as your back story to a new novel. A resume is your best marketing tool which you can use to sell yourself.

Your Curriculum Vitae is practically a singular source of information about you which an employer will go through and realise who you are, your potential and the X-factor you can bring to the table. If you are able to truly illustrate your skills and accomplishments in the correct manner, your recruiter will remain glued to your resume.

Why is formatting your resume so important?

One aspect of having your application rejected is that there are certain aspects of acquiring a job which is not under your domain so to say. You can try as hard as you can with as minimum mistakes possible. All you need to do is to be as close to perfection as can be humanly possible.

Therefore, presenting your data or your past information in the best possible way to your prospective employer is and should be your topmost priority. You need to choose which type of resume you should send across, what should be the colour palette (or whether there should be one or not), what your font size, colour and type should be and then answer to questions like how much space should you consider leaving on each side of your resume, how you can align every bulletin you have put and what length is a standardized length of an average resume.

In here, we are inclined to consider certain factors while choosing a font, its size etc. When it comes to resumes, it is better to choose fonts which are easily readable not only by your prospective employer, recruitment manager but also to the ‘Applicant Tracking System’. Not all fonts (especially the ones which are too artsy or design-based) are best suited for resume formats. The reason is simple, not every font is meant for professional documentation.

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Why should you choose a font matter?

If you are applying for a job in the shipping industry but choose to use somewhat of a hippy-dippy font style, you can rest assured that you will be rejected.

Which font size is better?

If your font size is too small, it is barely readable. Smaller fonts will distract your employer or the recruitment/hiring manager from actually going through your resume content. They will have to squeeze their eyeballs in order to read and it is a hassle for them too! There goes the interest in you, out of the window, to the next best man/woman with a better resume.

Whereas, if you choose a font too large, you are most likely to be judged a below-average I.Q person. Well, remember this fact very well that hiring managers are very experienced personnel when it comes to understanding someone’s intellect. Even your choice of font and font colours and font sizes tell a lot about you. You made a conscious decision while you went for a particular colour palette, font style and font size.

So the ideal font size is somewhere between 10 to 12. However, it is advisable that you put your name (at the top of the resume) slightly larger in comparison to all the other font sizes you choose to work within the rest of your resume. You can also consider making the broad sectional heads in your resume (like ‘Education’ or let’s say your ‘Professional Experience’ headings) a little larger than the basic font size you are using for the rest of your resume. This means that your name will have the largest font, followed by the sectional head sizes and then the basic font size you choose to use overall.

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Which font style or type is better?

Practically speaking, there are only a few choices you have when it comes to choosing a font style for professional resumes. Choosing font styles always depends on your target audience. If you are applying for a creative job or for a job position in a creative company (say for example - a company like ‘Disney’) you should go for a little creative approach.

Otherwise, font styles like Verdana, Arial, Calibri and Times New Roman are the perfect choices for your professional resume.

Why is maintaining the same style important?

Always make sure to be consistent when it comes to the overall style of the resume all throughout. If you use capital letters for headings then make sure you are using capitals for sub-headings too! You can also use ‘bold’ on these headings and subheadings. Similarly, make sure you take care of the alignment of those bulletin pointers you made. Be careful with the width of the side margins because they should always be equal.

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Your CV or resume is your first impression for any company. With the help of CV Owl, you can get a well-structured CV and your time will be saved. Everything on your CV should be written in a formal manner and in a precise way. You have only 20 seconds to impress your recruiter with your CV, make the best out of it. Visit our series “The HR Talk” where we help you know everything about your job interview from the recruiters.

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