HR CVs are read by HR people, which raises the bar in a specific way: generic competency language is instantly recognised as generic. What a reviewer wants is the shape of your practice - how many employees you support, what proportion of your time is casework, whether you write policy or apply it, and whether you have taken a case to tribunal.
Employee relations casework is the clearest differentiator. Handling three grievances a year and running twenty concurrent cases including redundancy consultation are different jobs, and the CV should say which one you have done.
This example is written for an HR business partner with seven years of experience supporting a mixed office and operational workforce.
Opens in the editor with this content already filled in, so you can replace it with your own.
Amelia Brooks
HR Business Partner · Employee Relations & Organisational Change
amelia.brooks@example.co.uk
+44 7700 900693
Sheffield, United Kingdom
linkedin.com/in/example-amelia-brooks
Profile
HR business partner with seven years supporting a 900-person, four-site workforce across office and operational roles. Hold a live caseload of 15 to 20 employee relations cases, led the HR workstream of a 140-role restructure with no tribunal claims, and rewrote the family leave and absence policies. Chartered MCIPD.
Core Skills
Employee RelationsDisciplinary and grievance, Capability, Absence management, Investigations, Settlement agreements
Change & ConsultationRestructure and redundancy, Collective consultation, TUPE, Union negotiation
Systems & DataWorkday, BambooHR, Turnover and absence analysis, HR dashboards
Professional Experience
HR Business PartnerApril 2021 – Present
Rothervale Manufacturing Group · Sheffield, United Kingdom
•Hold a live caseload of 15 to 20 employee relations cases across disciplinary, grievance, capability and long-term absence for a 900-person workforce over four sites.
•Led the HR workstream of a restructure affecting 140 roles, including 45 days of collective consultation with the recognised union; 31 redundancies were completed with no tribunal claims.
•Analysed exit interview themes and found most first-year leavers cited shift pattern rather than pay; changing the rota for two departments reduced first-year turnover from 34% to 21% over a year.
•Rewrote the family leave, flexible working and absence policies following the 2024 legislative changes, and ran six manager briefing sessions to embed them.
•Coach 22 line managers on holding formal meetings, which has reduced procedural errors requiring a rerun from six a year to one.
HR AdvisorSeptember 2018 – March 2021
Rothervale Manufacturing Group · Rotherham, United Kingdom
•Advised managers on first-line ER matters and took notes in formal hearings across two sites.
•Managed end-to-end recruitment for 40 to 50 roles a year, introducing structured interview scoring that reduced time to hire from 47 days to 32.
•Supported the TUPE transfer of 28 employees into the group, including measures letters and consultation meetings.
Professional Qualifications
CIPD Level 7 Advanced Diploma in Strategic People ManagementJuly 2022
CIPD
CIPD Level 5 Associate Diploma in People ManagementJune 2019
CIPD
Education
BA (Hons) PsychologySeptember 2014 – June 2017
University of Sheffield · Sheffield, United Kingdom
Upper Second Class (2:1)
Professional Memberships
Chartered Institute of Personnel and DevelopmentSeptember 2022 – Present
Chartered Member (MCIPD)
Languages
EnglishNative
SpanishB1
Human Resources Professional example on the Modern Professional layout. All details are fictional and shown for demonstration only.
What recruiters expect
Before writing anything, it helps to know what the person reading is checking for. In this field that is usually a short, specific list:
The size and type of workforce supported, including whether it is unionised or multi-site.
Employee relations casework volume and complexity, including disciplinary, grievance, capability and absence.
Employment law confidence appropriate to the jurisdiction, and any tribunal exposure.
CIPD level, or the local equivalent professional standing.
Recommended CV structure
This is the running order the example uses. It is a starting point rather than a rule, but the order reflects what tends to be read first in this profession.
Profile — Three or four lines positioning you for the role.
Core Skills — Grouped skills, for example "Languages" and "Tooling".
Professional Experience — Paid roles, in reverse chronological order.
Professional Qualifications — Completed certifications with the issuing body.
Education — Degrees, diplomas and school-leaving qualifications.
Professional Memberships — Bodies you belong to, with membership numbers where relevant.
Languages — Spoken languages with CEFR levels.
Sections worth adding
HR Projects — Use for HRIS implementations, pay reviews or engagement programmes with measurable outcomes.
Continuing Professional Development — CIPD members are expected to maintain CPD; keep it to relevant recent courses.
Skills worth including
Grouped rather than listed in one block. Grouping makes a long list readable and shows that you can tell the difference between the things you use daily and the things you have touched.
Employee Relations
Disciplinary and grievance · Capability and performance management · Absence management · Investigations · Settlement agreements · Tribunal preparation
Change & Consultation
Restructure and redundancy · Collective consultation · TUPE · Union negotiation · Job evaluation
Pay benchmarking · Annual pay review · Policy drafting · Family leave policy · Gender pay gap reporting
Systems & Data
Workday · SAP SuccessFactors · BambooHR · HR dashboards · Turnover and absence analysis
Beyond the technical list: Coaching line managers, Holding a position with senior stakeholders, Handling confidential information, Mediation, Writing clearly under legal scrutiny. These belong inside your experience bullets, demonstrated, rather than in a list of adjectives.
Example professional summary
Three or four lines, positioned for the role rather than describing your personality. Two versions you can adapt:
HR business partner with seven years supporting a 900-person, four-site workforce across office and operational roles. Hold a live caseload of 15 to 20 employee relations cases, led the HR workstream of a 140-role restructure with no tribunal claims, and rewrote the family leave and absence policies. Chartered MCIPD.
HR advisor moving towards business partnering, with strong employee relations casework and a growing record in change consultation. Associate CIPD, working towards Chartered membership.
Writing your experience
The difference between a CV that gets a call and one that does not is almost always in the bullet points. Each pair below shows a real rewrite of the kind of line that appears on most CVs in this field.
Weak
Managed employee relations cases.
Stronger
Hold a live caseload of 15 to 20 employee relations cases across disciplinary, grievance, capability and long-term absence for a 900-person workforce over four sites.
Volume, case types and the population supported, which together define the seniority of the role.
Weak
Supported a restructure.
Stronger
Led the HR workstream of a restructure affecting 140 roles, including 45 days of collective consultation with the recognised union; 31 redundancies were completed with no tribunal claims.
Scale, statutory process and an outcome that is genuinely at risk in this kind of work.
Weak
Improved employee retention.
Stronger
Analysed exit interview themes and found that most first-year leavers cited shift pattern rather than pay; changing the rota for two departments reduced first-year turnover from 34% to 21% over a year.
A finding that contradicted the assumed cause, and a measured result.
Weak
Wrote HR policies.
Stronger
Rewrote the family leave, flexible working and absence policies following the 2024 legislative changes, and ran six manager briefing sessions so the new process was applied consistently.
Shows both drafting and the implementation work that usually determines whether a policy works.
Taken from the example
The sample CV for this profession is fully written. A few sections from it, so you can see the level of specificity that works:
Experience
HR Business Partner, Rothervale Manufacturing Group
Hold a live caseload of 15 to 20 employee relations cases across disciplinary, grievance, capability and long-term absence for a 900-person workforce over four sites.
Led the HR workstream of a restructure affecting 140 roles, including 45 days of collective consultation with the recognised union; 31 redundancies were completed with no tribunal claims.
Analysed exit interview themes and found most first-year leavers cited shift pattern rather than pay; changing the rota for two departments reduced first-year turnover from 34% to 21% over a year.
Rewrote the family leave, flexible working and absence policies following the 2024 legislative changes, and ran six manager briefing sessions to embed them.
Education
BA (Hons) Psychology, University of Sheffield — Upper Second Class (2:1)
Certifications and registration
CIPD Level 7 Advanced Diploma in Strategic People Management — CIPD
CIPD Level 5 Associate Diploma in People Management — CIPD
Common mistakes
Competency language with no cases behind it
"Excellent stakeholder management" appears on nearly every HR CV. Replace it with a situation where you held a position a manager did not want to hear.
No casework volume
ER casework is the core of most HR roles and the easiest thing to quantify. Give the number and the case types.
Vague change experience
TUPE and collective consultation are specialist. If you have done them, say how many employees were in scope and what your role in the process was.
Confidentiality slips
Never describe a case in enough detail to identify an individual. Case type, outcome category and process are sufficient.
ATS considerations
Applicant tracking systems behave differently by sector, and generic advice is often wrong for a given field. These points are specific to human resources professional applications:
Include "human resources" spelled out as well as "HR" - parsers do not expand the abbreviation.
State the CIPD level explicitly: "Chartered MCIPD" or "Associate CIPD (Level 5)".
Write "employee relations (ER)" in full once, since many adverts use the abbreviation.
Name the HRIS. Workday and SuccessFactors experience is frequently a shortlisting criterion.
The Minimal ATS layout is built for this, and the ATS guide covers what parsers do to a file in more detail.
Questions about human resources professional CVs
How important is CIPD?
In the UK it is close to a default expectation from advisor level upwards, and many adverts state a minimum level. If you are studying, say which level and when you expect to complete.
Should I mention tribunal experience?
Yes, factually. Preparing bundles and witness statements is a distinct skill. Do not describe the outcome of a specific case in identifying detail.
How do I move from HR administration to advisory work?
Show the advisory edges of your current role: first-line manager queries, note-taking in formal hearings, policy interpretation. Those are the bridge, and they are usually already happening.
Do I need employment law qualifications?
Not usually. Practical application matters more, but naming the legislation you work with regularly demonstrates the knowledge without overclaiming.