The Best Fonts for a Resume (and the Right Sizes)

What makes a font good for a resume

A good resume font clears three bars at once. First, legibility: the letters are open and distinct at small sizes, so a recruiter reads them effortlessly in a six-second scan. Second, ATS-safety: it is a standard, common font the parser recognizes and reads as real text rather than garbling or dropping it. Third, professionalism: it looks like a business document, not a flyer. Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, Garamond, Cambria, and Times New Roman all clear every bar, which is why they show up on virtually every "best resume font" list.

Sans-serif fonts (no small "feet" on the letters) like Calibri and Arial read as modern and clean and tend to hold up best on screen, where most resumes are first reviewed. Serif fonts (with the small feet) like Georgia and Garamond read as traditional and can look slightly more polished in print; they are an excellent choice for more formal industries. Either family is correct — what matters is that you pick a standard one and set it at a readable size.

The best resume fonts (sans-serif and serif)

Any of the fonts below is a safe, professional, ATS-friendly choice. Pick one you find easy to read at 11pt — there is no single "best," only the family that fits your industry's tone.

• Calibri — the modern default in Microsoft Word — clean, friendly, and highly legible on screen. A safe choice for almost any role.
• Arial — the classic, neutral sans-serif. Universally available and reliably ATS-safe; a touch more formal than Calibri.
• Helvetica — a designer favorite, crisp and professional. Standard on Mac; pair with Arial as a fallback for Windows/ATS.
• Georgia — a serif designed for screen reading — warm, readable, and a strong pick if you want a traditional feel that still looks modern.
• Garamond — an elegant, space-efficient serif. Useful when you need to fit slightly more text on the page without dropping below 10pt.
• Cambria — a serif built for clarity at small sizes, and a Microsoft default — a safe, professional, widely-available option.
• Times New Roman — the most traditional choice. Perfectly ATS-safe and acceptable everywhere; it can read as a little dated, so prefer it for conservative fields (law, finance, academia).

The right font sizes

Size is as important as the font itself. Too small and you sacrifice readability (and signal that you crammed); too large and you look like you are padding. Use this scale and keep it consistent down the page.

Fonts to avoid

The fonts that get resumes rejected (by both humans and parsers) share a theme: they prioritize personality over legibility. Steer clear of these.

• Script / handwriting fonts — (Brush Script, Lucida Handwriting) — hard to read and unprofessional for a resume.
• Decorative / display fonts — (Impact, Papyrus, Comic Sans) — the fastest way to look unserious. Comic Sans in particular is a well-known recruiter punchline.
• Condensed or narrow fonts — they cram letters together to save space and reduce legibility; some ATS misread the tight spacing.
• Obscure or custom fonts — if the font is not installed on the reviewer's system or recognized by the ATS, your file may be re-rendered in a default — breaking your layout or, worse, your text.
• Anything below 10pt — even a great font becomes a liability when it is too small to read comfortably.

Why your resume font affects ATS parsing

Applicant tracking systems read the text layer of your file. Standard, embedded fonts map cleanly to characters the parser recognizes; non-standard or decorative fonts can be misread, substituted, or — if the font is not embedded in the PDF — dropped entirely, leaving the ATS with garbled or missing text. That is how a beautifully designed resume can score poorly: the parser never saw your words the way you did.

The fix is the same advice as for legibility: use a common font, embed it (exporting a text-based PDF from Word or Google Docs does this for the standard fonts), and keep the layout simple. Font choice is one piece of ATS-friendliness; the single-column layout, standard headings, and keyword rules in the ATS format guide do the rest.

What about the cover letter?

Use the same font on your cover letter as your resume — it reads as a coherent, considered application. Keep the cover letter body at 11–12pt (cover letters can run slightly larger than a dense resume because they have less to fit), and match the header styling so the two documents look like a set. One consistent, professional typeface across both is the mark of a polished applicant.