HR adviser CV: example and tips

Keywords in job ads for HR advisers

HR roles vary a lot. In a small organisation, the HR adviser does everything from recruitment and employment contracts to payroll and personnel cases. In a large organisation, the role is often focused on one area, such as recruitment, employment law, organisational development or pay. The ad tells you which kind it is, and which words to use.

Many employers use applicant tracking systems, and HR people know this better than most. Even so, many send the same CV to every job. Use the words from the ad where they match what you have done. If the ad mentions “sickness absence follow up”, write that, not just “following up employees”. Selja does this for you when you paste in the ad. Our guide to an ATS-friendly CV explains how these systems read your CV. Most ads in Norway are in Norwegian, so it helps to know terms such as rekruttering (recruitment), arbeidsrett (employment law) and personalsaker (personnel cases). These words come up again and again:

• Recruitment, interviews, onboarding and employer branding.
• Employment law, the Working Environment Act, collective agreements and the Basic Agreement (hovedavtalen).
• Sickness absence follow up, follow up plans, dialogue meetings and adjustments at work.
• Personnel cases, restructuring, downsizing and conflict resolution.
• Support for managers, leadership development and skills development.
• Working environment, health and safety, employee surveys and cooperation with union and safety representatives.
• Pay negotiations, pay policy and HR systems.

Formal requirements: education is common, authorisation does not exist

There is no authorisation or legally required education for working as an HR adviser. According to utdanning.no, employers nevertheless often require relevant education at bachelor level or higher, for example in HR and personnel management, work and organisational psychology, employment law, education or business and administration. List your education clearly with the institution and year, and include courses that fit the job, such as employment law or organisational development.

What you need to show is that you know the rules you will be advising on. Sickness absence is one example. Under section 4-6 of the Working Environment Act, the follow up plan must be ready at the latest when the employee has been fully or partly absent for four weeks, and the employer must call a dialogue meeting no later than seven weeks after the employee has been fully absent. If you have put routines like these in place, it makes a strong bullet point.

If you have certifications or courses, for example in using personality and ability tests in recruitment, in employment law or in a specific HR system, list them under courses with the name and year. Testing is common in recruitment roles.

Example of a summary for an HR adviser CV

The summary is the three to five sentences at the top of your CV. It should say which parts of HR you know best, where you have done it and what you are looking for. Here is a made up example you can use as a pattern:

Example: “HR adviser with six years of experience in industry and the public sector, focusing on recruitment, sickness absence follow up and support for managers. Has carried out more than 80 recruitments and cut the time from job ad to signed contract from ten to six weeks. A steady source of support for managers in demanding personnel cases, working well with union and safety representatives. Looking for a role where I can build good HR processes in a growing organisation.”

Replace the numbers with your own, and only write what you can explain in an interview. You will find more examples in our guide to writing a CV summary.

Bullet points with results: weak versus strong

HR work is easy to describe vaguely, because so much of it happens in conversations and meetings. The employer still wants to see what the work achieved. Start with a strong verb in the past tense and finish with a number or a sense of scale: recruitments, managers you have supported, employees in the organisation or changes in sickness absence and staff turnover.

• Weak: “Responsible for recruitment.” Strong: “Led 35 recruitments a year, from job profile to signed contract, and cut the time to hire by four weeks.”
• Weak: “Followed up employees on sick leave.” Strong: “Introduced fixed routines for follow up plans and dialogue meetings, helping reduce sickness absence from 7.8 to 6.1 percent in two years.”
• Weak: “Support for managers.” Strong: “Was the regular adviser for 14 managers on personnel cases, working hours and employment law in an organisation with 400 employees.”
• Weak: “Onboarding.” Strong: “Designed a new induction programme for new starters, and the share who left during their first year fell by a third.”
• Weak: “Restructuring.” Strong: “Carried out a restructuring affecting 60 employees in close dialogue with union representatives, without disputes.”
• Weak: “Employee survey.” Strong: “Ran the annual employee survey, presented the findings to the management team and followed up actions in 12 departments.”

Skills, systems and courses worth including

Skills become stronger when they are specific. “HR systems” says less than the name of the system and what you used it for. Include what you can actually do.

• HR and payroll systems by name, for example Visma, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday or Sympa.
• Recruitment systems, for example Webcruiter, ReachMee or Jobylon, and advertising on arbeidsplassen.no, finn.no and LinkedIn.
• Employment law: the Working Environment Act, the Holidays Act, collective agreements and the Basic Agreement.
• Certification in personality and ability tests, with the name of the test.
• Excel and reporting of key figures such as sickness absence, staff turnover and headcount.
• Courses in coaching, conflict resolution or leadership development.

Recent graduate, or many years in HR

If you are a recent graduate, it is normal to have little HR experience. Highlight what comes close: work placements from your degree, your bachelor's thesis, a part time job where you trained new colleagues, positions in student societies or volunteering where you recruited members. Say what you did and what it achieved. Many start as an HR consultant or HR coordinator and become an adviser after a few years. Our guide to a CV for recent graduates has more advice, and so does our guide on relevant work experience as a student.

If you have worked in HR for many years, the challenge is to show direction. Choose the two or three areas where you are strongest and use the space on them. If you are aiming for head of HR or HR director, strategic work is what counts: pay policy, leadership development, restructuring and figures you have moved. Cut older positions down to one line, and keep the CV to two pages.

Common mistakes in an HR adviser CV

HR people read a lot of CVs, so expectations are high when you apply yourself. Look out for these mistakes in particular:

• A list of specialist areas without examples, such as “recruitment, employment law, health and safety”.
• No numbers, even though HR has plenty: recruitments, sickness absence, staff turnover and headcount.
• Confidential details from personnel cases. Describe the type of case, never the people.
• The same CV for a recruitment role and an employment law role.
• Long paragraphs instead of short bullet points.
• Buzzwords such as “passionate about people” without proof.

Faster with Selja: a separate CV for every HR job

An HR job in recruitment and one in employment law ask for different things, even when the title is the same. With Selja you paste in the job ad and upload the CV you already have. In under a minute you get a professional, ATS-friendly CV and cover letter tailored to the job, with the keywords from the ad where they match what you have done. That way you can apply for more jobs without rewriting your CV every time.

Selja never adds experience or skills you do not have. If the ad asks for something your CV does not show, for example experience with a particular payroll system, Selja asks you first and only uses what you confirm. It is free to start: take a free ATS check and see which words from the ad are missing, or check your CV for free. Get started when you want to create your first application.

The application and next steps

In your cover letter, show that you understand what HR means for this particular organisation. If it is growing, write about recruitment. If the ad mentions restructuring or high sickness absence, write about that. One concrete result is better than three personal qualities. See our example of a job application for a template you can build on.

In the interview you will often be asked about difficult personnel cases and how you balance the needs of the manager and the employee. Practise your answers with the interview questions for the role, and read preparing for a job interview. Many HR advisers are found on LinkedIn, so make sure your LinkedIn profile matches your CV. If you are wondering about pay, the free pay check shows figures from Statistics Norway (SSB).