CV Typography: The 10 Professional Fonts That Work (and Those to Avoid)

Your CV's font speaks before your words do: in three seconds, it suggests rigour, creativity, or disorganisation. With hundreds of typefaces available, the choice seems endless, but a dozen fonts cover most professional uses. Here are the ten that always make a good impression, ones to absolutely avoid, and the size and hierarchy settings that make the difference. The right choice depends on your industry, reading medium, and content density: three parameters to check before deciding.

Why font choice matters for first impressions

Readability is first about habit: the eye recognises familiar letterforms, and common fonts reduce reading effort. An exotic typeface forces the brain to decode, slows comprehension and causes fatigue, especially on a document read in forty seconds. There's also the signalling effect: a fancy font on an accountant's CV contradicts the expected seriousness, while an institutional font on a designer's portfolio seems lacking in boldness. The general rule is simple: the font should serve the content and industry, never precede them. Reading professionals agree on this point: successful typography is invisible, while failed typography immediately reminds the reader. Changing fonts in each section sends a signal of disorganisation that remains in memory long after reading.

The ten fonts that always make a CV look [professional](/en/blog/cv-for-senior-professionals)

These typefaces are available on most systems, readable on screen and in print, and recognised by recruitment software. They're listed from most contemporary to most classic, helping you situate your industry at a glance.

1. 1Calibri: the modern safe bet, soft and dense, perfect for content-rich CVs.
2. 2Arial: the universal neutral, rendered identically everywhere, ideal for strict ATS environments.
3. 3Helvetica: the reference for understated design, clean architecture and generous letter spacing.
4. 4Lato: warm and contemporary, excellent readability even in small sizes.
5. 5Open Sans: versatile and airy, highly readable on screen, the default choice for many templates.
6. 6Roboto: geometric and modern, prevalent in interfaces, perfect for tech profiles.
7. 7Source Sans Pro: designed for long documents, elegant in body text and headings alike.
8. 8Garamond: the classic serif that adds character to CVs in formal sectors.
9. 9Georgia: robust serif on screen, serious without being austere.
10. 10Verdana: wide and highly readable, useful for CVs intended to be read on mobile.

Fonts to absolutely avoid

Some typefaces are recruiters' nightmares. Comic Sans and handwritten fonts instantly discredit a professional document. Brush Script and decorative calligraphies become unreadable in small sizes. Times New Roman, while not faulty, signals a dated document if not chosen deliberately. Papyrus, Impact, and movie or video game fonts have no place on a CV. Finally, be wary of fonts installed only on your machine: if the recruiter opens your Word file without this font, the layout explodes. In PDF, or from a HightCV template where fonts are embedded, this pitfall disappears. If unsure about an uncommon font, email the file to yourself and open it on another device: the test takes less than two minutes.

Size, hierarchy and effective combinations

Once you've chosen your font, three settings are enough to structure the page.

1. 1Body text between 10 and 12 points, section headings between 14 and 18, name at the top between 20 and 28.
2. 2Two weight levels per family: normal and bold, with italics reserved for quotes and languages.
3. 3Line spacing of 1.15 to 1.3 and margins of at least 2cm to create space without wasting it.

Always test the final result printed and on a phone: a font perfect on screen can appear pale and thin on paper. HightCV templates impose tested font pairs in these real conditions, which avoids risky combinations. This safety allows you to focus your energy on the content, where the decision is really made. A CV read under two mediums, screen and paper, reveals most remaining typographical flaws.

The best font is the one recruiters don't notice: they remember your achievements, not your typography.