Resume template · Updated October 2026
Professional resume template for corporate roles
Short answer
Leslie suits most office and corporate roles: work experience comes straight after the summary, the only colour is a blue header and short underlines, and everything else is plain dark type. The fictional sample is an HR business partner with nine years of experience at a logistics company and an insurer. The same layout answers a request for a formal or professional CV of one or two pages.
Download the professional sample
Rebecca is a fictional HR business partner. Replace every detail with your own before you send it.
The files are made in your browser by Resumity's own exporters, from this sample. The builder opens it as your own resume: click any line to replace it. Free plan, no watermark.
Why Leslie suits a professional resume
Leslie prints work experience directly after the summary, ahead of skills and education, the order a hiring manager for a mid-career corporate role reads in. Its only colour is the centred blue header and a short blue underline under each heading, enough to look finished without looking designed.
Second choice: Henrietta. Henrietta is a conventional business layout in black and grey, with education right after experience and skills in an unlabelled grid; choose it if you want no colour at all.
What goes in each section, in Leslie's order
Leslie prints its sections in a fixed order, the same in the PDF and the Word file. Here is that order for this sample, and what to put in each section.
- Professional Summary. Three sentences: your function and years, the size and type of organisation you support, and the kind of problem you are trusted with. A credential employers screen for, like the SHRM-CP here, belongs in the headline as well.
- Work Experience. This section carries the page. Each bullet should show judgment, not only tasks: who you advised, what changed and how widely it was adopted. Give scope (headcount, sites, budget) in every role.
- Skills. Leslie prints labelled rows with a dot after the label. Use the vocabulary of your function, such as "employee relations" or "workforce planning", rather than office skills everyone lists.
- Education. Degree, concentration and school. Nine or ten years into a career, honors and coursework rarely earn their space; keep the entry to one line.
- Certifications. Professional credentials with issuer and year. Because this list prints last, the credential you most want noticed should also sit beside your title in the headline.
The sample resume as text
The same content as the files above, so you can copy a line or compare it with your own.
Rebecca Thornton
HR Business Partner, SHRM-CP
Charlotte, NC | rebecca.thornton@example.com | (704) 555-0161 | linkedin.com/in/sample-rebecca-thornton
HR business partner with nine years supporting operations and sales teams of 300 to 900 employees. Advises senior leaders on organization design, performance and employee relations, and turns engagement survey results into action plans that managers follow through on.
Experience
HR Business Partner, Carolina Crest Logistics, Charlotte, NC (01/2021 to Present)
- Partner with the VP of Operations and six site directors on workforce planning for about 850 employees.
- Led the redesign of shift structures at two distribution centers, consulting supervisors and employees before rollout.
- Handle employee relations cases from intake to resolution and coach managers on documentation.
- Introduced quarterly talent reviews, now used to plan promotions at every site.
HR Generalist, Piedmont Mutual Insurance, Greensboro, NC (06/2016 to 12/2020)
- Supported 300 employees in claims and sales with onboarding, leave administration and policy questions.
- Ran the annual engagement survey and presented the results to department heads.
- Revised the employee handbook with legal counsel after a company-wide policy review.
Education
Bachelor of Science, Business Administration, Human Resources concentration, Blue Ridge State University (05/2016)
Certifications
- SHRM Certified Professional (SHRM-CP), Society for Human Resource Management (2019)
Skills
Employee relations, Workforce planning, Performance management, Organization design, HR policy, UKG Pro, Excel, Culture Amp, Executive communication, Coaching managers, Conflict resolution
How to make the sample yours
Keep a neutral, formal register
Write without "I", jokes or exclamation marks. Professional resumes drop the pronoun ("Advise site directors...") and keep the tone of a report to a senior manager.
Show scope in every role
Replace the sample's 850 employees and six sites with your own headcount, locations, budget or caseload, rounded honestly.
Swap the function, keep the pattern
Finance, operations and compliance professionals can reuse the same shape: advise leaders, change a process, show how widely it was adopted. Rewrite the skills rows in that field's vocabulary.
Use the employer's title for the role
If the posting says "People Partner" rather than "HR Business Partner" and the work is the same, use their term in your headline.
Asked for a professional CV?
When a non-academic posting asks for a CV, a one- or two-page document like this sample answers it. An academic or research CV that lists publications, grants and teaching is a longer record with different sections.
Keywords to keep where they are true
Terms this kind of resume is usually searched for. Use the posting's exact wording, and only for work you have done.
- HR business partner
- employee relations
- workforce planning
- performance management
- talent review
- organization design
- engagement survey
- policy development
- manager coaching
- HRIS
- SHRM-CP
- change management
Mistakes to avoid
- Casual phrasing borrowed from social media ("super passionate about people!"). Keep the register you would use in a memo to a director.
- Listing every task you have ever touched. A professional resume selects the work that matches the level you want next.
- Details from employee relations cases, even with names removed. Describe the type and volume of cases, never the people.
- Leaving your main credential only at the bottom of the page. Put it beside your title too.
How the sample PDF reads in text extractors
We exported this sample with Resumity's PDF exporter in Chrome on 2026-10-29 and read the file back with three open-source text extractors. This shows whether software that turns a PDF into text can recover it; it is not a test of any commercial applicant tracking system. How we test templates.
| Extractor | Name, email, phone | Headings | Bullets intact |
|---|---|---|---|
| pdf.js 4.10.38 | All found | 5 of 5 | 7 of 7 |
| pdftotext (Xpdf) 4.00 | All found | 5 of 5 | 7 of 7 |
| pypdf 6.13.0 | All found | 5 of 5 | 7 of 7 |
Frequently asked questions
What makes a resume look professional?
Consistent formatting, a conventional section order, plain wording and evidence of scope in each job. One restrained accent colour is fine; slang, decoration and typos are what make a page look unprofessional.
Should a professional resume be one page or two?
Two pages is reasonable once you have around ten years of relevant experience, which is a common rule of thumb. Earlier in a career, one page reads better.
Is a professional CV the same as a resume?
For most non-academic jobs the two words point to a similar one- or two-page document, and this layout serves both. An academic CV with publications, grants and teaching is longer and needs different sections.
Should I write my resume in the first person?
Drop "I" and write in implied first person: "Advise site leaders on staffing" rather than "I advise site leaders". It reads formal without sounding stiff.
How do I show seniority without inflating my title?
Through scope and judgment: the size of the teams you support, the leaders you advise and the decisions your work fed into. Titles vary too much between companies to do that job alone.
Will applicant tracking systems read this Leslie PDF?
The sample PDF read back with its contact details, all 5 section headings and all 7 bullets intact in three open-source text extractors (pdf.js, pdftotext and pypdf). Commercial systems such as Workday, Greenhouse or Taleo were not tested, and each employer configures its own.
Guides and templates for this resume
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