Human Resources Resume Sample: Template & Guide for 2024

As an HR candidate, you have to impress the HR manager—the expert in resume writing. Not only are you applying to their company, but you also want to join their specific team. It’s like giving your writing to J. K. Rowling for review or cooking a dinner for Daniel Boulud.

Don’t sweat it, though. We’ll help you make a resume that’ll win you that HR job interview and set the bar higher than ever at your future company.

This guide will show you:

• Great human resources resume examples that get those HR jobs.
• How to ace your human resources job description for a resume.
• How to write modern resumes for human resources positions that get the HR interview.
• Expert tips and examples to boost your chances of landing human resources jobs.

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Human Resources Resume Sample

Human Resources Officers ensure that an organization's workforce is productive, efficient, and engaged. They play a critical role in shaping the culture of the organization and in helping employees to feel valued and supported in their work. They also deal with or assist with payroll management.

1. Choose the Best Human Resources Resume Format

An HR resume sent to the HR manager has got to be HR approved. But how?

By knowing how to format a resume for HR positions:

1. Keep the reverse-chronological resume order. List your most recent employment first, and work your way back from there. Do the same in the other resume sections, such as the education area or volunteer work history.
2. Use readable resume fonts, and set the margins on your resume to 1-inch. Leave 1.15 spacing so the page doesn't look stuffed like a turkey on Thanksgiving.
3. Prioritize resume section order. Put your most relevant items higher than irrelevant ones. If you’ve never worked in HR before, place your education above your work history.
4. Style it professionally. Use the best resume fonts, and make proper use of white space on your document to increase scannability.
5. Save it correctly. Save your HR resume in the PDF resume format to guarantee it renders correctly on any device. However, check the HR job ad first to make sure that’s fine.

Expert Hint: Use clearly-defined section titles (e.g., “Work History,” “Education”) to let the recruiter or hiring manager easily find the area they’re looking for. Make these headings bold and 2–4 pts larger than the body text.

2. Start with a HR Resume Objective or Summary that Turns Heads

A resume sent to the HR department will be initially glanced at for just 7 seconds. Meaning, you’ve got to grab their attention lickety-split.

That’s why you need a compelling heading statement, also called a profile statement, which takes the form of either an resume objective, resume summary, or qualifications summary. 

Got Some Experience in Human Resources?

If you’ve been in a human resources department previously, use the HR resume summary statement.

A great human resources resume summary:

• Summarizes your HR work history into a concise personal statement
• Shows them how your HR experience matches their needs
• Lists winning HR accomplishments with verifiable numbers to back it up
• Makes it easy for the hiring manager to picture you in the HR role.

This is also a must if you’re writing a human resources manager resume with lots of relevant work experience. Here’s what such a perfect resume summary looks like in practice:

HR Resume Summary—Example

Personable, CEBS-certified human resources associate with 3+ years experience at large retail outlet with over 300 staff members. Implemented new training materials which decreased onboarding time by 17% and was instrumental in increasing employee retention rate by 22%.

I have been in the human resources department for some time now, and I have knowledge handling training, hiring, sourcing, and more.

This second resume professional summary tells them you have experience, but it doesn’t prove it like the numbers do on the first one. Also, never use the first person on a resume for HR!

What If You Have No HR Experience?

If you have a resume with no work experience related to human resources, choose the resume career objective.

An ideal human resources resume objective:

• Tells them your background (like where you’re coming from)
• States the position you’re applying for
• Gives some key skills you have relevant to human resources
• Expresses a key accomplishment or proud resume achievement
• Informs the company how they’d benefit from hiring you.

Here’s an example of how an HR career objective should look:

HR Resume Objective—Sample

Retail store shift supervisor with newly-minted PHR certification and 2 years’ experience managing employees of a fast-paced shop. Seeking to leverage proficiency in cross-cultural communications and leadership development to grow with 8-Char as the new human resource generalist.

Knowledgeable, results-driven, dependable, goal-oriented, cliche-slinging store manager seeking position with room for growth and challenging environment which would benefit from expertise in dealing with wayward employees.

This second one is full of cliches and is not tailored to the job you’re applying for. Meanwhile the first HR resume example shows a targeted resume, that is certain to catch the recruiter's eye. The first one follows all the HR resume objective rules above and does it with style!

Expert Hint: Though the objective or summary statement goes first (top) on your resume, it doesn’t mean you have to write it first. Instead, save it for the end so you can use the rest of your resume to guide this crucial section.

3. Write the Perfect HR Job Description and Skills Sections

Now we’ve reached the heart of your HR manager or HR assistant resume. A lot of people go wrong here. To make your HR job description and skills areas perfect:

• Have the HR job ad out in front of you to guide your writing
• Identify important resume keywords the employer is searching for
• Write the skills and job experience resume sections with the HR job ad keywords sprinkled in
• Use achievements with numbers to quantify your past experience
• Start each achievement or job responsibility entry with an action verb.

Human Resources Job Description—Example

HR Generalist
Big Blue Box Store
June 2016–December 2018

Key Responsibilities

• Initiated diversity training and cross-cultural communication to create a more comfortable work environment.
• Arbitrated grievance proceedings and succession planning.
• Conceptualized compensation surveys and new wage administration.

Key Achievements 

• Implemented new training materials which decreased onboarding time by 17%.
• Instrumental in increasing employee retention rate by 22%.

HR Generalist
Big Blue Box Store
June 2016 – December 2018

Key Responsibilities

• Responsible for day-to-day HR department duties
• Called candidates for interviews
• Conducted training and development sessions

The second one just blandly lists some duties. Guess what? HR managers know what people in HR do. That first highlights responsibilities along with achievements backed up with numbers. HR managers love it.

One other thing to keep in mind is the ATS.

As a future human resources department employee, you’ll be using applicant tracking systems a lot to help you sort through the deluge of applications you get each day.

But you have to pass the ATS test yourself first. This means using the right resume keywords and including them throughout. If you don’t have the ones they’re looking for, you’ll get passed over in favor of the next candidate.

The same applies to the list of skills for a resume for Human Resources jobs. A separate HR skills section is the best place to list additional keywords related to your knowledge which you haven’t used elsewhere on your resume yet.

Human Resources Skills for Resumes

• College recruitment
• Salary administration
• Contract negotiations
• Communication skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Talent acquisition
• Job task analysis
• Employee development
• Decision making
• Problem solving
• Screening
• Affirmative action
• Compliance
• Diversity & inclusion

Keep this list of skills for HR down to about 4–6, and include them as you see them on the job listing word-for-word.

Expert Hint: Make this a targeted resume by including only relevant skills for the position. You may know some furniture design from your woodworking class, but that’s not relevant here on your human resource resume.

Find out more: Resume Work Experience Section: Job Descriptions that Wow

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4. Use Your Precious Education Into a Reason to Hire You

The HR resume education section often gets just a brief once-over. But, it could be the make-or-break item on your resume. Here’s how to list your education to make it count:

As you can see, we skipped dates and the GPA. You can add them, but make sure the dates are not more than ten years in the past and your GPA is not too low.

Also, if you are applying for entry-level human resources jobs with no relevant work experience under your belt, move the education section higher on your HR resume so that it goes just under your resume objective.

Expert Hint: If you’ve completed your university degree, don’t add your high school. Add high school education only if it is the last full thing you’ve finished, such as if your college degree is still in progress.

5. Enhance Your Human Resources Resume with Extras

If you want to make your HR resume stand out from the other human resources applicants, add some extra resume sections to make it pop:

Certifications

First and foremost, these HR certificates for a resume will definitely put you at the front of the pack:

• SHRM-CP (SHRM Certified Professional)
• SHRM-SCP (SHRM Senior Certified Professional)
• HRCI aPHR (Associate Professional in Human Resources)
• HRCI PHR (Professional in Human Resources)
• HRCI SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources)
• HRCI GPHR (Global Professional in Human Resources)
• HRCI HRMP (Human Resource Management Professional)
• HRCI HRBP (Human Resource Business Professional)
• HRCI PHR-CA/SPHR-CA California Certification

The most valuable HR certifications come from the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Languages

Knowledge of another language or two can really help, especially if that language is used by a portion of the employee workforce.

Hobbies & Interests

Use resume hobbies and interests to show things like leadership skills without outright saying it. Focus on those pastimes and passions most relevant with the job of an HR professional.

Expert Hint: Other additional HR resume sections to consider include certifications, HR awards, honors, human resource conferences, licenses, volunteer jobs on a resume, and organization memberships.

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Key Points

You’ve got to be extra persuasive if you’re to convince the human resources manager to give you a job with them in the HR department.

But, if you follow this advice, you’ve nothing to worry about.

Here’s a quick recap on how to write a job-winning human resources resume:

• Choose the best HR resume format. Keep things in reverse-chronological format.
• Write a compelling human resources resume summary or objective. Save it for the end to use the rest of the resume as a guide.
• Write an HR generalist job description which uses numbers to quantify your achievements.
• Create an HR skills section which uses keywords from the job ad to itemize the most relevant abilities you have.
• Tweak the human resources associate resume education section to include relevant coursework and other information to increase your interview chances.
• Add extra HR staff resume sections to make your resume more unique compared to the other 250 human resources resumes they’ll get.

Good luck on your HR interview!

Have any questions on how to write a human resources resume? Need to learn more about how to write a resume? Get at us below in the comments, and we’ll chat about it. Thanks for reading!

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