From the Employment and Learning
Computer Lab:
Choosing a typeface, also known
as the font, for your resume and cover letter is important. It will be the first thing that a potential
employer will notice, even before the content.
The two most commonly used fonts
are Ariel and Times New Roman. There is a big difference between the two,
though both are equally accepted.
Let’s start with Times New Roman.
Each character of this typeface has little flourishes on the edges of the
letters, known as “legs” or “serifs.” For example, if you look at the lower
case letter “I” it will have a horizontal line at the bottom, and a little wing
on the top pointing to the left. Or the
capital version will have a horizontal line at the base and top.
With Ariel, the text is very
plain, or “sans serif,” with no extras, so in both cases the letter “I” will be
a straight vertical line, the lower case with only a dot on the top.
When choosing the font for your
letter and resume, it is wise to choose the one that suits your needs best. It
may depend on the volume of content. Each character in Ariel, while being
plain, is also wide. Times New Roman is fancier and sometimes hard to read if
too small, but takes up less space.
It is good to think about this
when preparing the letter and resume. If you have a lot of content that, say,
will not fit on one page, you may want to use Times New Roman because you can
put more onto a page with less space. However, if you do not have much
experience and there is less to put on the page, you can use Ariel, which will
take up more room.
Whatever typeface you decide to
use, be sure it is the same one throughout both documents. Do not mix them in
the same page. In other words, do not have the titles in Ariel and the bullet
points beneath it in Times New Roman. Keep it all the same font throughout.
This is also true across documents. Keep both the cover letter and the resume
the same typeface to show consistency.
