Resume Font: When to Choose Bold

Resume font choices can be confusing. First you have to decide which font (or fonts) to use.  Then you have to decide where to use a normal font and where to use bold font. 

Resume Font: Where to Go Bold

Because bold font draws your readers’ eyes, it’s helpful to use it to guide them to the information that’s most important to them. Check out this research study, or the following video, to see how readers scan resumes.

Now that you know what they’re looking for, be sure to use bold font on the following elements of your resume:

1. Your name.
2. Section headings.
3. Job titles.
4. Employment dates.
5. Employer names.
6. Employer locations.
7. Your name in a second page header.
8. Degrees.
9. Degree dates.
10. School names.
11. School locations.

Resume Font: Where Not to Go Bold

Candidates often also use bold font inside the narrative descriptions of their jobs and accomplishments. This makes me:

1. Wonder if the applicant thinks I’m so dumb they have to point me to the super important information in the narrative text of their resume.
2. Look at de-contextualized bits of information that don’t mean much to me because they’re out of context. To see what I’m talking about, look at this article. Only read the bolded bits in the bullet points. Did they mean anything to you?
3. Assume that all of the other information on the resume is unimportant – otherwise it would be bolded too!

Then I go back to wondering if the applicant thinks I’m dumb.

Summary

Resumes amaze me. They contain so much explicit and subtle, subliminal information. Always think about what the reader wants and how your writing might make them feel. Then give them a good experience.

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