8 Best Fonts to Use on Your Cover Letter

Updated February 27, 20241.5k

Compared to the content of your cover letter, the font might not seem like that big a deal. Here’s why it’s important to choose the best fonts for your cover letter.

Best Font For Cover Letter

Your cover letter is often the first impression that hiring managers will have of any given candidate for a role. Job seekers tend to neglect this part of the job search and instead focus more on the resume itself. The cover letter can give you the chance to tell the hiring manager why you’re the perfect fit for a specific job before you even land an interview, making it more crucial than you might realize. However, when you write a cover letter, you want to do everything you can to be sure that your application is not overlooked. This can happen for any number of reasons: the format, the content or even an odd font choice can affect a hiring manager’s decision whether or not to read a cover letter in full. Let’s take a closer look at how to choose the best font for your cover letter.

Why is Font Style Important?

Your font choice can impact readability and play a role whether or not a hiring manager even looks through your application. Using a creative font choice like Comic Sans, for instance, can give recruiters the impression that you aren’t taking your job application seriously. Therefore, it’s important for you to choose the right font in order to craft a professional looking cover letter.

How to Choose a Great Font for Your Cover Letter

Choosing the best font for your cover letter is not as difficult as it might sound. There are plenty of different options so you shouldn’t rush to make a quick decision. In fact there are a few factors that can help you narrow down the font to use for a job application.

Here’s how to choose a professional font to use on your next cover letter.

Readability

The cover letter gives hiring managers a glimpse into who you are as an employee. It will tell them all about your specific skills and work experience and why your unique qualities make you the best fit for the job. Hiring managers will often read through dozens of applications a day, so you need to make yours stand out among other candidates.

Legibility is especially important for this letter. You don’t want to spend all your time writing the perfect cover letter for the role, only to get overlooked just because you chose an illegible typeface. Instead, it’s best to stick to the standard, professional looking fonts to get your point across.

Design

The next aspect you need to keep in mind is the overall design. Though you might want to opt for an eye-catching design template on Microsoft Word, less is more on a cover letter. Simplicity not only will appear more professional, but also it can help your application bypass the applicant tracking systems (ATS) that will likely scan your documents first. These systems aren’t typically equipped to read fancy fonts or design elements, so they will reject your application instead of accelerating it to be read by a hiring manager.

Cover letter font size is also important to keep in mind here. You don’t want it so small that it’s illegible just so you can fit more words. Similarly, you don’t want it too large just to write the bare minimum and fill white space. The cover letter is a unique chance to display your skills front and center. You should be able to do an effective job of impressing a hiring manager with your qualifications on a single page.

Other aspects such as italics or underlining should be avoided as much as possible. These can distract a hiring manager and pull their attention away from the content of the letter. Italics should only be used if you mention publications (i.e., The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, etc.).

Overall, you will want to follow this specific cover letter format:

Header (include all contact information and any links to job networking profiles such as your LinkedIn profile)
Introduction and hook
Summarize your most relevant skills and work experience
Explain why you’re the perfect fit for the job
Close with a call-to-action for a job interview

If you’re still having trouble writing a cover letter for your next job search, then try using a cover letter builder. These tools have dozens of cover letter templates, cover letter examples and many cover letter tips to help you craft the best cover letter in just minutes.

Eight Best Cover Letter Fonts

There are many different fonts available but some are considered more professional-looking than others. And, while many fonts look cute and fun, they are not recommended for use on a cover letter. Here are the eight best fonts to use on your next cover letter:

Arial
Calibri (often the default font on Microsoft Word)
Garamond
Georgia
Helvetica
Times New Roman
Trebuchet MS
Verdana

FAQs: Best Font for Cover Letter

Should I use the same font in my resume?

Yes, your resume font should be the same as the font that you used in your cover letter. This makes your job application as a whole look more uniform and organized. Using different fonts on your resume and cover letter can distract a recruiter, and it will usually result in them tossing the whole application out.

No matter which aspect of the job application you work on first, make sure your resume font matches up with the font you choose for your cover letter.

Which fonts should I avoid using on my cover letter?

Any overly elaborate fonts such as cursive fonts or those that rely on a specific gimmick should be avoided when assembling your application. Not only can using these types of fonts display a level of unprofessionalism, but also it will be a one-way ticket to your cover letter being tossed aside by an applicant tracking system (ATS).

Can I use the Sans-Serif font on my cover letter?

The sans-serif font is a great, professional font to use. Similarly, you can also use a font like Cambria on your application as well. Though the top eight fonts on this list are the most common, you can certainly choose a professional font or template that suits your application the best.

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About The Author

Cindi Cervone Carlson

Cindi Cervone Carlson is a Senior Vice President for Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. Cindi is responsible for developing, delivering, and implementing a dynamic, world-class organization dedicated to delivering outplacement consulting, training, support, and executive coaching. Cindi started her career at Challenger as a client who had lost her job. Over the past nine years, she has risen from an entry-level, part-time professional to Senior Vice President.