Welcome to the bringing the human Back To Human Resources,
podcast, the podcast, all about the delicate balance between
people and business. And quite literally reconnecting
the to my name is Tracy Ruben and I've spent nearly my entire
professional career in a jar, join me as I share stories,
opinions and words of advice with you each week.
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast.
Happy Tuesday, we are getting closer and closer to the year
anniversary of this podcast and now it's all I can think about
all. I could talk about other than my
wedding which is coming up in less than three weeks.
So there's that, I hope you had a great week weekend depending
on when you're listening to this, and I hope that you
enjoyed last week's episode seems to be that a lot of you
had Some thoughts just in general around like my own brain
dump and you thought about your commitments a little bit
differently. And what you can do to get
re-inspired Andre motivated work which is great.
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Tracy, that's HRT. Raci.
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as well. So before I get into this week's
episode, I just wanted to also remind you that I am a speaker
and panelist at the virtual hacking HR conference coming up
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register but I will also continue to share it on
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If you joined, it is free. And all of the content,
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next 10,000. However, many more decide to
register. I hope to see you there.
So I wanted to talk about certifications and I guess in
general HR certifications because I've gotten a ton, a ton
of questions about this through my DMs in.
Recent weeks, but especially in the last few days.
Actually, I wonder if there's like, I don't know, another
shift happening in the workforce but because you all tend to be
part of those trends, like those the Ebbs and flows of the
workforce, I always get questions, I kind of go along
with what the rest of the world is kind of experiencing at
least. That's what I've noticed and the
question that I get a lot or I have been getting a lot is
whether or not Certifications in h.r. are worth it, worth the
money and if they will help you as an individual or on the
individual basis. So I want to first break down
that or I guess maybe for share that, I don't hold today.
At least, I don't hold any Sherm or P HR HR CI.
Certifications, if you're not familiar with those
abbreviations, they are basically providers.
Four different certifications. So, Sherm is the Society of
Human Resources. HR CI is the HR certification
Institute, they have, like, a ton of different learning
courses and certification courses.
And then PHR is kind of part of that, like, part of HR CI.
So, you know, through HR CI, you can take different certification
courses and different exams so like, aphr.
Associate professional in Human Resources.
PHR is professional in Human Resources, sphr.
I is senior professional and eight in human resources
International. So there are all of these
different types of certification options.
They're all so different, like learning courses through HR CI,
which is really and Sherm has different resources as well
naturally. Because I mean they also have
like a whole portal of content and documents.
It's and things that can help you as an HR professional.
So, both platforms and organizations are definitely
built out and options if you want to pursue a certification
in h.r., in some area. So yeah, like I said, I don't
today I don't have any certifications and actually, I
don't know that I will ever get a certification.
It's just not something that I today.
At least maybe in a few years, I'll feel differently but today,
I don't feel it's necessary for my career, my trajectory or
anything like that, but I do have a master's degree and maybe
if I didn't have a master's degree, I'd feel differently.
I don't know. We're going to break this down.
So I want to First say that I'm going to speak into different
like wavelengths. The first is for the person who
doesn't have any HR experience or Amal HR experience, meaning
like one to two years at most. And then I'm going to speak on
the wavelength of someone like me who has more than eight years
or more than five years of experience Hands-On HR specific
experience. So, on the first wave length,
for those of you who have little to no experience, certifications
might be more critical to your ability to Get into HR or
critical to your ability to grow in HR and I say this because
there are certain certifications that give you experience or
maybe it's not experience but give you knowledge into things
that you would only otherwise get through experience.
So certifications in my opinion, are really good for those who
don't have that Hands-On HR experience, or who need to To
expand their HR experience. So for those of you who don't
have more than a year or two in a jar or who are looking to
transition into HR, I think that a certification could be really
worth it for you but there are pros and cons to becoming
certified at any level. The first is actually I don't
know that certifications are stronger than experience.
They actually, I think in h.r., they're not stronger than
expected. and so this is why I say, we'll talk about the other
wavelength, like if you already have experience but thinking
through those of you who don't have experience or have minimal
experience, if the certification is no I don't want you to go
into a certification course thinking it's going to get you a
job in h.r. or that it's going to give you all of the knowledge
that you would otherwise receive from years of experience because
it won't, it definitely will give you Exposure and a level of
understanding that you don't currently possess which is
worthwhile that is definitely worth something.
But I definitely encourage you to, you know, take a step back
and remember that this is not going to replace years of
experience years of experienced. Me always Trump's what you can
learn in like a classroom or on a test or a certification course
because that Hands-On experiences to me the best way
to learn. Anyway, let's Get Sherm.
So Society of Human Resources, they offer different
certification courses, right? So the Nuance here about Sherm
is that they do require you to have a certain amount of
experience to take their certifications or certain
certifications. Like I went onto their website
and I looked as if I have a bachelor's degree or am earning
a bachelor's degree and less than two years of HR experience.
It's and they're like, sorry, you're not eligible but you
might be eligible or might be interested in these different
specialty credentials that you can get.
So these specialty credential is actually to meet make a whole
lot of sense for someone who is like trying to expand their
knowledge and demonstrate a certain skill set to break into
HR. I think it's a little you know,
uncool that they don't have a certification course for
someone. Looking who doesn't like
currently have HR experience and will break down?
Why H RH R CI does this? I think a little bit better, but
anyway, in Sharm, they have these specialty courses.
So like one of them that I'm looking at now is the California
law HR specialty credential, and this is actually really cool.
You can learn about the wage and hour laws privacy and security
laws. Workers compensation, leave of
absence employee relations. And I have to say California is
very litigious. So for someone who, you know,
maybe you're based in like Nevada and you're looking to
move to California, but you're not going to be able to get an
HR job. If you don't have any California
Employment experience, this could be a really great option.
I don't know the cost of it. Maybe if I click here and I see
the cost because then I then I could tell you if it's going to.
Whoa whoa. This was a real life.
Real time reaction. Oh my gosh.
You guys sixteen hundred dollars for a member nineteen hundred
dollars for a non-member. Don't take it, don't do that,
don't waste your money. I'll give you a training course.
I'll give you training course. I will roll out training courses
that teach you and maybe you won't get the credential maybe
one day, I can have a certified training course but that is
wildly out of control two thousand dollars.
I want to take this so I could see if it's worth it.
If anyone from Sherm is listening to this, Please.
I would love to demo these courses and actually determine
if it's if the value is there. Whoa!
Wow! Okay.
Well, that was a real time reaction.
Holy smokes. Okay, I'm not editing that out,
like, I'm keeping that because that's a real reaction.
Wow, I would never, I mean, maybe companies would pay for
you, but again you're not going to necessarily get hired if you
don't. The HR experience and it's
something that is a compliance driven roll, so like you would
be paying the two thousand dollars, no.
Don't do that okey-dokey well, so there's that right?
Like now you have some stuff to reflect on like two thousand
dollars for a course. That's a credential course, is
not even a certification course, there are courses, that are
actually less expensive than that.
I would really someone's taken that.
Please let me know if it's Reuven, its value proven it's
worth anyway, I would like to kind of leave Sherm where it's
at so we could see some of the pitfalls, right?
We could see some of the cons to the Sherm offerings.
Like you have to have a certain amount of experience and its
really freaking expensive. Okay.
HRC I on the other hand does have like entry level.
Let's call it entry level certifications.
So when you go and you To see because you can go to all of
these websites and I will link them, obviously, in the show
notes as I always do, you can go and you can figure out like,
which certification is right for you.
And so when I click to basically figure out like, you know, what,
I would best fit with like, which certification is best for
me. I again, did it based on no
years of experience and this AP HR certification came out
associate Oil in Human Resources.
So it covers HR operations employee relations recruitment.
Compensation benefits HR development, retention Health,
Safety and Security but most of it is covering HR Ops employee
relations and recruitment. Which if you are, if you don't
have any experience, those are the three categories that are
probably the most important to for your development.
So you are eligible without any experience which is amazing.
The exam itself is 2 hours a little bit more than two hours
and it it costs $300 to take the exam and be certified and $100
to apply. Now, $400 is much more
reasonable than two thousand dollars.
The things I could do with two thousand dollars my goodness
$400, that's a little bit more reasonable, I think so.
This is really cool. I mean I think they have, you
know, all of these different resources.
And actually if you are looking to be International, if you want
to California specific certification, they have those
certifications now to me as like from the outside, looking in, I
have always heard that HRC I certifications offer a bit more
in some ways for the individual and that just like, In general
HRC I is a bit. It's a bit more renowned.
So if you have a pH, are it's more renowned than like a Sherm?
I think it's like CP as one of the certifications.
Yes. Sherm.
SCP or CP. I mean, certainly there is a
market out there for the Sherm certification.
The shrooms CPU which is a certified professional exam
looks at like if you're in an HR or non hr-related, College
program, and the amount of years of experience that you have.
You already know my opinion on this.
If you've been here a while, I don't think that you need a
degree to be an HR. I do think that you need
experience to be a more well-rounded HR professional.
So, these already, these requirements to me, same thing
steep. So if you are someone who Who
doesn't have a bachelor's degree or doesn't have four years of
experience, you're not gonna be able to get certified by
Schirmer. You're gonna have to pay two
thousand dollars to take a class.
I mean, come on. So what I would say is that
Sherm certifications apply to someone probably like in a non
HR /. Like someone who sits on an HR
department, maybe it's like a recruiter Talent, acquisition.
Someone Who is has been an HR administrator or an intern for a
few years that I could see this certification, making a lot of
sense for you and giving you the all of the benefits that this
offers, however, notice the fees non-members 400 or 475,
depending on if you're taking advantage of the early bird,
special the early bird specials $400, this is not a diner.
I don't know what's going on here.
All I can tell you is that there are certain people who will
really benefit from Sherm and if you already have a Sherm
certification, that's great. Don't like any certification is
going to do something positive, right?
It's going to boost confidence. It's going to make you feel more
established. It might even earn you a greater
salary, a higher salary. But I'm really thinking about
this first wave length, of those of you who don't have experience
the sherm, Is probably not going to be for you.
The the HRC I certification process will be more for you.
Now, for those of you who have experienced or are in your
careers already Sherm and HRC, I have options for you, the Sherm
SCP and CP certifications, and the HRC i ph r or p h RI or
sphr. Just see.
Your professional in Human Resources.
Those certifications will be probably beneficial to you.
They are going to like, when I look at the professional and
Human Resources, certification through HR CI.
It's focused on employee and Labor, Relations business
management, Talent planning, total rewards, and Learning and
Development. So that makes sense to me.
It's elevating your understanding and elevating your
knowledge. And that course is just under
$500. So, And that to me is totally
like accessible if you want to be certified for Sherm, you
know, again it's around 400 to 500 dollars as well.
I think that the PHR is more. I think I said this already a
little bit more well, like well-rounded but more renowned
in the HR world, then the Sherm certifications.
If you are an HR professional already, what I will say about
the cause Of these exams is that if you are in h.r. already, you
have an opportunity to ask your organization to pay for your
professional development, so that you don't have to worry
about the cost of these certifications.
So, regardless of whether you have experience or not,
certifications learning opportunities, master's degrees
bachelor's degrees, any advanced learning that you can do is
always going to be. A good investment education in
general is one of the best investments in my opinion that
you can make for yourself. So if you're someone that, you
know, is ready to learn more grow more, you want to just, you
know, make your resume shine and enhance it.
A certification is going to do that.
It definitely will do that. I just caution you.
If you think that it's going to land you a job or if you think
it's going to give you the same amount of knowledge that
hands-on experience will because I don't think it will do that
but I definitely think it will make you more of an interesting
candidate. So if you are applying for a job
whether they require a certification or not, you should
be able to speak to the things that you've learned and how that
makes you a viable candidate. So I've talked a lot about some
of the cons to the certifications, but I want to
talk about the pros and I think the pros are actually in many
ways, more of the like soft skills and innate like elements
of certification process. So I already talked about how
education and my opinion is one of the best investments that you
can make in yourself. So if you value education in the
same way, get certified in something, take a class.
Do something like no matter what you do, it's going to show that
you are eager to learn and grow and one of the fun facts that I
have for you is that many, many colleges offer certificate
programs online for HR Cornell is actually one of them.
They have very many HR certificates.
They have HR management certificates that really break
down like even d e and i fostering a coaching culture,
all All of those things HR Essentials d e ni certificates.
I mean, this to me if I were someone with no HR experience, I
think I would take a knee Cornell course because they're
all online ahead of a different certificate, because I just
think that it's more. I mean, it looks to me like it's
a little bit more of a value. Add for an individual who
doesn't have experience. Like when I look at the
Essentials certificate program through Cornell.
It's really really well built out for someone who doesn't
necessarily have that hands-on experience.
What I will say is it looks like the cost of the programs at
Cornell or fairly expensive. Like it looks like the range for
certificates is between 12:00 and 10,000.
I'm sure that the advanced certificates are the ones that
are the most expensive but I do think that this is just just
like an example of what you can find out there.
Maybe there is a college near you where you can sit in on
classes that are like HR classes unaccredited.
So that you can as like a non matriculated student basically
where you can learn from the professor and kind of gain that
experience and that knowledge, even if it's not Cornell, I
mean, Cornell is what one of the more well-known colleges that
offers these online certificate. It's but you know, I think it's
all about like return on investment and the value you're
getting to me the I would rather spend or I could see more value
in spending five thousand dollars for the Cornell
certificates than two thousand dollars for a Sherm credential
course. That's specific to one state.
I mean, the it's very clear that the Cornell certificates are
more valuable than the Sherm credential courses just on the
surface alone. Again, if you already have some
of these credentials and certificates that is totally
fine. You didn't waste anything
because again investing in your education is worth it.
No matter what. But I do think that there's
this, like, under written rule that people need to have
certifications or they need to have that, you know, CP in their
title on LinkedIn. You don't don't feel any
pressure that you need to spend money or have like that
certificate in your profile. What is a better spend of your
time and money is to find a certificate or a certification
program that really adds to your knowledge and experience and
gives you exposure to things that you typically would only
get through hands-on experience. So I never want someone to feel
pressured by that. I get a lot of questions about
this and I say pretty much the same thing.
Like you shouldn't feel pressured that you need to have
a certain Education or be certified in something to land a
job. But I do think that you should
know, it makes you a stronger candidate if you have those
things without the HR experience, but I think like on
paper, if you're applying for an HR job and you have no HR
experience and then someone else is applying for an HR job and
they have experience it's probably not going to matter if
you or both of you have the certification because the France
is going to always Trump, the certification, at least, that's
what I think. That's how I would see it.
But I know this is like this is a conundrum, right?
Because how do you get experience to have the
experience? And that's where the internships
come in. That's where these courses come
in. That's where like anything that
you can do that shows that you've been involved beyond the
classroom or in the classroom and it A different way, you
know, maybe it's like joining Sherm on campus.
That's a great example of potentially having more hands-on
experience or being a leader of an organization and like talking
through how you are able to lead teams.
Those things actually, probably benefit you from an
experience-based perspective in the same way or in a way that
you probably are not realizing. So I always I just I hope that
no one feels pressured to get the certifications.
There is a certification for everyone but it's not a
requirement for everyone if that makes sense.
I hope that helped in some way either to alleviate your stress
about feeling like the need to be certified in something or
that it like furthered your your decision to be certified or not
to be certified because I mean I Not only stress this enough.
Any investment in your education is a good investment.
Just make sure you're investing in the place.
That's going to give you the most return.
That's all that's really the message right there.
Mike drop, right? Like that's the message.
If you're going to spend the money, if you're going to spend
the time, make sure it's where you're going to get the most
return. Now, coming back to this idea
on, you know, creating a training course that is not two
thousand dollars. I Do that.
I want to know if you would if you would sign up for a training
course from me, it for sure will not be two thousand dollars but
I do think there is an opportunity here for me to give
you an opportunity to learn without having to like go out of
your way to spend all this money.
I mean I get it. That part of the courses with
Charmin HRC, I are that you get a A certificate and I might not
be an accredited resource at least not today, I don't really
know that. I don't know how that works but
if I can at least provide you some knowledge beyond my
podcast, I would love to be able to do that.
So let me know what you think. This is a feels like a good
idea. Feels like it's an opportunity
for me to give you more opportunities to learn and
hopefully get a really strong Roi return on your investment.
Let me know. You can shoot me.
An e-mail podcast at HR Tracy.com or you can DM me on
Instagram, its easiest on there, honestly, it's where I will
definitely answer more quickly at any rate.
I'm going to do a poll on this on Instagram, when this episode
launches because this we could be onto something here people,
we could be on to something. Wow, what a time, what a wild
ride this I sewed, really, I feel like I got a little
passionate there about the lack of value in some of these
things. But I also feel equally
passionate about the value of education and the value of
investing in your education. So again, if you have the
certifications, then you've invested in yourself and there's
no loss there. If you're deciding on
certifications to receive or whether it's the right thing or
not, just do your research. Go to those links in the show
notes, figure out if you're eligible for a certification, if
it makes sense for you to be certified.
And if yes, or no, at least you have more information and maybe
a college course, or an online course through a college, is a
better fit for you at any rate. Keep going for it.
If you want to make your break, your big break and HR, you will
make it. You will get their people who
Want to be an HR get into HR. It promise you that if there's
anything. That's true.
It's that. So, I hope you have a wonderful
week ahead. Thank you for being here.
Don't forget to rate, review And subscribe.
Follow me on Instagram at HR. Tracy, and let me know what you
think about this idea. For some training material, and
a training course taught by Yours Truly, but see how it
goes. Participate in the polls.
Do on Instagram, if you're listening on Tuesday and I will
see you next Week. Week.