ATS-friendly fonts
ATS font advice has more myths than facts. The truth: modern ATS engines parse almost any TrueType font fine — what trips them up is layout, not typeface. Here's what actually matters in 2026.
Use a standard sans-serif (Arial, Helvetica, Calibri, Inter, Roboto) or a workhorse serif (Georgia, Cambria, Source Serif) at 10–12pt body / 14–16pt headings. Avoid display fonts, script fonts, and anything from a free-font marketplace.
What ATS systems actually do with fonts
Modern parsers (Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS, Taleo) use OCR fallback as a last resort and otherwise read the embedded TrueType glyphs directly. They do not care whether your font is 'old-school' or 'modern.' They care that the font is a standard TTF, not a SVG-only marketplace font, and that the spacing between glyphs is wide enough to keep ligatures from merging into each other.
The shortlist that always works
Sans-serif: Arial, Helvetica, Calibri, Inter, Roboto, Lato, Open Sans. Serif: Georgia, Cambria, Source Serif Pro, Charter. Pick one. Use it for the whole document. Do not mix more than two typefaces (one for body, one for headings) — most ATS parsers handle one consistently and stumble on three.
What actually breaks parsing
Layout breaks parsing more often than fonts do. Two-column layouts, text inside images, decorative dividers, and contact info inside the page header (the actual <header> element) get dropped or jumbled. If your resume looks great in Word but parses as a wall of text in Google Drive's preview, that's the test ATS will run too.
The size question
Body text: 10–11pt is the sweet spot. 12pt is fine if you have less to say. Headings: 14–16pt, bold. Anything below 9pt is hard for a human recruiter; anything above 12pt body looks unserious. Do not mix sizes within a section.
Free font marketplaces
Avoid them. The fonts that look best on Behance often ship as variable fonts or SVG-only formats that ATS parsers cannot read. Stick to fonts that ship with operating systems or are on Google Fonts' core list.
Side by side
Inter 11pt body / Inter 16pt bold headings, single column, contact info on the first line of the body (not in a header element).
Bebas Neue 10pt body, two-column layout, contact info inside a Word page header. Looks great. Parses as a paragraph of garbled text.
Mistakes that get this wrong
- Mixing three or more typefaces in the same document
- Using a font from a marketplace that ships as SVG-only
- Body text below 10pt to fit more content
- Contact info inside a page header element instead of body text
- Bold + italic + underline on the same line — parsers drop the formatting and humans skim past
Pick one font from the shortlist, use it everywhere at 10–11pt body / 16pt headings, single column, and do the Google Drive preview test before sending. The font matters less than 5% as much as the layout.
Frequently asked
Is Times New Roman dated?
It's not 'dated' so much as 'lazy default.' It parses fine. It just signals you didn't think about the document. Pick something from the shortlist instead.
Can I use a custom font from Google Fonts?
Yes if it's on the core list (Inter, Roboto, Lato, Open Sans, Source Serif). Avoid the experimental and decorative ones — even from Google Fonts, half of them ship as variable fonts that some parsers stumble on.
Does font color matter?
Body text should be black or near-black (#1a1a1a). Light gray fails accessibility checks and reads as low-confidence. Accent colors on headings are fine if they're not relying on color alone to convey hierarchy.
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