HR Generalist resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 15 skills, tools and credentials that come up in HR generalist job posts, sorted by type, and how to put them in bullets a recruiter believes.
By Nazir Elmurodov, Founder, LaunchCV · Updated
/ The list
Keywords by type. Use only the ones that are true for you.
Hard skills · 10
- Employee relations (used in Rachel's sample resume)
- Onboarding (used in Rachel's sample resume)
- Benefits administration (used in Rachel's sample resume)
- Recruiting (used in Rachel's sample resume)
- Talent acquisition
- Performance management (used in Rachel's sample resume)
- FMLA (used in Rachel's sample resume)
- Compliance (used in Rachel's sample resume)
- Policy development
- Payroll (used in Rachel's sample resume)
Tools & software · 4
- HRIS (used in Rachel's sample resume)
- Workday (used in Rachel's sample resume)
- BambooHR
- ADP
Licenses & certifications · 1
- SHRM (used in Rachel's sample resume)
11 of 15 appear in Rachel's sample resume. See where
/ How to use them
Put keywords in bullets, not just in a skills list.
A skills list tells the software you have a skill. A bullet shows a recruiter what you did with it.
Employee relations, Onboarding
Weak: Skills: Employee relations, Onboarding
Strong: Support 450 employees across 3 sites on onboarding, benefits, leave and employee relations
Workday
Weak: Skills: Workday
Strong: Moved HR records to Workday, cutting time spent on manual data entry by 10 hours a week
Compliance
Weak: Skills: Compliance
Strong: Led annual open enrollment with 96% participation and zero compliance findings
Strong bullets come from Rachel's sample resume and our HR generalist bullet examples. Names and figures are illustrative.
/ Use them honestly
Keywords get you found. Proof gets you hired.
Mirror the job post's wording for skills you really have. If an HR generalist post asks for Employee relations and you've used it, say Employee relations, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If an HR generalist post says "Onboarding", write "Onboarding", not a near-synonym — as long as it's accurate. Recruiters search for the post's exact term.
Only claim what you can back up
Expect to be asked about every term you list. If you couldn't spend two minutes on Employee relations — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Employee relations. A bullet like the one under HR Generalist in the example above shows what you did with it.
No stuffing, no hidden text
Repeating a word or hiding keywords in white text doesn't make you a better match. A person reads the resume in the end.
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/ Questions
HR Generalist keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should an HR generalist resume have?
There's no magic number. Rachel's sample resume uses 11 of the 15 terms on this page — the ones that fit that job. Cover what your post asks for that you can back up, each where it fits; repeating a keyword doesn't help.
Should I copy keywords exactly from the job post?
Use the post's wording for skills you really have. If an HR generalist post says "Employee relations", write "Employee relations" rather than a synonym, so a recruiter searching for that term finds you. Don't add skills you don't have just because the post lists them.
Where should keywords go on my resume?
In your summary, a short skills section and, above all, the bullets under each job, where you show what you did with the skill. In Rachel's sample, Employee relations shows up in a bullet under HR Generalist. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on an HR generalist resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in HR generalist posts include HRIS, Workday, BambooHR and ADP. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list SHRM on my resume?
Spell it the way the job post does, and include both the abbreviation and the full name if you have room. Put licenses and certifications in their own section or next to your education, and only list ones that are current.
Keywords for related roles
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