Letting Go of My SPHR

I hope you’re sitting down for this.

Recently, I made the conscious decision to let my Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) certification lapse.

Dramatic, I know. But truthfully, this wasn't a grand statement or a difficult decision—it just wasn’t worth the effort anymore.

Certifications like the SPHR serve a clear purpose, but that purpose isn't necessarily what the certification boards would have you believe. While credentials in fields such as medicine and engineering protect public safety and validate essential technical knowledge, most business certifications aren't primarily about making you better at your job. Instead, they're about signaling—showing employers and peers that you're serious about your profession and willing to put in the work to prove it.¹  

Early on in my HR career, getting my SPHR made sense. It demonstrated that I was committed to HR as a profession and had mastered a certain body of knowledge. The certification process itself was challenging (in a “jumping through a bunch of hoops” kind of way), and there's value in completing difficult things. It probably helped me land a few interviews and possibly even close a deal or two.

But the reality of maintaining these certifications reveals something about their true nature. Every recertification cycle, the HR Certification Institute (HRCI) floods my inbox with course offerings that often seem bizarrely disconnected from HR practice—everything from Introduction to Entrepreneurship to The Manager's Guide to Cloud Computing and Cybersecurity. These courses can run as much as $600 a pop. For my last recertification, I was too cheap to pay, so I listened to 30 hours of “HRCI-approved” podcasts at 3x speed. I met the technical requirements but gained nothing of value.

In the years since my last recertification, I've built an HR company and worked with more than 100 clients. Not one has asked about my SPHR status. What they care about is the ability to solve real problems and deliver meaningful results. That’s it.

This isn't to say certifications are worthless. They're useful when you need to prove your commitment to a field or demonstrate baseline knowledge. They're particularly valuable early in your career when you have less practical experience to point to.

But at some point, your work speaks for itself. The projects you've completed, the relationships you’ve built, and the results you've delivered become more meaningful than any certification. When you reach that point, maintaining certifications becomes an unnecessary expense of time and money.

Now that I'm regularly on the hiring side of the table, I see certifications in an even clearer light. An SPHR tells me something useful but limited: this person completed a challenging task. It doesn't guarantee strategic thinking any more than a driver's license guarantees good judgment on the road. I've seen brilliant HR professionals without certifications and certified practitioners who couldn't navigate basic employee relations issues.

Show me how you've solved complex HR situations. Tell me about your compensation philosophy. Explain how you balance employee and business needs. These reveal far more about your capability as an HR pro than any certification.

Once you understand what actually matters in your field, you see certification for what it is. For me, certification served its purpose early on, and now I've moved past needing it.

That’s how professional growth should work.

1  And, of course, adding to the alphabet soup after your name on LinkedIn.