A Skeptic’s Guide to HR Certification, Part 3: How we did this
coauthored by AnnE Diemer
As an experiment where we were already biased as skeptics, we wanted to minimize costs and time spent — but as recovering overachievers, we also didn’t want to risk failing. So, in hindsight our study plan was probably more ambitious than it needed to be.
TL;DR:
Here are the materials and resources we found most valuable in our process…
Pocket Prep App (SPHR specific, but the app supports many exams)
Books: reminder that you can find most of these at your local library to help save money!
HRCI Body of Knowledge: helpful for specific definitions
PHR and SPHR: Complete Study Guide: chapters mirror the different exam focuses which provided structure for our studying
PHR/SPHR Exam for Dummies: helpful for some of the nuance in this test and for specific test preparation recommendations
Here’s what we don’t recommend…
Materials and Resources
What worked well for us:
Study partners all the way: We skipped test prep classes. Most cost nearly double the exam fee itself! And, we figured the main benefit of prep courses is accountability, which we could provide one another. This ended up being a huge advantage, but we are already colleagues who collaborate well together, so it was not surprising that this would be effective.
Pocket Prep: We found Pocket Prep when Krista scoured Reddit for more intel on the exam. This turned out to be our favorite paid resource (at $20.99 for one month), but it probably wouldn’t be enough to pass by itself.
It wasn’t perfect, but it gave hands-down the best explanations — with citations — for answers compared to all the resources we used, including those created by HRCI. Plus, it was easier to carry around and casually study 5–10 questions on-the-go compared to sitting down with the books. The real-time statistics feature also helped measure our progress and guide where to focus our efforts.
Books: We highly recommend sourcing exam prep books from your local library or second hand because they are pretty expensive. AnnE’s branch of the San Francisco Public Library library didn’t have them in stock right away, but they were able to order them and they arrived within a week. Krista ended up investing in a “used” copy of the HRCI Body of Knowledge (“used” because it arrived still plastic-wrapped, but 40% discounted; purchased because the library did not have it) and it was a surprisingly helpful supplement to our other resources. Our preferred books were:
- HRCI Body of Knowledge: helpful for specific definitions, a dense legal appendix, and understanding the traditional HR perspective that informs the exam
- PHR and SPHR: Complete Study Guide: chapters mirror the different exam focuses, which provided structure for our studying
- PHR/SPHR Exam for Dummies: helpful for some of the nuance in this test and for specific test preparation advice
What did not work for us:
HRCI Practice Exam: Krista bought a practice exam through the HRCI website, but this turned out to be a dud. The pitch was being able to take it unlimited times within ~6 months and seeing how you performed in each subject area.
However, the practice exam was only 30 questions and cost $75 (update: as of May 2024, it is listed as $85 on the HRCI website). Krista bought it thinking maybe the 30 questions would change each time you took the exam, or at least fully represent the range of question formats you might see — but both assumptions turned out to be incorrect.
The most upsetting part is the test would tell you which questions you got wrong, but gave an insufficient explanation about why (e.g. “C is the correct answer because D, B, and A are not”). We were so confused about how this resource could possibly be so unhelpful — yet cost more than a book with hundreds of practice questions — that we even called HRCI customer support to confirm these weren’t bugs in the online platform (they were not).
AnnE: Navigating the HRCI website to find resources, books, practice tests, etc. was a challenge that I recommend avoiding at all costs. The information we found on Reddit and in blog posts was much more helpful (which is part of why we are writing this!).
PHR/SPHR Exam Guide Second Edition: this book was not organized in a way that we found particularly useful. The practice exam questions were very different from what we found on the exam. Also, enough of the stated answers to the practice questions were wrong (they contradicted information both in the chapters, as well as information in other resources), that we lost trust in it.
Study Plan
HRCI’s SPHR exam focuses on 6 subject areas. The weight (how important each subject is for scoring) changes for each exam year. The weighting influenced how we prioritized each subject area, but we did still want to cover all 6 subjects to ensure cursory coverage across the board.
We divided the subject areas so each of us would be responsible for half of the overall exam weight. We made Mondays and Fridays “teaching days” where we’d spend an hour teaching the other what we learned, and the rest of the week we’d read and organize our assigned material. We covered all 6 subject areas within 2 weeks and then reverse-taught the same subjects.
The process of preparing materials to teach was educational in and of itself. It’s one thing to read a chapter for yourself, but quite another to teach someone else what’s relevant or important about it, and trim that to a 30–45 minute lecture. Making slides or a Figma flow chart to represent details that were difficult to unpack in text alone solidified a lot of information. This is probably pedagogy 101 (eventually we even read “teach someone else the material” as a suggestion in the PHR/SPHR Exam For Dummies book, which validated our efforts), but in general we found it helpful to approach the material from different angles to let it really sink in.
We initially thought we’d need to prioritize focus areas that were the most vague/broad to us (“Leadership & Strategy” and “Employee Relations”) because we suspected we’d have more to learn in those areas. However, we were surprised to discover that we had quite a bit to memorize in every focus area, including those in which we consider ourselves to be experts.
Combined, we have 20 years of experience in recruiting and HR for large global tech companies, small startups, and non-profit organizations. But because the SPHR exam would consider tools like Greenhouse to be a “Hiring Management System” (HMS) rather than an “Applicant Tracking System” (ATS), which is what we call it in practice, we confidently missed many questions on our first practice test. This meant we had to spend time memorizing terms with little practical use in our day-to-day HR work, but that we’d need to pass the exam. (You will find yourself doing a lot of this if you decide to pursue one of these exams. But that also means that when you finish, there’s a lot of information you can immediately forget!)
Study buddies
One of our biggest takeaways from this process is that we might well have not passed the test — and we would’ve definitely resented the process more — if we studied exclusively on our own.
Studying together and teaching each other held us accountable, but also gave us space to rant, ask each other questions, and dive deeper into some rabbit holes than we might have done otherwise. These rabbit holes also led to some interesting discussions about HR that even clarified our own values as we continued to advise clients in their People strategies.
Serious benefits aside, we also found some levity by texting each other real-time reactions to interesting (and infuriating) things we learned in our solo study time.
To be clear, studying was alongside our regular work. We both gave up most of our solo recreation time to study, which we wouldn’t recommend in the future, but was OK for a temporary push. But if you decide to work full-time along with studying, and don’t give yourself much time, please do yourself the favor of doing it with another incredible human like we did.
Next week, we’ll share details about applying for the exam, getting accommodations, and taking the exam itself! (All steps we are convinced we would not have survived without each other’s support!)
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About Krista:
Krista Lane, SPHR (she/her/hers) is a People Consultant, Job Search Coach and Founder at Headwaters HR with over a decade of experience in HR. She thinks in systems — seeing interconnections and collaborating both deeply and cross-functionally to build better workplaces. Her experience in technical recruiting and HR/People Operations, paired with several experiences of burnout, inspired her to fix hiring. That means working with jobseekers and employers in a variety of ways, shaping workplaces so that employees and businesses can thrive.
About AnnE:
AnnE Diemer, SPHR (she/her/hers) is an HR Consultant at aedHR who prioritizes the human in HR. With eight years of recruiting, DEI, and HR generalist experience across tech startups and non-profits, AnnE supports organizations who are ready to take a people-centered approach to HR. She spent the last 3 years supporting progressive Democratic organizations such as NARAL Pro-Choice America and The Hub Project. She approaches her work holding contradictions: How do we build great places to work while also questioning capitalist systems? How can we work efficiently and move quickly while also prioritizing ourselves and each other as humans?
