How to build an HR CV that gets noticed

Whether you are a recent graduate seeking entry-level roles or an accomplished specialist looking to elevate your career, refining your HR CV is always a good idea. As the number of HR jobs continues to grow, so do HR professionals in the workplace. In fact, the HR profession has grown significantly by 42% over the last decade, an eye-catching figure that suggests the competition for HR roles is intensifying.  

Emerging as a sought-after candidate is no easy feat, but with an HR CV that showcases why you are ideally suited for the position, you can rest assured that your employment prospects will look brighter.  

In this guide, we’ll provide you with actionable steps you should follow to strengthen your CV. First, we’ll explore 5 pieces of key CV advice, from tailoring your CV for each role to maintaining a clear, concise tone. We’ll then provide you with an ideal HR CV template based on the top tips we covered in the first section.  

CV advice for HR professionals  

To remain competitive and employable in the HR space, having a stand-out CV that highlights your unique skills, talents, and experience is paramount. According to StandoutCV, only 2% of candidates who apply for roles are selected to attend an interview. The HR sector is certainly no exception to this low interview-to-applicant ratio, and while there are several steps candidates can follow to impress hiring managers, one thing is certain - creating a well-written CV is a reliable method of piquing the interest of potential employers. 

Here, we’ll provide you with 5 essential pieces of HR CV advice that can help you stand out from the competition:  

• Tailor your CV for each specific job description  

Generic, run-of-the-mill CVs are not likely to engage HR hiring managers, so tailoring your CV for each specific role is a must. Of course, there are definitely features you should include on all versions of your CV, such as your qualifications, skills, and experiences. However, each job description will be written in a distinctive way to reflect the nature of the role and the company’s culture.  

In order to successfully tailor your CV for a specific position, you must first identify the description’s unique requirements. For instance, if you are applying for an HR Specialist role, there will probably be an emphasis on one area in particular, such as training or employee benefits. Using this information, you can tweak your CV to ensure that the employer knows you are a perfect fit.  

Be sure to include experiences and skills that directly relate to the role you are applying for. If it's a recruitment-related role, emphasise your recruitment successes. If it's more focused on employee relations, you should highlight experiences that have required you to apply your conflict resolution and communication skills. 

•  Showcase your HR skills and achievements  

The world of HR is very much results-driven, and success is measured in quantifiable achievements. There are various metrics that indicate HR success, including employee satisfaction surveys, HR technology utilisation, and staff turnover rates. If you can show that your actions have directly resulted in improving a company’s recruitment, training, or operational efficiency, hiring managers are likely to be interested in interviewing you.  

Demonstrating how your past actions have achieved positive outcomes is not an easy feat, especially given employers will want to see tangible evidence of your claims. You must include data that quantifies your achievements, including relevant numbers, percentages, and specific examples. If you have enjoyed a long career with an abundance of relevant experiences, you should prioritise your most impactful accomplishments.  

In addition to highlighting your HR skills and achievements, it is best practice to also include your various soft skills. Professional qualities like strong interpersonal skills and proven leadership abilities will indicate to employers that you are more than capable of building relationships with fellow employees. With a better understanding of your professional personality, hiring managers are far more likely to consider you for the position.  

• Demonstrate your commitment to continuous learning 

HR is an incredibly dynamic field, with best practices and work processes evolving all the time. As cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality, and cloud-based software continue to transform the very nature of HR operations, keeping up to date with the latest trends and developments is a vital strategy for ensuring that your knowledge and skills remain relevant. Potential employers will be very keen to know that your HR knowledge is second to none.  

Highlighting your dedication to continuous learning and development on your HR CV will show hiring managers that you are passionate about your craft. Not only will it demonstrate that your HR skills are relevant and current, but it will also show that you are willing and able to adapt to changing needs - a core quality that is highly valued in the HR field.

So, how should you go about demonstrating your commitment to continuous learning? Aside from including a well-written statement regarding your love for learning all about HR principles, you could cite specific examples of your professional development experiences. Relevant examples include participation in an industry conference, membership of professional HR association, and voluntary work.

The roles and responsibilities of HR jobs are subject to continual change, largely driven by the growing adoption of state-of-the-art tech. If you would like to learn more about how technology is redefining the HR space, why not read our blog: How will technology impact the future of HR jobs?  

• Include professional and academic qualifications  

An HR CV brimming with evidence of your skills and experiences is sure to capture the attention of most employers, but including professional and academic qualifications is equally as important. Holding professional HR certifications and relevant academic achievements validate your expertise and competency as an HR professional.  

An impressive set of HR qualifications displayed on your CV will not only demonstrate your dedication to career growth and give you credibility as a candidate, but they will also indicate that you have a thorough understanding of legal compliance and regulations. If you are applying for an HR Specialist role that requires expertise in a specific area of HR, prominently displaying relevant certifications is key.  

For example, if the position is focused on HR recruitment, showing that you hold a qualification from an institution such as the Recruitment and Employment Confederation will validate your suitability. Academic qualifications like an undergraduate HR degree or a Master’s in Human Resource Management will prepare you for HR Generalist positions that seek candidates with expertise in a wide array of HR disciplines.  

• Be clear and concise  

Our final piece of CV advice is simple yet invaluable - be clear and concise. This may sound like an obvious tip, as hiring managers are likely to ignore poorly written, unclear CVs. However, while concise CVs are important regardless of the industry, they are especially key in the HR sector due to the type of duties professionals are expected to perform.  

HR professionals are required to have exceptional written and verbal communication skills, especially when it comes to duties like conflict resolution, delivering training sessions, and employee onboarding. A well-written CV laid out in a concise format will provide hiring managers with an insight into what you will be like in the role. In addition to creating a great first impression, an articulate, well-structured CV will help the reader to ascertain the essential information without having to wade through unnecessary clutter.  

Employers ideally want to read succinct sentences that convey all the pertinent details without any ‘filler’. Too much information can overwhelm hiring managers and recruiters, potentially discouraging them from moving ahead with your application. On average, recruiters spend between 6 to 8 seconds looking at CVs, so if you do not grab their attention within that time frame, your chances of progressing to the next stage of the process diminish.  

The ideal HR CV template  

Now that we have covered 5 key pieces of CV advice, we will take a look at what the ideal CV template should look like.  

Header  

The header is probably the first section of your CV that the hiring manager will read, and will be decisive in capturing the reader’s attention. Although it almost goes without saying, the header section needs to feature all your relevant contact details. Be sure to include your phone number, email address, and LinkedIn URL, double-checking them to ensure that they don’t have any errors or typos.  

It is best practice to include a short, succinct, professional summary in the header. While this is entirely optional, it can be a handy way of letting potential employers know about your personality, skills, and career ambitions. If you include a summary, make sure that you use some of the keywords you identified while reading the job description. Professional summaries should be brief, with no more than 4 or 5 lines of text.  

Experience 

The next section on your HR CV should be reserved for your professional experience. You should list your relevant work and volunteer experiences in reverse chronological order (most recent first), outlining the details of each in the following format:  

• Job title  
• Company name 
• Location (not always relevant, particularly with remote working) 
• Dates of employment 
• A brief description of the position’s roles and responsibilities, with emphasis on how your efforts helped to improve the organisation’s HR efforts  

You may also wish to include examples of accomplishments you earned by utilising your HR skills. These should focus on the impact you made, provide quantifiable evidence of your achievements, and begin with strong action verbs. Of course, the achievements you choose will entirely depend on the role you are applying for, but to give you an idea of what to add, here is a list of appropriate examples:  

• Implementing a new onboarding process that reduced onboarding time. 
• Saving financial resources by streamlining benefits administration process. 
• Achieved an uptick in employee retention by establishing targeted talent retention strategies. 

Education and professional certifications  

Given that you have probably written an educational and professional certifications section on your CV before, this part of your HR CV will likely be straightforward. Similar to your professional experiences, you should list your academic and professional qualifications in reverse chronological order. For each, be sure to include the certification name, the grade you received, the awarding body, and the date you passed.  

Skills  

Deciding which skills to add to your CV requires careful thought and consideration. Every HR role has its own distinct selection of required skills, so it is essential that you familiarise yourself with the nuances of the position before filling in this section. Once you have made your choices, be sure to create a separate section where you can present your relevant skills in a bullet point list.  

Here are some examples of the skills you may wish to add:  

• Talent management: Helping employees to thrive by providing career development support and training sessions.  
• HR compliance: An understanding of implementing HR processes that adhere to the latest laws and regulations.   
• Employee relations: This area of HR covers grievance handling, disciplinary procedures, and conflict resolution.  
• Recruitment: This covers candidate sourcing, offer negotiation, and applicant selection.  

Additional information

After completing all of the previous sections, it’s time to consider any additional information you could add to further enhance your CV. Having an excellent work history and all of the required skills is guaranteed to boost your chances of securing HR jobs, but providing potential employers with extra details about yourself can help you stand out even more. You could include your professional associations and memberships, the languages you speak, your continuous learning commitments, or even your hobbies and interests.  

Our final thoughts on how to build an HR CV that gets noticed 

Building an outstanding CV is a crucial step in a competitive job market where the demand for HR professionals continues to grow. Creating a stand-out HR CV is not just about listing your experiences and qualifications—it's about tailoring your application to the specific job requirements and demonstrating your unique value as a candidate. 

Whether you are starting your CV from scratch or refining what you already have, the key tips we have explored in this guide are guaranteed to assist you. When structuring your CV, ensure a clear header with contact details and a concise professional summary. Organise your professional experience with impactful achievements, list your education and certifications, and highlight relevant skills. This template will help you create an HR CV that catches the attention of hiring managers. 

By following the actionable steps outlined in this guide, you’ll be equipped to improve your employment prospects and highlight why you are the most suited candidate for your ideal HR position.  

Specialists in HR recruitment  

With expert knowledge of the HR recruitment space, Sellick Partnership has been connecting high-calibre professionals with HR jobs throughout the UK since 2002. From recent graduates seeking entry-level positions to experienced HR professionals looking to reach the next stage of their careers, our dedicated consultants work with candidates at all stages. We will work diligently to put you in touch with employers offering roles that suit your career ambitions and unique skill set.  

Contact us today to discover more about our market-leading recruitment services.