As an HR professional, you probably think you have your resume in the bag. Why wouldn’t you? Reviewing resumes is a big part of many HR jobs, so you’ve seen enough to know what’s good and what’s bad. But, like the stereotype that doctors are the worst patients, human resources professionals can run into some obstacles when working on their own job search. So here are five resume tips tailor-made for HR job seekers.
1) Stay Relevant
As you’re creating your resume, take note that you don’t need to include every job you’ve ever done. Keep in mind the rule of thumb to only go back about 10 years. And within the experience from those years, keep the most relevant jobs in the forefront. You want to demonstrate your specific HR knowledge and experience.
2) Make Your Personality Shine
You also want your resume to reflect who you are as a person. This can be difficult in two pages of bullet points, but not impossible. The hiring manager will make some inferences with your resume, so you need to steer them toward the right conclusions about who you are as a candidate. You can even be explicit about personality traits that will be important in your HR career.
3) Edit, Edit, Edit
If you’ve done any amount of HR work in your career so far, you’ve probably seen a few resumes with some pretty glaring errors. Don’t be this candidate. It’s easy to let a simple mistake slip through after you’ve read the same words over and over again. Get a second opinion and go over it word by word to make sure your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are on point. Details matter in HR, so they should matter on your resume.
4) Focus on Formatting
Another aspect of your resume that will either draw or repel attention is your formatting. There are a couple of accepted formats for resumes today: chronological or functional. The chronological is the standard list of positions starting with the most recent. Each will have bullets to further describe duties and accomplishments. A functional resume highlights your accomplishments first. Your background may dictate whether one or the other is better.
5) Leverage Your Network
Finally, remember that HR is a people-related job. So, throughout your career, you will collect people in your personal and professional database. When you’re in the market for a new job, start with your current network to help you find another opportunity. Connect in person and online to expand your potential network and find more opportunities.
Do you want more help finding your next HR position? Harvard Resource Solutions is now hiring in Southeast MI, so call today.
