Digitalization has introduced plenty of changes in the human resources field, and HR professionals are challenged to adapt, primarily by acquiring the necessary human resources skills. Though automation has simplified many processes in this industry, it hasn’t eliminated the need for highly skilled HR professionals.
In this article, we’ll explore the most sought-after skills for human resources professionals and explain how to include them in your resume.
Let’s dig in!
Key Takeaways
Human resources skills include a blend of general, soft, and specific hard skills.
When including your human resource skills on a resume, it's crucial to group them, provide real-world examples to support each category, and concentrate on the skills that are most pertinent to the employer.
As an aspiring HR professional, you should keep up with the modern trends in the HR industry, stay open to learning, and constantly perfect your skills.
16 Top Skills for Human Resources Professionals
The necessary HR competencies include a set of specific industry-related skills, universal soft skills, and certain technical abilities. Here’s an overview of the most essential ones:
Soft Skills For HR Professionals
#1. Communication Skills
Communication skills are fundamental for HR professionals at all levels. From conducting difficult conversations like job interviews, announcing layoffs, and promotions to presenting data to executives, HR professionals need to be able to communicate effectively.
Strong communication skills in HR are also crucial for preventing and handling conflicts in the work environment and ensuring smooth collaboration. Plus, the HR department is usually responsible for fostering the employees’ morale, establishing corporate culture, and bridging the gap between staff and leadership, all of which depend on good communication.
#2. Organizational Skills
Having strong organizational abilities is crucial for HR professionals as they must balance a variety of responsibilities, including hiring, training, administration, event planning, record keeping, and legal compliance.
The ability to prioritize effectively, manage time well, anticipate possible issues, and handle unpredictable problems effectively is closely tied to the level of organizational skills.
#3. Emotional Intelligence
High emotional intelligence allows an HR professional to resolve conflicts efficiently by understanding unspoken tensions, recognizing burnout through subtle behavioral cues such as decreased engagement, irritability, or withdrawal, and building trust.
The degree of empathy that the HR department shows towards employees' sensitive issues also has a significant impact on corporate culture and employee turnover. Knowing how to create a safe and productive atmosphere in a team and foster collaboration requires exceptional emotional intelligence.
#4. Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution skills build on previously mentioned emotional intelligence and involve knowledge of practical conflict management techniques.
Addressing disputes at the root prevents the escalation of conflicts, protects employee morale, boosts retention, and strengthens professional culture. When combined with other specialized abilities like mediation, policy expertise, and active listening, conflict resolution can be a huge advantage in an HR job.
#5. Coaching
HR professionals are often expected to develop employees, guide them through organizational changes, and help them use their talents to contribute to the company’s objectives. Coaching skills are also crucial in HR processes, such as onboarding, training, and talent development.
Listing coaching skills in your resume signals to the employer that you are able to motivate and inspire employees to thrive in the workplace.
#6. AI Literacy
The emergence of AI tools has affected all industries, and HR is no exception. It has transformed the recruitment process, workforce analytics, and employee engagement, and HR professionals must understand how AI tools work and how they can be used to facilitate various processes.
From leveraging applicant tracking systems (ATS) to chatbots for employee queries and predictive analytics, AI literacy is necessary regardless of your level of seniority in HR.
#7. Adaptability
The job of an HR professional implies interacting with individuals of different backgrounds while navigating regulatory changes and workplace trends, and therefore requires highly developed adaptability.
Additionally, the development of new HR tools and technologies requires agility, readiness for change, and continuous learning, all of which are closely connected with the level of adaptability an individual possesses.
#8. Leadership
HR professionals require strong leadership skills because they are responsible for maintaining employee morale across departments while navigating conflicts and making tough decisions.
Leadership skills ensure you have the vision, integrity, and emotional intelligence that are necessary when implementing unpopular policies, introducing changes, or restructuring teams and work processes.
#9. Problem Solving
HR professionals have to deal with a lot of unpredictable situations and react promptly to challenges. Having advanced problem-solving skills allows them to address the root causes of problems and brainstorm solutions quickly and effectively.
#10. Change Management
Apart from changes within their field, HR professionals also need to manage changes that affect all the other departments in the organization. Change management is a critical skill for HR professionals that helps them smooth organizational transformations, cultural shifts, mergers, and digital innovations.
Specific HR Skills
#1. HRIS
Workday, BambooHR, ClickUp, and ADP are examples of digital HR tools that help HR professionals streamline processes, ensure accuracy, and reduce the time spent on routine yet essential tasks such as payroll processing, time tracking, or compliance reporting.
Being able to use these platforms effectively is regarded as one of the fundamental HR competencies. Additionally, mentioning particular systems on your CV raises your ATS rankings.
#2. Knowledge of HR Processes
Regardless of whether you’re applying for a junior or senior HR position, you need to have a solid understanding of all the HR processes, including recruitment, onboarding, training, and performance management. Such cross-functional knowledge makes you more valuable and adaptable.
Moreover, knowledge of HR processes allows you to contribute to all aspects of your role, fill in for your colleagues when needed, and ensure a seamless employee experience across the organization.
#3. Compliance and Legal Knowledge
From updating employee handbooks to conducting anti-harassment training, compliance and legal knowledge are extremely important HR skills to list in a CV.
Understanding laws like FMLA, ADA, and EEOC is mandatory for HR professionals because it protects organizations from legal breaches and costly lawsuits. Noncompliance fines can be extremely high and cause more than just material damage, harming the company's reputation in the long run.
#4. Learning Management Systems
Learning management systems (LMS) like CornerStone and Moodle play an integral role in a variety of HR processes like onboarding, upskilling, regulatory training, and compliance tracking. Knowing how to use these systems effectively demonstrates to the employer that you can choose, implement, and optimize employee training to achieve organizational objectives.
#5. Sourcing
Sourcing involves the ability to identify, attract, and engage potential candidates, often even before a job post is officially open. It includes different search techniques like Boolean and X-Ray, leveraging talent databases and ATS, social sourcing, and niche platform targeting.
#6. Talent Acquisition
Talent acquisition refers to the process of attracting, recruiting, and hiring top talent, which is typically the responsibility of HR professionals. These human resources skills imply a wide range of knowledge based on employer branding, AI and recruitment technology, sourcing, and data-driven hiring.
Therefore, despite the huge impact AI tools have on this process, the competence of HR professionals in this field is irreplaceable.
How to Professionally Showcase Your HR Skills on Your Resume
As an aspiring HR professional, you are aware that your resume and HR cover letter will be reviewed by other HR professionals who may have very similar skill sets to yours. To ensure you stand out from other applicants and demonstrate an understanding of the employer’s expectations, focus on including the human resources skills that match the job description.
However, just listing your qualifications isn’t nearly enough to impress recruiters and hiring managers; you need to prove your competencies through measurable achievements. So, rather than taking a generic approach and simply listing your human resources skills, you could demonstrate how you actively use them. This means you will follow each of the skills with an example from your working experience.
Here are a few good examples:
Good Examples
Talent acquisition: Reduced time to hire by 25% by implementing Boolean search techniques and LinkedIn Recruiter, sourcing more than 10 high-quality candidates.
Change management: Designed a phased training program with live demos and leadership endorsements, which resulted in increased employee compliance from 43% to 96% within 4 months.
This way, you’re letting the employer immediately know that you are aware of their expectations and capable of delivering results. Additionally, categorizing your skills makes your CV easier for recruiters to digest.
Now, let’s see an example of how you shouldn’t list your HR skills:
Bad Example
Interpersonal skills in HR
HR generalist skills
Resume skills for recruiters
Human resources resume skills
Simply naming your skills in this manner seems vague and gives off an impression of a lack of structure and effort.
Finally, to see that you get to the point of the process where your CV is being evaluated by HR professionals, you need to ensure your resume is ATS-friendly by using the relevant HR resume keywords.
You may also want to check whether you formatted your CV properly, or browse our collection of CV templates and examples of HR resumes to get inspired.
Ready to impress employers with standout HR skills on your resume?
Use our resume builder now!4 Tips for Improving Your HR Skills
The first step toward improving your HR skills is identifying your HR strengths and weaknesses and mapping your growth areas. In light of this, the following tactics will help you stay competitive as an HR professional:
#1. Go Beyond Traditional HR Skillset
Combining essential HR skills with industry-specific competencies, such as financial analytics, operations management, or business development, allows you to stand out from other applicants. Concentrate on skills that are in high demand in the industry that interests you.
#2. Refine Your Digital Fluency
Keep up with the emerging HR technologies, including ATS platforms, HRIS systems, and people analytics tools. This way, you’re signaling to the employer you’re adaptable, open to learning, and acquiring new skills.
#3. Build Interpersonal Skills
While interpersonal skills are highly regarded in all industries, they are particularly valued in the HR field. These skills allow you to interact and collaborate with others smoothly, build quality relationships, and influence others when necessary, thus facilitating your professional development.
#4. Strengthen Conflict Management Skills
HR professionals are expected to handle interpersonal and group conflicts with tact and resolve, so learning effective conflict resolution strategies can be extremely beneficial. Therefore, study mediation and negotiation tactics, expand your capacity for handling sensitive issues, and practice maintaining positive employee relations.
Closing Thoughts
The field of human resources is vast, and there are undoubtedly many more hard and soft skills that may make you more competitive as an aspiring HR professional. Nonetheless, it is more important to highlight the competencies that are most closely related to the job description than to fill out your CV with an endless list of human resource skills.
So, stay open to learning, tailor your resume for each employer you apply to work for, refine your cover letter, have faith in your abilities, and you’ll land your dream HR job sooner than you hope!
