You start with daily functions like recruiting and hiring, and then handle long-term HR duties to maintain a good workplace, too. You manage benefits, leave, and pay administration alongside ensuring policy compliance.
But you might not be sure whether you should make a cover letter or how to work with a resume template. How long should it be? Which sections should you include or add?
Don’t worry! We’ve distilled years of experience helping human resources generalists like you into these three resume samples with advice to give you a jump start.
What Matters Most: Your Skills & Experience Sections
Set your skills section up for success so that it can do the same for you! Recruiters want to see adaptability and a well-rounded set of abilities that show your technical and interpersonal capabilities.
Always avoid generic terms that could find in any profession. Instead, refine things further and make sure you’re drawing attention to your unique set of abilities that qualify you for the job.
If your communication is great, then say what you use it for. If you’re good with certain types of software, list them specifically by name.
Here are some examples of what we’re talking about:
9 best human resources (HR) generalist skills
- Performance Reviews
- Problem-solving
- Policy Planning
- Benefits/Compensation
- Payroll
- Jobvite
- MS Excel
- Workday
- MS Word
Sample human resources (HR) generalist work experience bullet points
While your skills section gives an excellent snapshot of what you can do, recruiters want to see you go a step further. How did you use your data entry skills in the past? How did you use your strategic planning skills to make a positive impact?
You want to bring in a diverse set of examples from your work history that really showcases your ability to make a difference in the workplace with the tools that you have.
And you’ll need to measure the differences you make, too! Use quantifiable data to back up your claims of success, showing recruiters what you can do in percentages, dollars, and numerical rates.
Here’s a handful of ideas from our resume examples:
- Spearheaded recruitment program, enabling competitive hiring practices, boosting morale and productivity to reduce $65K in annual hiring expenses
- Handled all aspects of work performance monitoring with Asana, resulting in an 8% increase in productivity
- Implemented employee recognition program, leading to a 12% drop in resignations
- Restructured employee recruiting plans, emphasizing social media and other modern funnels to increase job visibility by 714%
Top 5 Tips for Your Human Resources (HR) Generalist Resume
- Use the ideal format
- Resume formatting can be everything when you’re polishing up your document. Whichever area is strongest should take the spotlight, whether your skills, certifications, or work experience. As an HR generalist, we’re pretty certain you’ll want to how career advancement, which means you’ll want to present your information in reverse-chronological order.
- Highlight your versatility
- As a human resources generalist, highlight your adaptability to shifting situations. Show versatility in your experience and skills, featuring accomplishments ranging from monetary savings to job visibility percentages. Demonstrate your agility!
- Use a summary if you’ve got a statement to make
- If you include a career summary, make sure it spotlights your proudest accomplishments and speaks to the company where you want to work. Try something like this:
- HR generalist improving recruitment, hiring, and training processes for 20+ years, harnessing a vast knowledgebase, management experience, and systems optimization. Attention to policies and laws, active research and implementation of department enhancements, and a metrics-driven approach will ensure BookEnds retains qualified, exceptional employees for years to come.
- If you include a career summary, make sure it spotlights your proudest accomplishments and speaks to the company where you want to work. Try something like this:
- Demonstrate growth
- Your human resources generalist resume should show a clear trend of growth, learning, and advancement. Nail this by providing increasingly complex examples of your success as your points become more recent.
- Measure your impact
- We know, we know, we already said it. But you really do need to remember this one! Your claims of boosting team morale and reducing hiring expenses are way less impressive and believable without data. Bring in those numbers for reinforcement.
That depends on how long your skills list is and how many certs you have. If you have a lengthy skills list or several certifications, you should probably separate them into disparate sections. If you have just one or two certs, like a PHR cert, they can just go in with your skills.
Generalist doesn’t mean generic! To spotlight this, make sure you take a look at the HR job description and look for unique phrasing or keywords that you can reflect in your resume. Adding these tweaks to your versatile experience points will make you stand out!
You want your resume to look organized, sleek, and professional. That means staying away from distracting colors that pull recruiters’ attention away from your achievements. And use simple, easy-to-read fonts to keep things skimmable.
