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On Résumés

 

June 2 2018

I discuss the format to have a résumé in, and the fonts to use.

==Use Word==

For résumés, I use Microsoft Word 2016, which cost me well over $200, and which I use only for résumés.

The reason for this investment is because most recruiters want to get a résumé in .docx format, so, for working with recruiters, one pretty much needs to use a recent version of Office. I got my last three jobs with a Word résumé.

==Which fonts to use==

A résumé sent to an average recruiter, of course, is going to need to use Windows system fonts (in theory, it’s possible to include fonts in Word documents, but in practice this often times does not work). I personally use Cambria (serif) for the body and Calibri (sans-serif) for headings in my Word doc résumé. These fonts, while included in Windows, are not as available for other operating systems.

==Core fonts for the web==

Windows does not include any of the excellent open-source fonts out there. However, it still has all of the 1990s Core fonts, which also come with MacOS, and can be legally downloaded for Linux: http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/

The Wikipedia has an excellent overview of the fonts and how they look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web Note that Andalé Mono is not included with Windows 10 (but is included with MacOS).

For résumés, if using only Core fonts, I would use Arial or maybe Trebuchet MS for sans-serif headings and Georgia for the serif body text.

==If I were still using Linux==

If I were working with a recruiter and still using Linux on the desktop, I would use Open office, Core fonts, and send the résumé to them in .docx or .rtf format, along with a PDF.

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