In short
An HR manager's resume is often read by the person HR reports to: a CEO or general manager who wants to know what changed in the business because you held the function. That means the people you look after (how many, where), the problem you fixed, and proof it stayed fixed. Below you'll find a senior HR Manager's resume taken apart section by section, plus his headline, how his letter opens, and who he calls first.
Tomasi is a made-up example. FutureDay would build his resume this way: from what he actually did, with the confidential parts described by type and outcome, never by who. Notice how little of it is about HR processes, and how much is about the business.
An HR manager's resume, top to bottom
TOMASI FIFITA
HR Manager | Employee Relations & Workforce Planning | 1,100 employees, 6 sites
Perth WA · tomasi.fifita@email.com · 0400 000 000 · linkedin.com/in/tomasififita
Summary
HR manager who keeps a large site workforce staffed, settled and on agreed terms. Leads a team of eight supporting 1,100 employees across six mining services sites in Western Australia, where turnover, rosters and the enterprise agreement decide whether a contract makes money.
Line supervisors do most of the real people work on a site, so the job is giving them the tools and the training to do it well. First-year turnover across the sites is down from 38% to 21% because of it.
Career highlights
- Cut first-year turnover on fly-in fly-out sites from 38% to 21% in two years by rebuilding site induction, fixing how roster swaps are approved and giving every supervisor 30, 60 and 90 day check-ins to run, and it has held through two contract renewals.
- Negotiated a new enterprise agreement covering 760 employees, approved by the Fair Work Commission at first lodgement, with no industrial action and 91% of votes in favour.
- Mobilised 240 people for a new contract in nine weeks from a pre-screened talent pool built the year before, cutting labour hire spend by $1.4M in the first year.
Experience
HR Manager, Talgarno Contracting 2021 to now
1,100 employees across six sites and a Perth head office. Team of eight across HR, recruitment and payroll liaison. Reports to the Chief Executive.
- Brought time to hire for trade roles down from 41 days to 19 by moving recruitment in-house and keeping a pre-screened pool for each site.
- Handles 60 to 70 employee relations matters a year, from performance cases to formal investigations, with no unfair dismissal claim lost in five years.
- Replaced paper timesheets and three separate HR spreadsheets with Employment Hero across every site, cutting payroll queries by 60%.
- Ran the company's first engagement survey and two follow-up rounds; participation rose from 48% to 79% and the overall score from 5.9 to 7.2 out of 10.
Senior HR Business Partner, Calloway Private Hospitals 2016 to 2021
Three hospitals, 1,400 clinical and support staff. Partnered the general managers and directors of nursing.
- Led the people side of closing a 60-bed ward, redeploying 85 of 92 affected staff into other roles with no dispute raised.
- Cut nursing agency spend by $2.2M a year by building a casual pool and a graduate pipeline with two universities.
- Rewrote the performance framework for 1,400 staff, lifting completion of annual reviews from 35% to 88%.
Earlier career
HR advisor and recruitment roles in health and resources, including HR Advisor at Marlow Health Services and Recruitment Coordinator at Quenda Bulk Haulage.
Education and training
Bachelor of Business (Human Resource Management)
Graduate Certificate in Employment Relations
Mental Health First Aid accreditation
Systems and skills
Employment Hero, SuccessFactors, Culture Amp · Enterprise agreements and Fair Work · Workforce planning and rostering · Workplace investigations · Remote and fly-in fly-out workforces · High-volume recruitment
- HeadlineName the specialism. "HR Manager" on its own fits a thousand roles. Employee relations and workforce planning tells a reader which ones he fits. 1,100 employees across six sites sizes the job.
- SummaryThe business problem first. It says why HR matters in this business: turnover and rosters decide whether a contract makes money. The second paragraph is a human sentence, and HR is one field where that earns its place, as long as a number follows it.
- HighlightsDid it stick? HR is full of programs launched and forgotten. "Held through two contract renewals" is the line a CEO looks for. The agreement is proved by the vote and first-time approval, not by the word "successfully".
- Scope lineWho he looks after. Headcount, sites, team, and that he reports to the Chief Executive. That last part tells a reader HR sits at the top table here.
- BulletsConfidential, and still specific. Employee relations work is described by volume and outcome, never by who. "No unfair dismissal claim lost in five years" proves judgement without breaking a single confidence.
- Earlier careerWhere it started, briefly. Health and resources, the two industries his career is built on. Leaving off the dates keeps the page on the last ten years.
- SystemsSystems and settings. The HR systems a job description names, plus the kind of workforce he knows. "Fly-in fly-out" is a phrase a mining employer will search for.
What does a chief executive want from an HR manager?
Whoever hires an HR Manager wants three answers. What did the business need from its people, and did it get it? Can you hold a line with a difficult manager or a union? Will what you build still work when you're not in the room? A resume full of "partnered with stakeholders" answers none of them. One with a turnover number that moved and stayed moved answers the first and the third in a sentence.
Before: "Responsible for employee relations and supporting managers with HR matters."
After: "Handles 60 to 70 employee relations matters a year, from performance cases to formal investigations, with no unfair dismissal claim lost in five years."
What goes in an HR manager's LinkedIn headline?
Role, specialism, then the people and setting, as in Tomasi's:
"HR Manager | Employee Relations & Workforce Planning | Mining services, 1,100 people across 6 sites"
Not "People and culture enthusiast | Making work better". It's warm, but nobody filling a site HR role searches for it.
How should an HR manager's cover letter open?
With a problem in the business that the people function fixed. Not with a love of people:
"Your sites are growing faster than you can hire for them, and your contracts don't leave much room for a long vacancy. Across six mining services sites I took first-year turnover from 38% to 21% and cut the time to put a tradesperson on the roster from 41 days to 19."
Then close on what you'd take on first in their business.
Who should an HR manager reach out to, and with what?
HR roles at this level are often filled by someone the CEO already knows, or a name a trusted manager puts up. The resume follows the introduction. Earning the introduction is the work.
An HR Manager's first calls should go to:
- Site, project and operations managers you've worked with. They move between companies often, and when they land somewhere new, they want the HR person they already trust. They're also often the first to know HR is about to be restructured.
- Labour hire and recruitment partners. They know which company just won a big contract and will need to hire hundreds, months before an HR job is advertised.
- The Chief Executive or General Manager at mid-sized companies in your industry. In many of them HR reports straight to the CEO, so that's who hires you.
Open small: a short note that asks for little. To a site manager he used to work with:
"Hi Craig, I heard you've taken the project director role, congratulations. How are you finding the new crew? I'm starting to look at what's next, probably an HR manager or head of people role with a contractor that's growing. If your business is building out its people side, I'd love a chat. Either way, good to see you doing well."
Before you message, it helps to know who would actually make the decision. Here's how to find the hiring manager for a job.
Where FutureDay comes in for an HR manager
FutureDay builds a resume like Tomasi's out of what you've really done, and tailors it to each job description with nothing added. Then, day by day, it shows you who to contact, what to say, and what to do next.
In summary
Name your specialism and the people you look after.
Lead with what changed in the business, not what HR did.
Show it held: a renewal, a second year, a vote.
Confidential work is described by type and outcome, never by who.
The introduction comes first and the resume second, so spend your time on introductions.