Crafting the best human resources generalist resume means showing recruiters you understand compliance, communication, and company culture.
To stand out, your resume should highlight strategic impact, use a clear resume template, and pair your application with a focused cover letter that reinforces your ability to support and scale HR operations.
What we’ll cover:
- ↪ 10 human resources generalist resume samples that recruiters actually respond to
- ↪ The resume sections that matter most in HR generalist roles
- ↪ When and how to make a cover letter to pair with your resume
Why this resume works
- If you’ve been in the HR field for long enough, your work experience itself will do the talking. However, every employer isn’t the same. Some are patient enough to go through your entire human resources generalist resume and some aren’t.
- Want to speak their language? Build an awesome career objective that summarizes your entire HR career and highlights your best talents like improving training, expediting hiring processes, or boosting employee morale.
How to Write a Human Resources Generalist Resume
For an attention-grabbing human resources generalist resume, you need to ensure your technical and soft skills/experiences are put on display.
Summary
Write a professional human resources generalist resume by showcasing your best workspace impacts to get noticed by recruiters.
Employers don’t want to see the same old “I’ve helped employers work better.” They want to see passion mixed with direct, concrete examples. And that’s exactly what we’re going to uncover in this guide:
- Leading with skills that matter most
- Leveraging your most standout achievements from past roles
- The right format that makes it easy to review your document
- Adding education that shows your professional grounding
- Ensuring you’re speaking directly to the specific role you’re going for
Your header is the front desk of your resume
This section is the first impression you make on your to-be employer. From your name to all other contact details, make sure everything is accurate and error-free. You mainly want to include:
- Full Name
- Job Title
- Phone Number
- Email Address
- Location
Pro tip: Avoid using nicknames or unprofessional email addresses. Being an HR means being strict on professionalism.
Build a strong skills section with HR tools and competencies
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
Showcase your readiness with quantifiable results from your work history
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%
Map your journey in education
It always helps to add degrees and certificates that show how long you’ve been professionally learning HR practices. Most jobs you come across will require a Bachelor’s/Master’s in Business Administration, but something like Business Management Studies works just fine as well.
Feel like your education section is too simple? Spruce it up with:
- Your GPA score (if 3.4 or above)
- Relevant HR coursework
- Any awards/honors
As far as certifications go, you want to include those that are trending or most respected in the industry. A few examples include:
- Professional in Human Resources (HCRI)
- Society for Human Resource Management Senior Certified Professional (SHRM)
Format your HR generalist resume for ATS and the recruiter
Getting a job in HR isn’t as easy as pulling up an employee’s record. You need to make it past the ATS to reach recruiters, and the best way to do so is by learning how to format your resume. Keep three things in mind:
- Bullet points: Use action words to begin each work experience bullet point. This immediately shows what action you took at each job.
- Length: Don’t go beyond one page. If you have an extensive background in HR, only pick your best three jobs.
- Personalization: From including keywords from the job description to using the company’s language, personalize your resume to the very dot.
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.
Key takeaways
- Your skills and relevant experience have a big say in your chances
- Be mindful of the format you use
- Go with what the job posting is asking for
- Your education adds to your professional depth
Human Resources Generalist Resume FAQs
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.
An HR generalist should typically have their work experience (quantified), skills, and all educational qualifications on their resume. Extra sections, such as hobbies/interests or certificates can also help if you’ve too much white space remaining.
