HR Manager Resumes & Writing Guide

When you are seeking an opportunity as a Human Resources Manager, it is essential first to review a top-notch Human Resources Manager resume sample. Human Resources Managers are responsible for planning, directing, coordinating, and administering the people or employee management function of the organization.

As a Human Resources Manager, you will be doing significantly more recruiting, training, and managing payroll. Therefore, you need a resume that grabs the attention of the hiring manager, instantaneously. This is where we can help you with our Resume Guideline for Human Resources Managers packed with advice on current trends, which sections of your resume to prioritize, and also examples of job descriptions, resume summaries, and accomplishment statements.

HR Manager Resume Samples

(Free resume sample (Pdf) downloads are at the bottom of this page)

The Human Resources Manager Resume Guide:

Resume Sections

1. Contact Information: 
The logical information applies:

  • First Name
  • Last Name,
  • Contact Numbers
  • Email Address,
  • Linkedin Profile (a must)
  • General location.

2. Career Summary: 
Your career synopsis is the first piece of content that will tell the reader who you are as a professional, highlighting your top technical skills, highest qualifications, and most important personal traits. Pay attention to your title, distinguishing credentials, or experience in a hot topic HR issue. Then include a specific value add that you can bring to the organization. The length of your summary should be between 3 and 6 lines.

3. Qualifications Summary: 
Human Resources Managers typically require a Bachelor’s Degree, although some roles may even require a Master’s Degree, such as an MBA. Degree majors include apart from Human Resource Management, disciplines such as Industrial Psychology, Business Management, or Labor Relations. Capture qualifications in the following format: Date, Qualification Name, Institution Attended, and major subject disciplines.

4. Relevant Human Resource Management Experience: 
Assist the Hiring Manager to understand the scope of your experience by providing your job duties in bullet form format with the focus on the 5-10 most critical activities. The extent of your responsibility may be emphasized by giving details on company turnover and employee count or the business as well as the industry of operations. Only present experience from the last 10 years to ensure that your resume does not exceed 2 pages in length.

5. Emphasize Achievements: 
Your achievements should be placed in a separate section, so the extent of your accomplishments and accolades are not diluted by your job descriptions. More on this later on.

6. Skills Summary/Key Skills: 
Human Resources is a vast discipline with many subcategories, for example, generalist activities, payroll, employee wellness, recognition and rewards, training, organizational development, or recruiting and talent acquisition, to name but a few. Take a strategic approach here and ensure that these skills mentioned in the job advertisement are reflected on your resume (if you have them, of course). This approach is referred to as Resume SEO and will make your resume for “visible” to applicant track system technologies and automated screening bots.

7. Education/Licenses/Certifications/Relevant Coursework/Training: 
Apart from formal degrees and diplomas, Human Resources Managers are also required to have certifications, current membership to industry regulatory bodies as well as participation in Continuous Professional Development (CPD) training to keep their skills current with worldwide human resource trends. Be sure to include these in your education section as well.

What to Highlight in a HR Manager Resume

Regardless of your experience as a Human Resources Manager, you should take note of specific points to highlight in your resume to present the best possible version of yourself to hiring managers.

First up, you may elaborate on the type of industry experience that you have. Human Resources Managers are found in virtually every business sector, from banking to manufacturing to mining. Use the BLS Sic code descriptions to identify your industry experience.

Next will be the scope of the organization because that shows a Hiring Manager with the extent of your managerial responsibilities is. For example, a Human Resource Manager working in a billion-dollar turnover organization may have more responsibilities than someone working for a company with a 10 million dollar annual turnover. You should also mention the employee count of the organization as well as the number of employees that you are directly supervising.

Continue with an explanation of the type of company that you work for:

  • Public or Private: 
    Depending on the size of the organization, Human Resources Managers may have overlapping responsibilities, especially in small and medium-sized companies, wherein large organizations you may have a clearly defined set of responsibilities.
  • Education: 
    Human Resources Manages are employed by schools from kindergarten to high schools as well as colleges and universities where their focus is often on the hiring of teachers, lecturers, school board members, and administration staff.
  • Government Agencies: 
    Human Resources Managers fulfill a critical role in local, state, and federal departments to assist in talent acquisition, payroll, and management, labor compliance, learning, and development practices for employees.
  • Services Companies: 
    Also referred to Human Resources Consulting, these are companies that provide Human Resources services to organizations that do not have their own Human Resource Departments. In this scenario, the chances are that you perform a specific HR function for multiple clients, for example, a focus on payroll or recruitment duties. Alternatively, you may also be assigned to a specific client and working from their location for an extended period as an in-house Human Resources Manager.

You also need to address your strategic experience levels which explains your tenure in long term resource planning and maximizing the value of the organization by creating and implementing training and development plans for example. If you liaise with executive management on issues regarding organizational development, restructuring of employee resources, and budgetary goals, mention these in your resume.

Next up is a discussion around your primary functions. As we said earlier you may be tasked with a single area of HR or multiple areas. In the paragraph below we have summarized the main areas of HR to assist you in picking the correct ones for your resume.

Employee Administration relates to activities concentrating on administrative tasks such as payroll execution, administering benefits such as pension funds and medical aids and tracking sick leave and vacation days. Focus on your experience in report generation, taxation, employee take-on, administering of statutory payments and solving payroll discrepancies

Talent Management refers to processes and programmes put in place to plan employee resources, develop job descriptions, source candidates, screening, shortlisting, interviewing and other related recruitment practices. Recruiters would be interested to know what the structure of your recruitment team looks like and also what type of high-level positions you have filled in the past as well as your ability to do mass hiring and onboarding.

HR Shared Services is an area where technology, automation, and applications are developed to meet the strategic and operational needs of this business about communication, record-keeping, collaboration, and project management tasks related to the company’s workforce.

Rewards & recognition forms part of employee engagement and organizational development where the aim is on improving organizational culture, increase employee satisfaction levels, and incentivizing employees for performance excellence.

Training & Development is a subsection of Human Resources that has been evolving rapidly in the last decade with the emergence of online training, e-learning, upskilling and reskilling to adapt to the critical skills needs of the fourth industrial revolution.

Labor Relations is a tough area of an HR Manager’s role and your experience in employee relations, developing employment policies, and navigate meetings and proposals in non-union and unionized settings. You should highlight your experience in developing contracts, handling complaints, facilitating disciplinary procedures, and addressing employee grievances.

*Cool Tip for a stellar resume: You can create an excellent first impression by elaborating on your targets and goals you need to achieve as an HR Manager. This could relate to the number of vacancies you need to fill in a month or a new training system that needs to be developed at a specific time. Be number specific here and provide actual data, for example, a 50% reduction in staff turnover because a new rewards policy being implemented, or decrease in sick days taken off 6 per employee per year, due to a wellness initiative that focused on early detection of lifestyle illnesses in employees.

HR Manager Resume Profile

Keep your profile summary concise and to the point, including the most relevant information that will capture the attention of the reader instantly. Think tight, lean and clean and avoid “filler” terms, adjectives, and generic action verbs and personality traits.

Note that you may have to rewrite a few times to get your summary spot on. Furthermore, an ingenious trick is to customize your career summary for each of the jobs that you apply to. Yes, this may mean more work, but on the other hand, it also generates more interviews.

Start your summary with your job title, years of experience in the industry, and one or two main competencies that replicate those provided in the job spec.

Next, add a line that showcases any outstanding qualities that will add value to the company.

Finish off with the highest degree obtained and also throw in a prestigious certification or industry membership for good measure.  

HR Managers Profile Summary:

10 Years of Experience Profile Summary Sample 1

Progressive Human Resources Manager with a decade of experience in employee benefits policy implementation, employee wellness projects, and employee engagement schemes. Responsible for an HR department of 60 members, which successfully reduced employee turnover by 45% during the last 18 months. Holds an MBA degree via Henley University and fluent in English, French, and German.

15 Years of Experience Profile Summary Sample 2

Astute Human Resources Manager with over 15 years of experience specializing in labor relations and conflict resolution in highly regulated and unionized environments, including manufacturing, mining, and gas exploration industries. Offering a complete HR Skills suite, including employee job performance assessments, resource strategy recommendations, interdepartmental coordination, and consultative relationship building with the executive team. Holds a Masters Degree in Industrial Psychology and membership with the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM).

12 Years of Experience Profile Summary Sample 3

Experienced Human Resources Manager with 12 years of experience in Executive Site Management responsible for programs exceeding $100M in value supporting sites of over 1,000 employees. Diversity and employee Engagement Champion, successfully boosting employee engagement and satisfaction levels by 30% in under six months. Designed a leader development tracker for young graduates, which was implemented across all facilities nationally and internationally. Completed a Ph.D. in Leadership Development and is a Certified Human Resources Management Professional (CHRMP).

HR Manager Duties and Responsibilities

An employer would expect to see specific foundational tenure related to your experience as a Human Resources Manager, but also particular points of specialties, for example, Training, Recruitment, Labor Relations, Organizational Development, and so forth. We have provided a generic job duty list of a Human Resources Manager, and suggest that you use these as a starting point and customize the tasks to fit your own unique experience.

Example Duties & Responsibilities:

  • Plan and coordinate the organization’s workforce
  • Plan and oversee payroll and employee benefit programs
  • Advise executive management on HR issues, for example, diversity management, performance appraisals, salary trends, and leadership development
  • Coordinate and supervise the work of recruitment specialists HR and support staff
  • Responsible for managing recruitment, interview, selection, and hiring actions
  • Facilitate dispute mediations, grievance procedures and disciplinary procedures
  • Implement extensive labor relations strategies while maintaining company sovereignty
  • Oversee employee benefits structures for examples healthcare, worker’s compensation, risk-benefit administration, pension fund scheme payments and related claims
  • Responsible for creating and managing budgets for the HR Department
  • Ensured regulatory compliance of human resources policies at the local and federal level
  • Provide conflict resolution assistance to employees and various level of management resolution
  • Represent the company and unemployment hearings and layoff discussion meetings
  • Oversee all learning and development as well as training initiatives
  • Host onboarding sessions for new employees and personally conduct exit interviews of all departing employees
  • Approve all job offers exceeding $120 per annum
  • Spearhead numerous regional and enterprise-wide human resource projects related to employee incentive and recognition programs
  • Train and advise executive management on HR trends through targeted consultations
  • Run with eLearning and online training programs within the company

Highlight Your Accomplishments

As a Human Resource Manager, you are pretty much the go-to person for all employee-related issues, which is often hard to explain in terms of accomplishments. Your “wins” as a Human Resources Manager are crucial to highlight in your resume. Knowledge and expertise have been taken care of in your job history; the accomplishment section provides you with a time to shine and show potential employers why you are a better option than the other candidates.

You want them to know what you have done to contribute to business objectives, in which areas you have made a difference, and what the measurable numbers and results were that you brought to the table during your employment.

Make sure that you quantify every single accomplishment statement with a numerical value, for example, a dollar amount, percentage, timeline frequency, score or ranking.

Use the APR approach (A=Action Verb, P=Problem, R=Result)

Examples of HR Management accomplishment statements:

  • Conducted a UC Benefits session for over 500 employees to advise and inform on recent regulatory changes, which reduced calls to the help desk by 30%
  • Created an online record-keeping system for a 100 person sales department, including payroll, fuel, and travel reimbursements, quarterly bonus pay-outs, monthly commission payments, and leave administration, halving the time spent by sales administrators on these issues.
  • Implemented and facilitated an onboarding program for all 5,000 incoming graduates across the country, which reduced their settling in the period from 3 months to 30 days.

HR Manager Education Section

The education section forms an integral part of your resume. Formal education is vital to position you as a qualified candidate, but so is professional credentials, industry affiliations, and sectoral memberships.

Educational credentials may be listed as follows:

Start with the commencement date and completion date for diplomas, associate degrees, and bachelor degrees. For courses, you can just list the date of completion. Next comes the full name of the qualification, then the full name of the institution, and then the City or abbreviated State name.

Examples:

2019 – Certified Human Resources Manager (CHRM), American Institute for Business Management and Communication, Seattle, WA

2019 – Professional in Human Resources (PHR), HR Certification Institute (HRCI), Online

2017 – Master of Science in Human Resource Management, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

2016 – Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP), The Association for Talent Development (ATD), University of Detroit, MI

2010 – Bachelor of Science in Human Resource Management, Florida University, Miami, FL

Awards: Member of the National Golden Key Honor Society, 2010

Leadership: Vice President of the Psychology Club, 2010

GPA: 3.8

How to Compile Your HR Resume Skills

Although the Human Resources Management field requires specific technical skills, employers also look for other skills, called soft skills or personality traits, in this type of role. Be sure to align your technical skills and personality traits with those mentioned in the job advertisement, which will reinforce your credibility and fit for the role. Also, presenting skills in this manner will help keyword density, which is essential to get your application “noticed” by the Applicant Tracking Systems and Screening Bots.

A skills matrix is a smart way to present your experience and competencies.

Critical Competency Skills Matrix

OrganizationalTime management, Calendar management, Records management
CommunicationVerbal & Written, Conflict resolution, Listening, Empathy, Negotiation
EthicsDiscretion, Integrity, Confidentiality, Trustworthiness
AdaptabilityChange management, Innovation, Flexible, Improvisation, Pivoting, Fluidity
MultitaskingProject management, Scheduling, Collaboration
Training and developmentStrategic orientation, Team orientation, Coaching, Mentorship
Employee engagement Intercultural sensitivity, Semantics, Employee relations
HRM knowledge and expertiseQuantitative analysis, Research data, Qualitative analysis, Reporting, Statistics
Leadership & ManagementLeadership development, Organizational development, Performance Management, Appraisals
LegalitiesEmployment law, Compliance, Industry regulations, Employee handbooks, Employee relations, Employer rights, Equal employment opportunity, Fair labor standards, Policies, and procedures
Recruitment and hiringOnboarding, Resource planning. Job descriptions, Job postings, Screening, Shortlisting, Interviewing, Offer negotiation, Orientation

IT Skills Matrix

ADPBreezy HRiCIMS Talent Acquisition
Peakon
SAPSAGEZoho PeopleBamboo HR
PurelyHRCriterion HCMBitrix24Advanced Excel
MatlabMS ProjectHRISLotus Notes

Qualifications/Certifications associated with Human Resources Managers

SHRM ProfessionalCertified Employee Benefits Specialist (CEBS)Certification in Labor Relations
Masters Degree in Human Resources ManagementProfessional Human Resources CandidacyProfessional Recruiter Certification (PRC)
Bachelors Degree in Industrial PsychologyCertified Internet Recruiter (CIR)Professional in Human Resources (PHR)

Professional information for Human Resources Managers

Sectors: Human Resources, Recruitment, Organizational Development, Leadership, Training, Payroll, Employee Relations, Employee Wellness, Rewards & Incentives, Coaching, Talent Management, Talent Acquisition
Career Type: People Management, Resource Management
Person type:  Developer, Presenter, Networker, Influencer, Manager, Strategist, Mentor, Coach, Trainer
Education levels: Bachelor's to Masters' Degree
Salary indication: $54K (low), $78K (mid), $110K (Glassdoor)
Labor market: Estimated 7% growth between 2018 – 2028
Organizations: Corporate, Commercial, Government, Multi-National, Small and Medium Enterprises

Download HR Manager Resume Sample Pdf's