HR Generalist Job Description
A complete HR generalist job description template covering benefits, employee relations and compliance, plus the ATS keywords recruiters screen for.
HR Generalist is the job title for whatever nobody else at the company owns. At a 40-person startup, that might mean the entire HR function — recruiting, benefits, payroll coordination, compliance and the employee handbook, all held by one person. At a 2,000-person company with dedicated recruiting, compensation and learning teams, the same title might describe someone handling employee relations and policy administration for a single business unit. The title tells you almost nothing about scope; the requirements list tells you a lot more.
What a posting often undersells is the legal exposure. A generalist is usually the first person an employee talks to about a harassment concern, a disability accommodation request, or a termination that could go sideways. None of that shows up as a bullet point titled "exercise judgment under pressure," but it is a real and constant part of the job, and it is where an experienced generalist earns their keep over someone who is good at process but has never had to document an investigation that later got read by a lawyer.
SHRM-CP and PHR certification are common in generalist postings but rarely mandatory — they function more as a credibility signal, especially for candidates without an HR-specific degree, than as a hard gate. For many people, generalist work is also a starting point rather than a destination: a few years in, most either move up into HR management or move sideways into a specialist track — recruiting, compensation and benefits, or learning and development — once they find out which part of the job they actually enjoy.
Perrindale · Boston, MA
Full-time · Hybrid
$64,000 – $88,000
About the role
Perrindale is an HR consulting and staffing firm, and we are hiring an HR Generalist to run day-to-day people operations for our own team of roughly 150 employees. You will own the parts of HR that do not belong to any other specialist here — benefits, employee relations, compliance and HRIS administration — while our talent team handles recruiting for client accounts separately.
This is a hands-on role rather than a strategic one. Most days are a mix of scheduled work (benefits administration, compliance tracking) and unscheduled work (an employee relations question that cannot wait). We are looking for someone who is comfortable being interrupted and can still get the scheduled half done.
What you'll do
- Support full-cycle recruiting and coordinate interview scheduling for non-exempt and support-staff roles.
- Run new-hire onboarding and offboarding, including paperwork, systems access requests and exit interviews.
- Administer employee benefits, including open enrollment, life-event changes and vendor invoice reconciliation.
- Serve as a first point of contact for employee relations concerns and document investigations thoroughly.
- Maintain HRIS records and generate headcount, turnover and compensation reports for leadership.
- Track compliance with FMLA, ADA and state-specific leave laws, escalating anything ambiguous to counsel.
- Coordinate the annual performance review cycle, including manager reminders and calibration logistics.
- Keep the employee handbook and HR policies current as regulations and company practice change.
What we're looking for
- Three or more years in a generalist or HR coordinator role, ideally spanning several HR functions.
- Hands-on experience with an HRIS platform for recordkeeping, reporting and workflow approvals.
- Working knowledge of federal employment law and at least one state's leave and wage requirements.
- Demonstrated ability to handle confidential employee relations matters with sound judgment.
- Strong written communication for policies, offer letters and documentation that has to hold up later.
- Comfortable triaging competing requests from employees, managers and leadership in the same afternoon.
Nice to have
- SHRM-CP or PHR certification, completed or in progress.
- Experience at a company under 500 employees, where generalist scope tends to be genuinely broad.
- Prior exposure to full-cycle recruiting, including resume screening and offer coordination.
- Experience supporting a multi-state or hybrid workforce.
- Bachelor's degree in human resources, business, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision coverage, with a portion of dependent premiums covered.
- 401(k) with a 3% company match.
- Hybrid schedule: three days a week in the Boston office.
- $1,500 annual budget toward SHRM-CP or PHR certification and related coursework.
- Fifteen days of paid time off plus company holidays.
Salary range
As posted for this sample role. Real pay varies by employer, location and experience.
$64,000–$88,000/ yr
ATS keywords for this role
The applicant tracking system (ATS) — the recruiting software a hiring team searches and filters applicants with — will screen for these. Weight shows how central each one is to this specific posting.
Required and central (3)
Important (8)
Mentioned in passing (7)
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an HR generalist and an HR business partner?
In practice the line is blurry, but the usual distinction is that a generalist owns process across the full HR function — benefits, compliance, employee relations, HRIS — while an HRBP is attached to a specific business unit or leadership team and skews more strategic: workforce planning, org design, coaching managers. Small companies often have generalists doing both; the HRBP title tends to show up once a company is large enough to split HR by client group rather than by function.
Do I need SHRM-CP or PHR to get hired as a generalist?
Usually no. It helps most for candidates without a four-year degree in HR or a related field, where it substitutes for formal coursework as a signal of baseline knowledge. Plenty of generalists get certified after landing the role, often using an employer's professional development budget rather than paying for it themselves beforehand.
How many years of experience does a mid-level generalist role actually need?
Typically three to five, but the range is wide because "generalist" scope varies so much by company size. At a very small company, someone with two years of experience may already be carrying the full HR workload alone. At a larger company, a mid-level generalist with narrower true scope might have five or six years in. Read what the role actually touches, not just the years requested.
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