2024

Human Resources (HR) Generalist Resume Examples to Inspire You

Trying to give your resume a boost to land a distinguished HR Generalist job?

Smart decision. 

Building a resume for a human resources position is like baking a cake for a baking pro. HR managers know their businesses and that includes all about resume-building. This means that you have to master it too.

But don’t worry. This guide will walk you through every section of a perfect HR Generalist resume with examples to inspire you. 

How to Make a Winning HR Generalist Resume

The most effective resumes are the ones that include only relevant information for the job you are applying for. 

Recruiters dedicate on average 7 seconds to each resume, which means that you don’t want them to spend this precious time going over things that won’t guarantee that you are an excellent candidate for the role under review.

The secret to winning an interview with your resume is focusing on quality over quantity when it comes to information.

After years of recruiting experience, I found that the best resumes follow a structure that looks like this:

  • Contact Information
  • Academic Background
  • Profile Summary
  • Skills and Capabilities
  • Professional Experience
  • Certifications

Whether you should include all these sections on your resume or not, depends on how much experience you have on the field, and whether you hold credible certifications. If you have plenty of professional experience, for example, you don’t necessarily have to include a skills section.

Let’s explore the specifics of each of these sections:

Contact Information

There are no secrets when putting together this first part. Just make sure you include your name, email address, phone number, and home address on the top of the page

Your name should be in evidence, with the other information items underneath it. Make sure to organize this section in a way that doesn’t take much space on your resume page. 

Example for Inspiration:

Academic Background

I’ve seen many applicants leaving this section out. When I ask the reason, they say that they were told that their degree was not very significant.

That’s not true. Even though professional experience has more value in this day and age, your education still counts, especially for entry-level positions. 

Most companies hiring a HR Generalist require candidates to have at least a Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources Management, Business Administration, or a similar field.

Just make sure to keep this section simple and direct. There’s no need to mention coursework or honors. 

If your college GPA is higher than 3.5, you can mention it. If that’s not the case, don’t bother to include it.

Your school name, years of completion, degree, and field of study should be enough.

Examples for Inspiration:

 

Profile Summary

The profile summary’s purpose is to maximize the few seconds that the recruiters will spend reading your resume.

In three or four sentences, you will tell them why you are the right fit for the position.

If you succeed in getting their seal of approval on this section, they might dedicate a few extra seconds to review your resume with more attention.

A lot of pressure to make the profile summary right, uh?

To make sure you hit the key aspects, you should include a mix of these three points:

  1. A summary of your human resources career. For example: “Human Resources generalist and SHRM certified professional with 2 years of experience in the technology industry.”
  2. Concrete results backed by numbers. For example: “Increased employee engagement rate at [previous company name] by 38% and employee productivity index by 16%.”
  3. Evidence that you know what it takes to succeed in the role. For example: “Seeking to increase training engagement and decrease cost-per-hire at [company name].”

Examples for Inspiration:

These sample resumes show three different ways you can format your profile summary:

 

 

Skills and Capabilities

In this section, you get to use keywords to tell your hiring manager what are your strengths as a human resources generalist. 

But don’t just throw beautiful HR words there at random. To get your recruiters’ seal of approval, you must show you have the right skills for the job.

To find out what these specific skills are, I recommend opening the job post and highlighting keywords that tell you what they are looking for in terms of qualifications, and capabilities.

Once you have these keywords, just choose about six of the most relevant ones (make sure that you actually have these skills) and include them in this section. 

If the job posting has “Generate, organize, and make conclusions from the human capital database” as one of the main job responsibilities, for example, it is a good idea to include “Data-driven” as one of your skills.

Most HR Generalist job descriptions require a combination of a few of these following skills:

  • HRIS Expertise
  • Data-driven
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Employee Relations
  • Coaching
  • Intercultural Sensitivity
  • Administration Tasks Expert
  • ​MS Office Programs
  • PeopleSoft
  • FMLA
  • Benefits Administration 
  • Employee Incentive Programs Management
  • Tax Compliance
  • ATS and CRM knowledge 
  • Employee Performance Management
  • Employment Law Expertise
  • Talent Acquisition 
  • Project Management

Examples for Inspiration:

The resume format above shows the level of expertise in each of the skills, which helps the hiring managers to understand how far goes each of your capabilities. 

If you prefer not to specify the expertise level, you can use a format that looks like the resume sample below:

Professional Experience

This should be the largest section of your HR generalist resume. 

By looking at your previous work experiences in the HR department, recruiters will confirm whether you have the skills you showcased. 

The secret to making this section powerful is including as many solid results as possible. 

Recruiters screen hundreds of resumes in a day, which means that they see lots of conducted this, managed that. Broad descriptions of your responsibilities won’t convince them. Be as specific as you can be and give them solid results.

Each bullet point should increase the hiring manager’s confidence that you can thrive on the position. To do that, you must be intentional and tailor the descriptions to the specific job you are applying for.

These are some examples of the job responsibilities that human resources recruiters will look for underneath your previous job titles:

  • Performed new employee orientation and increased onboarding satisfaction by X %
  • Generated data and HR policies to base decisions that led to a decrease in cost-per-hire of X %
  • Managed staffing processes for X departments from resume and cover letter screening to new hire orientation
  • Administered workers compensation and benefits plans based on company policies, market research, and surveys
  • Led Diversity & Inclusion committee initiatives which contributed to a significant improvement in employee retention and engagement 
  • Streamlined HR operations by appropriate training administration that assisted employees to further their personal and organizational development
  • Investigated and managed employee conflicts in the work environment and brought up solutions before they escalated and affected labor relations
  • Conducted hiring interviews, performance reviews, and exit interviews 
  • Utilized the HRIS to provide, track and maintain data and optimize applicant tracking processes

Examples for Inspiration:

 

 

 

Keep in mind that the Human Resources Generalist role tends to be an entry-level position in most companies. This means most candidates don’t have many years of experience in the field. 

If that is your case, I recommend thinking of the tasks you had on your previous non-HR jobs and listing the ones that helped on your development as a human resources professional.

Project management tasks, for example, are performed in most administrative jobs and will help you succeed as a human resources generalist. Same for data analysis responsibilities. 

Certifications

In this last section of your resume, you will showcase your human resources credentials. Not many candidates for entry-level HR jobs hold credible certifications, so if you do, that’s an excellent way to differentiate. If you don’t you might want to start thinking about getting certified.

The most common human resources certification is offered by the Society for Human Resource Management. The institution is recognized globally, and they have different levels of certifications depending on the career stage that you are at.

Many companies require their HR Generalist candidates to hold certifications. 

In this section, you can also include awards or special achievements. Just make sure to adjust the section’s title accordingly.

If you’re interested in learning more about HR certifications to upgrade your resume, then check out our HR Certification Courses.

Want to Become a Great HR Generalist

Examples for Inspiration:

If you don’t hold any certification or special achievement yet, you can substitute this section for some other section that will show off some other strengths. This could be languages you speak, HR conferences you attended, associations you are part of, or even volunteer work you did.

Give Your Resume a Boost and Land a HR Generalist Job

As a HR professional, you know the power that a well-written professional resume has when recruiters are deciding who will be invited for interviews. 

Customizing your resume for the specific HR functions involved in the role is the best way to show hiring managers that you are the right person for the job.

Follow this resume writing guide and get inspired by these HR generalist resume samples to optimize your job search and land a remarkable job.

 


If you are new to Human Resources and are looking to break into an HR Generalist role, we recommend taking our HR Generalist Certification Course, where you will learn how to build your skillset in human resources, build your human resources network, craft a great HR resume, and create a successful job search strategy.

 

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Josh Fechter
Josh Fechter is the founder of HR.University. He's a certified HR professional and has managed global teams across 5 different continents including their benefits and payroll. You can connect with him on LinkedIn here.