"In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a barrier against the advance of civilization. From the Sierra Nevada to Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

Thursday, October 8, 2015

A Note on the World of Resume Advice

From The Muse, the very first recommendation in their guide "45 Quick Changes That Help Your Resume Get Noticed" is to use a common font:
If it’s not done already, switch the font of your resume to Helvetica, Arial, or Times New Roman—in other words, make sure it’s not hard to read (or stuck in Word’s standard Calibri). Using a common, clean font may not make your resume the prettiest out there, but it will make it more readable (and less likely to be rejected by applicant tracking systems).
Luckily, my resume predates Microsoft Word's switch to Calibri, so I'm accidentally ahead of the curve.

But isn't that the opposite of something else I read recently? Indeed, The Muse also recommends recommends a Bloomberg article which claims:
Using Times New Roman is the typeface equivalent of wearing sweatpants to an interview
Common, clean... sweatpants.

The takeaway - if you're not working in graphic design, don't worry too much about typography. Just make it readable.

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