Human Resources CV: Example & 25+ Writing Tips

You’ve come to the right place to learn how to write a perfect human resources CV.

Because your HR CV will have tough critics:

As an HR candidate, you have to impress the HR manager—the expert in CV 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 CV 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 CV examples that get those HR jobs.
• How to ace your human resources job description for a CV.
• How to write modern CVs 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 CV—Sample

1. Choose the Best Human Resources CV Format

An HR CV sent to the HR manager has got to be HR approved.

But how?

By knowing how to format a CV for HR positions:

1. Keep the reverse-chronological order. List your most recent employment first, and work your way back from there. Do the same in the other CV sections, such as the education area or volunteer work history.
2. Prioritise CV 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.
3. Style it professionally. Use the best CV fonts, and make proper use of white space on your document to increase scannability.
4. Save it correctly. Save your HR CV in the PDF CV 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 CV Objective or Summary that Turns Heads

A CV 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 CV objective, CV summary, or qualifications summary. 

Got Some Experience in Human Resources?

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

A great human resources CV summary:

• Summarises 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 CV with lots of relevant work experience.

Here’s what such a perfect CV summary looks like in practise:

HR CV Summary—Example

Personable, CIPD-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 CV 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 CV for HR!

What If You Have No HR Experience?

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

An ideal human resources CV 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 CV achievement
• Informs the company how they’d benefit from hiring you.

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

HR CV 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.

The first one follows all the HR CV objective rules above and does it with style!

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

Read more: Professional Summary Statement for a CV: Examples and Tips and Career Objective for a CV: Examples and Tips

3. Write the Perfect HR Job Description and Skills Sections

Now we’ve reached the heart of your HR manager or HR assistant CV.

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 CV keywords the employer is searching for
• Write the skills and experience 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.
• Conceptualised 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

See the difference?

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—

—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 CV keywords and including them throughout. If you don’t have the ones they’re looking for, you’ll get passed over in favour of the next candidate.

The same applies to the skills section of your HR CV.

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 CV yet.

Human Resources Skills for CVs

• University recruitment
• Salary administration
• Contract negotiations
• Communication 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 CV 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 CV.

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

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4. Turn Boring Education Into a Reason to Hire You

The HR CV education section often gets just a brief once-over.

But, it could be the make-or-break item on your CV.

Here’s how to list your education to make it count:

This is how to list education on a CV.

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 CV so that it goes just under your CV 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 university degree is still in progress.

5. Enhance Your Human Resources CV with Extras

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

Certifications

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

• Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development
• HR Certification Institute
• Talent Management Institute
• The Society for Human Resource Management
• Association for Talent Development

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 CV 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 CV sections to consider include certifications, HR awards, honours, human resource conferences, licences, volunteer jobs on a CV, and organisation memberships.

Double your impact with a matching CV and cover letter combo. Check out this human resources cover letter example, use our cover letter builder and make your application documents pop out.

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Want to try a different look? There’s 18 more. A single click will give your document a total makeover. Pick a cover letter template here.

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 CV:

• Choose the best HR CV format. Keep things in reverse-chronological format.
• Write a compelling human resources CV summary or objective. Save it for the end to use the rest of the CV 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 itemise the most relevant abilities you have.
• Tweak the human resources associate CV education section to include relevant coursework and other information to increase your interview chances.
• Add extra HR staff CV sections to make your CV more unique compared to the other 250 human resources CVs they’ll get.

Good luck at your HR interview!

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

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