Learn About HR Certification

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Learn

HR certification is a career-long commitment. It shows your peers, your employees and your organization that you have mastered the core HR principles and are committed to your profession. Certified HR professionals around the world have received job offers, promotions and respect from their peers.

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Choose the Right Certification for You

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Choose

Deciding which HR certification is best for you is an important decision. To help you determine which certification exam is right for you we suggest that you

  •  become familiar with the exam content
  •  take the FREE HR knowledge quizzes  
  •  purchase an Online Assessment Exam  
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Renew Your Certification

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Recertification shows that you

  • keep current on changing HR laws, best practices and innovative labor strategies
  • ensure that your organization and its employees work at peak performance
  • remain a strategic business partner in your organization’s success

By recertifying your PHR, SPHR, GPHR or California credentials you show that you are committed to being the best you can be in your profession.

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HR Certification

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How Exams Are Developed



The HR Certification Institute follows certification-industry best practices to create and update our exams. Following are the steps we take to develop the exams.

Step 1: The exams are based on a body of knowledge, which is created and then validated by practicing HR professionals through a practice analysis study. The body of knowledge is also known as the exam content.

Step 2: An item-writing panel writes the exam questions (also known as “items”), based on the body of knowledge.

Step 3: The questions go to an item-review panel, which checks for accuracy and proper coding.

Step 4: Approved questions are tested for reliability.

Step 5: Exam forms are created by and reviewed by an forms-review panel

Each form consists of a pre-determined number of questions 

  • PHR and SPHR: 225 questions
  • GPHR: 165 questions
  • California: 125 questions

Each exam has different versions, which means that the person sitting next to you at the exam center is probably taking a different exam than you are.

Step 6: A passing score for each exam is determined.

Step 7: To determine the difficulty level of each question and ultimately each exam version, it is pre-equated.

Step 8: Exams are given during two periods per year (May-June and Dec-Jan).