This is the million-dollar HR and TA career question. SHRM will tell you of course being certified matters and will have a positive impact on your HR Career. I tend to agree with this and will explain why. On the talent acquisition side, this is more problematic, but I’m hopeful some opportunities are on the horizon for recruiters as well.

I first got certified in HR in 2001 and have maintained a certification ever since, even though I don’t work in a full-time HR capacity. I do run a company with hundreds of employees, and as a CEO having some great HR knowledge is very helpful! So, it makes sense for me to continue to sharpen my HR saw.

The reality about professional certifications

• Certifications don’t ensure you’ll be great at your function, but it does show a potential employer that you are working on getting better and smarter. Very few in any profession put in the work to get there, so it does show your desire to truly want to be in the profession.
• You can be great without a certification. You can, no one denies that.
• Certification obtainment and continual learning to maintain is the real value and key to why people pursue this lifelong learning path.
• Certification also opens you up to an international group of like-minded people all of whom are probably open to connecting and helping. This is of massive value to you professionally.
• Most executives hiring in HR tend to look for three things: experience, education, and certification.

Okay, the HR thing we get, what about Recruiting?

I can ask 100 leaders of talent acquisition how they ensure they hire good recruiters, not even great, just good, and 100% of them will not be able to give me that magic formula. Most will say it’s a coin flip. The world is littered with recruiters who have great brands on their resumes, but each stop is around 9-18 months. That is the time frame it takes to get “found out” in most corporate TA roles.

If they are smart, they jump to another big brand before they get fully found out, so after a few stops, they have this resume that looks really good. Three or four stops at big brands, better titles, completely awful at recruiting, but now they’re up for a recruiting leader role. The TA leaders I speak with frequently are nodding their heads right now, this is the biggest issue TA faces, we have no idea how to select good recruiters. It’s a coin flip at best.

But, certification doesn’t guarantee good! So, why am I pushing for a Recruiting Certification?

Because it’s more likely someone who puts in the work and effort will be good. I’m only looking to be Lazlo Bock at Google, 1% better than the coin flip! Every little bit helps and it’s my belief that when a really great internationally accepted recruiting certification program is launched, it will have a huge impact on raising the TA game corporately around the world.

I’m looking for a TA certification program that can teach someone who knows very little about recruiting to be a fully functioning recruiter. No more post and pray, but real recruiting, hunting, great hiring manager control, awesome candidate experience, and understanding how to leverage their technology. This is what our c-suite expects from our TA functions.

SHRM are you listening!?! I’ve been begging for this since 2001!

Some inside SHRM Influencer News from this week – I think SHRM is working on something beyond their current TA micro-credential (which is a great solid TA foundation for HR pros who also have to do TA – I’ve taught this class and it’s really good.), not sure if that will be a full-blown certification program like they have for HR, but potentially starting down a path where I can see a day when SHRM has both HR and TA certification that are desired by employers!