Role guide · People

You assess people
for a living.
It does not work on you.

It is the irony of the field: the person screening candidates all day presents their own case worst. And there is an added problem — HR still carries the suspicion of being a cost centre, so a CV without measurable impact confirms exactly what you do not want confirmed.

Turnover + cost without figures, HR reads as spend rather than result
🇪🇸 ES
The underlying problem

The function that talks most about talent
and proves its own worst.

Most HR CVs describe processes: "management of the full employee lifecycle", "development of talent policies", "employee relations". Accurate and useless: it does not say what changed.

And there is context worth keeping in mind: in many leadership teams HR still has to prove it contributes rather than only spends. A CV without numbers feeds that idea.

Cutting turnover by five points in a 400-person company is hard money. Closing a collective agreement without conflict is too. Those are business results, not departmental ones.

What has to be there

What changed
while you were there.

Every indicator with its before, its after and the headcount you acted on.

👥
Headcount and perimeter
People, sites, countries and applicable agreements. Managing 80 people on one site is not managing 900 across six different agreements.
🔄
Turnover
The headline figure of the field. "From 24% to 13% in two years" says more than any paragraph about culture. Separate regretted from unregretted.
⏱️
Absenteeism and engagement
Absence rate, engagement survey results, participation. If you improved one, through what specific measure.
💶
Cost per hire and time to fill
Cost per hire, days to fill a vacancy, share of direct hiring versus agency. Where HR proves real savings.
🤝
Collective bargaining
Agreements negotiated, collective redundancies handled, deals with works councils. The hardest experience to acquire and the most valued.
📈
Development and succession
Internal promotions as a share of vacancies filled, succession plans implemented, training with measurable impact.
What sinks it

Five things that cost you
on a people CV.

✕
Talking only about process
"I implemented an onboarding programme" says nothing without the effect: first-year turnover, time to productivity, new-joiner satisfaction.
✕
Avoiding figures out of caution
No function self-censors data more. But an honest range beats an adjective every time.
✕
Staying quiet about conflict
Having closed a redundancy process by agreement, or held a difficult negotiation, is what separates a people director from an administration manager.
✕
Listing tools
Workday, SuccessFactors, Personio. Every candidate lists the same. What counts is what you implemented and which process changed.
✕
Not naming the sector
People management in unionised manufacturing, in high-turnover retail and in tech talent wars are three different jobs.
The ATS detail

People, HR,
talent or personnel.

Few functions have changed names so often. "Personnel Manager" became "HR Director", then "People Director", and in multinationals "CHRO". Many screening systems, when filtering on exact terms, do not connect them.

If your CV uses only one, you disappear from the adverts using another.

HR Director CHRO Chief Human Resources Officer Head of People People Director Director of Human Resources HR Business Partner Head of Talent Employee Relations Director

These are related titles, not equivalents: responsibilities and scope differ between them. Only use the ones you have genuinely held — a title you never had collapses in the first interview.

How ZenitJob handles it

Your impact,
translated into business.

A company professionalising the function and one managing a restructuring do not want the same profile. Your experience serves both if ordered differently.

1
Base CV
You cover each stage
You dictate block by block: headcount, agreements, indicators, projects and conflicts handled. The AI turns it into achievements with figure and context.
2
Job analysis
Its priorities are read
Growth and attraction, or restructuring and employee relations. Opposite mandates that need different CVs.
3
Adaptation
Your indicators move up
If they want culture and retention, your turnover and engagement lead. If they want a restructuring handled, your negotiation experience does.
4
ATS score
You verify before sending
You check the match and which terms are missing.
Start with your base CV

You can assess anyone
except yourself.

Tell your track record out loud and ZenitJob turns it into achievements with figures and business impact. Then it tailors that to each role.

Build my base CV — free See how it works →

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