It has been a year since SHRM announced its intention to offer its own HR certification, thereby setting off a public war of words between it and the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI) over who offers the better certification. On January 5, SHRM began accepting applications for its new certification, which means the real war for certification supremacy, not just the war of words, is now on.

SHRM will open its first exam window for new certification applicants this coming May 1, and SHRM’s no-cost “pathway” to certification for current HRCI holders is now open. This author, an SPHR holder with about 20 years’ experience in HR leadership, recently decided to explore the SHRM certification “pathway” to see what it was like and to share the experience with other HR practitioners.

Since SHRM’s announcement (see the article on the subject in everythingpeople.™ This Week!), the rift between the two organizations has become very public and rather ugly. Each one has embarked on a separate communication and marketing campaign vying to convince their shared constituency that it, not the other, offers the best-in-class assessment and learning tool.

Despite SHRM’s marketing push, Human Capital Media Advisory Group – the research arm of Workforce – recently surveyed 699 individuals regarding the new SHRM certifications. Two out of three (67%) indicated they had no intention of getting the new certification

As for the no-cost “pathway” itself, it is open to any individual who has earned an HRCI certification (e.g., PHR, SPHR, GPHR) by January 31, 2015 and is currently in good standing. He or she is eligible for SHRM’s new certification at no cost, but must complete the following three steps by December 31, 2015:

Document that her or his current certification is in good standing
Sign the SHRM Code of Ethics
Complete a brief online tutorial focusing on HR competencies
I began by going to the SHRM website, where I found a link to the “online tutorial pathway.”  From there I needed to set up an account on the SHRM certification portal, which involved answering several informational/demographic questions, affirming my current certification, and signing the SHRM code of ethics. Once my account was set up, I could begin the tutorial. 

The tutorial took approximately an hour. The first 20 minutes involved watching a series of slides providing an overview of the SHRM Competency Model by which it was developed. The next 20 minutes involved moving through an interactive tool detailing the eight behavioral competencies in the SHRM Competency Model and the SHRM Body of Competency and Knowledge (SHRM BoCK). There I found a series of questions under each competency. By answering them I created an individual competency self-portrait, which I believe was reasonably accurate and potentially valuable to me.

The last 20 minutes of the tutorial got me into the scenario-based questions that are at the heart of SHRM’s competency-based approach. There were three separate two-paragraph scenarios with three multiple-choice, “what would you do?” questions each about their respective scenario. According to SHRM, the scenarios and questions are not scored, but only serve to provide exposure to how SHRM is assessing competencies in their exams. 

I take this to mean that individuals with HRCI certifications can probably be assured of obtaining their SHRM CP or SCP simply by completing the three steps, including the nine scenario-based questions, outlined above.

Upon completing the tutorial, I received an email confirming that fact. In another 15 minutes, I received a follow-up email indicating I had been approved for the SHRM-SCP and that I would receive my official certificate in 4-6 weeks.

My assessment of the tutorial? I find SHRM’s competency-based approach commendable—HR is not about how much you know but how much you know and what you can do. I also found the scenarios themselves to be quite realistic—also commendable. I felt the questions could be challenging for less experienced HR practitioners, but for the more experienced practitioner they were fairly straightforward.

Some of the answers were far too pat, too text-bookish. In some cases my personal experience told me that SHRM’s “right” answer was anything but right—it would not have worked in the real-world scenarios I have encountered.

And that was the real problem. For any experienced HR practitioner—one who has lived and walked through those scenarios—the only truly accurate response to most of the questions was “It depends on the circumstances.” But, in fairness, I had to admit that that is a limitation inherent in the testing process—one of the answers had to be the right one, even if it was not real-world enough. No test, in fact, can be real-world enough.

Have you taken the “pathway” yourself? Do you know anyone who has? What feedback do you have? What feedback are you getting from others?

Sources: Workforce 12/21/2014, SHRM