Purpose of HRCI Certification The PHR® and SPHR® says that the holder has demonstrated mastery of the HR body of knowledge and has accepted the personal challenge to stay informed of new developments in the HR field. To be successful in their jobs, HR professionals must know how to deal effectively with strategic management and planning issues, international competition, management staffing and family and social issues that affect the workplace. This information is quoted directly from the HRCI home page. For more information about certification, please visit www.hrci.org. Certification Preparation For information regarding certification preparation and recertification opportunities in your area, please contact a local chapter representative listed on the "Board" page of this website. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI) are two separate organizations, although initially, the idea of establishing a credentialing organization grew from active SHRM members and until the late 1980s, SHRM helped financially support HRCI. Why is certification desirable? Certification sets those with the credential apart--or above--those without it. Obviously, there are a number of advantages, then, to seeking certification. Certification becomes a public recognition of professional achievement -- both within and ultimately outside of the profession. For many, achieving certification becomes a personal professional goal -- a way to test one's knowledge and to measure oneself against one's peers. To a lesser extent, others use it as an aid to career advancement. Certifications also help fledgling professions establish themselves -- witness the flurry of IT "certifications" over the past few years. Certifications serve to define what an individual needs to know in order to be an acknowledged "expert" in that field. While certification signifies mastery of a body of knowledge, it does not, in and of itself, teach the mastery; any certification that purports to do so may be a certificate program in disguise. Because certifications include a work experience component, certification examinations are, by definition, experiential based. Because of the experiential component to certification, any preparation material, then, that also purports to "teach to the test" should be suspect. At most, preparation materials and courses should be considered refresher courses.