To be eligible for the PHR you must meet one of the following conditions for education and experience:
- Have at least one year of experience in a professional-level HR position + a Master's degree or higher,
- Have at least two years of experience in a professional-level HR position + a Bachelor's degree, OR.
Similarly, you may ask, how much does it cost to get PHR certification?
The Cost of the PHR Exam The Professional in Human Resources exam carries a fee of $395. Candidates must pay this fee in order to register for an exam location and date. Candidates will not be considered registered for the exam until this fee has been received.
One may also ask, how hard is the PHR exam? Despite the college degrees and years of experience that test-takers must possess prior to sitting for the PHR, the pass rate for the exam sits at a mere 55%. It's not an easy exam - the more you study and the more methods you use, the better off you'll fair.
In this way, what is the PHR certification?
Professional in Human Resources (PHR) human resource management profession. The Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) is the senior-most human resources certification for those who have also demonstrated a strategic mastery of the HR body of knowledge.
What is the passing score for PHR exam?
Receiving Your Score for the PHR Certification Exam For most PHR certification exams, possible scores range from 100-700, with 500 being the minimum passing score.
The PHR exam is 3 hours long and there are 175 questions of which 150 are scored. The remaining 25 are pretest questions that are being assessed for use on future exams. HRCI uses pretest questions to measure the difficulty and quality of questions before including them on the actual test.
Study Timeline
In researching people who certified, the answers range from 2 days to a year. According to the HRCI, most test takers spend more than 60 hours studying for the exam.
Associate Professional in Human Resources (aPHR): Professionals who are new to the field of HR. Professional in Human Resources (PHR): Professionals with proficiency in “technical and operational aspects of HR management” (e.g., U.S. laws and regulations and program implementation).
All exam eligibility requirements and fees apply to this new exam application. Candidates will not be able to take the same exam more than three (3) times in a consecutive 365-day period.
Which Certificates Are Most Prevalent in 2018?
| Certifications | % of HR Pros |
| SHRM Certified Professional (SHRM-CP) | 15.4% |
| Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) | 7.9% |
| SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) | 5.3% |
| Associate Professional in Human Resources (aPHR) | 0.7% |
Apply for HR Jobs Without Experience
You can apply for the HR positions that require experience. Work with your resume and cover letter to make your current skills and tasks relevant to HR, and apply.
aPHR™: Associate Professional in Human Resources
Focus: The aPHR is a global certification designed particularly for professionals just beginning their careers in human resources and is the first certification to do so.
The Value of the PHR and SPHR. Most HR professionals know that getting a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) or Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification is worth the time and effort.
This certification helps prepare you for strategic HR management, talent and organizational development, global talent acquisition and mobility, global compensation and benefits, and workforce relations and risk management.
For ease of comparison, the following chart includes information for both the
PHR and
SHRM-CP exams pertaining to pass rate, costs, test rates, and exam format.
Test Dates, Costs, and More.
| PHR | SHRM |
| Industry Pass Rate | 59% as of March 2019 | 70% as of Feb 2019 |
Type: SPHR/PHR certification exams consist of 225 multiple-choice questions, to be answered within 4 hours. These questions are randomly generated from a question database which has several hundred questions. There is no negative marking.
You may schedule your exam as soon as your application is approved. You must take your exam within 120 days of your application approval date. You may schedule your exam after Start Date. You must take your exam no later than End Date.
PHR Exam: 3 Numbers You Need to Know
59% pass rate: From February 2018 to January 2019, 13,994 examinees took at least one of HRCI's eight exams. During that period, there was a 59% pass rate for the PHR. This is a sobering statistic for PHR candidates. 500: To pass you need a scaled score of 500.
The Professional in Human Resources (PHR) is a certification available to professionals who hold a position in Human Resources. The exam covers a variety of human resources topics, like compensation and benefits, testing applicants' mastery of concepts and foundational knowledge.
How hard is it to pass the SPHR? Several people I coached for this winter test window had taken it one or more times unsuccessfully in the past. It has a 56% pass rate (based on mid-2014 figures). If you want to visualize that, imagine that you and nine other people walk into the room to test at the same time.
