Very few people leave school with the goal of becoming a recruiter. If you ask around, the majority of recruiting professionals develop into the role. Either they were already in the human resources field and it was a natural transition, or they took some other non-linear career path. Because recruiting isn’t really taught in schools, it can be difficult to become an accredited professional.
That’s where recruitment certifications come in. There are a number of great educational institutions out there that help novice and seasoned recruiting professionals advance in their careers. To help you figure out which courses are right for your interest and experience, we’ve narrowed down a list of 30 recruitment certifications. The certifications are not in a particular order, but they are organized by the organizations that offer them.
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Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
SHRM offer memberships for HR professionals interested in learning, networking and gaining certifications related to human resource management. This national organization offers two distinguished certifications for HR professionals; one for professionals early in their career and one for senior level HR professionals.
Certified Professional (CP)
Certification: SHRM-CP
Cost: $375 (non-member), $400 (member) *scholarships available
Duration: 4 hours
Curriculum: This certification require certain levels of education in order to enroll, so make sure to check those out before pursuing this certification. The CP exam is primarily for HR professionals, whose primary job function is operational.
Senior Certified Professional Exams (SCP)
Certification: SHRM-SCP
Cost: $375 (non-member), $400 (member) *scholarships available
Duration: 4 hours
Curriculum: This certifications also requires a certain level of experience in human resources to enroll. The SCP exam is more intended for HR professionals in senior level roles, whose are in more strategic roles that revolve around developing policies and strategies.
HR Certification Institute (HRCI)
HR Certification Institute offers eight different certifications, including certifications for international professionals, those specifically located in California as well as Spanish speaking professionals. In over 40 years, they’ve certified more than 500,000 HR professionals across 125+ countries. Their certifications are recognized globally and can help HR professionals take the next step in advancing their career. For the purpose of this article, we’re covering the three main certifications they offer.
Associate Professional in Human Resources
Certification: Associate Professional in Human Resources
Preparation Material Cost: $50-725 (self exam preparation options vary)
Exam Cost: $300 (exam fee) $100 (application fee)
Exam Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes
Curriculum: This exam is for people just starting a career in human resources. No experience or knowledge is required to start studying the preparation resources and to apply for the exam.
Professional in Human Resources
Certification: Professional in Human Resources
Preparation Material Cost: $85-1,195 (self exam preparation options vary)
Exam Cost: $395 (exam fee) $100 (application fee)
Exam Duration: 3 hours
Curriculum: This exam is better suited for HR professionals who have several years experience in a human resources role. More specifically, you need experience with technical and operational skills, such as laws and regulations related to employment. In order to apply for the exam, you must have one of the following criteria:
- 1+ year experience in a HR role and a Master’s degree
- 2+ years experience in a HR role and a Bachelor’s degree
- 4+ years experience in a HR role and a high school diploma
Senior Professional in Human Resources
Certification: Senior Professional in Human Resources
Preparation Material Cost: $85-1,295 (self exam preparation options vary)
Exam Cost: $495 (exam fee) $100 (application fee)
Exam Duration: 3 hours
Curriculum: This certification is designated for highly experienced and knowledgeable professionals in the human resources industry. Professionals interested in taking this exam require several years experience, and have a strong skill set in strategy and policy making in a HR management role. Additionally, to apply you must have one of the following criteria:
- 4+ years experience in a HR role and a Master’s degree
- 5+ years experience in a HR role and a Bachelor’s degree
- 7+ years experience in a HR role and a high school diploma
AIRS
AIRS Training was created by the HR management software, Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP). The company has a long history of supporting recruiters in attracting and retaining talent and professional development skills. Founded in 1997, AIRS continues to help more than 10,000 professionals grow their recruiting expertise each year through their training programs.
Also, all of their courses are recognized by both SHRM and HRCI and can be utilized toward additional certifications with both organizations. A few of the courses below are also offered in-person to local markets, so make sure to check those out as well.
Recruiter Academy
Certification: Recruiter Academy
Cost: $2,495
Duration: n/a
Curriculum: More than 30 instructor-led courses make up this all-inclusive recruiter certification. Although the most expensive of AIRS trainings, this package deal includes unlimited access to all of their training programs and certification courses, including those mentioned below. You also gain access to AIRS High Impact Series, which are one hour workshops on the latest recruitment techniques and trends.
Professional Recruiter Certification
Certification: Professional Recruiter Certification
Cost: $995
Duration: One 8-hour session or two 4-hour sessions
Curriculum: This full life cycle recruitment course takes just eight hours to complete in either one or two sessions. They cover everything from creating talent pipelines to negotiating offers and working with hiring managers.
Certified Social Sourcing Recruiter
Certification: Certified Social Sourcing Recruiter
Cost: $995
Duration: One 8-hour session or two 4-hour sessions
Curriculum: Social media recruiting is by far one of the most critical parts of any recruitment strategy, and this course is prepared to help any recruiter refine their efforts. This course helps you determine which sites are best suited for recruiting passive candidates.
Certified Social Media Recruiter
Certification: Certified Social Media Recruiter
Cost: $995
Duration: One 8-hour session or two 4-hour sessions
Curriculum: Different from the Social Sourcing certification we just covered, this certification focuses on how to utilize niche sites on the internet, like multimedia and shopping websites to target candidate personas.
Elite Certified Recruitment Expert
Certification: Elite Certified Recruitment Expert
Cost: $395
Duration: One 8-hour session or two 4-hour sessions
Curriculum: Once you’ve completed at least four of AIRS courses, you can take this elite certification, distinguishing you as an expert in your field. Plus, it’s the cheapest of all the certifications with AIRS.
Certified Diversity and Inclusion Recruiter
Certification: Certified Diversity and Inclusion Recruiter
Cost: $995
Duration: One 8-hour session or two 4-hour sessions
Curriculum: If your team is struggling to recruit and retain a diverse and inclusive workforce, or you’re simply looking to improve your efforts, this course is for you. The instructors at AIRS will teach you strategies in targeting diverse candidate pools, creating inclusive job descriptions along with access to an online talent pool.
Hiring Heroes: A Field Guide to Veteran Recruitment
Certification: Hiring Heroes: A Field Guide to Veteran Recruitment
Cost: $995
Duration: One 8-hour session or two 4-hour sessions
Curriculum: To get a bit more granular with your diversity and inclusion hiring efforts, this certification is tailored to help recruiters wanting to better support highly skilled military veterans as they transition into mainstream careers. This course covers tricks on attracting, engaging and retaining military candidates.
LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning offers a wealth of educational courses for professionals of all backgrounds and interests, including but not limited to recruiters and HR professionals. For human resources alone, they have more than 100 courses, 2,000+ educational videos and seven distinct learning paths. We’re covering four that relate to recruiters specifically as well as the LinkedIn Certified Professional Recruiter Certificate.
Cost: LinkedIn Learning is an all-inclusive subscription for either $29.99/month or $19.99/month with an annual commitment. You can also opt for a 1-month free trial before you commit.
Finding and Retaining Talent
Certification: Finding and Retaining Talent
Duration: 7 hours 47 minutes
Curriculum: This catch-all course will help your team better attract talent in a time when talented candidates are in short supply.
Become a Technical Recruiter
Certification: Become a Technical Recruiter
Duration: 7 hours 48 minutes
Curriculum: Six courses are led by three experts in the tech field, covering topics from how to fill technical roles in software development, systems admin, databases, architecture and business process. If you’re looking to fill some of the most in-demand roles in tech, you will benefit from this course.
Become a Corporate Recruiter
Certification: Become a Corporate Recruiter
Duration: 10 hours 29 minutes
Curriculum: Seven professionals come together in nine videos to teach you the specific skills needed to recruit for a large corporation. From sourcing to interviews and onboarding, this course has everything you need to prepare for a corporate recruiting job.
Become an External Recruiter
Certification: Become an External Recruiter
Duration: 12 hours 8 minutes
Curriculum: This course contains 10 videos by six professionals to train you on the ins and outs of external or “independent” recruiting. This course is tailored to recruiters who prefer to build their own client base and candidate network instead of working for a corporation.
LinkedIn Certified Professional Recruiter Exam
Certification: LinkedIn Certified Professional Recruiter Exam
Exam Cost: $199
Duration: 90 minutes
Curriculum: Take courses on how to become a LinkedIn Recruiter to gain skills on building a talent pipeline, engaging candidates, posting jobs, and utilizing all the tools that LinkedIn has to offer.
National Association of Personnel Services (NAPS)
The National Association of Personnel Services, or NAPS, is a personnel services company that stems from the original National Employment Association (NEA). The association helps employers utilize ethical hiring and employment practices and educates HR professionals on laws related to employment. In addition to the Personnel Consultant certificate we discuss below, they also offer a Temporary Staffing Specialist as well as an Employee Retention Specialist Certificate.
Certified Personnel Consultant
Certification: Certified Personnel Consultant
Cost: $550 (non-member), $350 (member)
Duration: 17 hours
Curriculum: This certification focuses on employment laws and legal implications of hiring employees. They cover both direct-hire and temporary staffing legalities, and this course delves into laws around discrimination, identification and hiring employees.
Recruiter.com
Recruiter.com is a recruitment platform that offers professional services, direct hiring support, recruitment training, career services and recruitment certification. They offer two certification programs, Recruiting 101 (which we cover below) and Business Development, along with a free trial.
Recruiting 101
Certification: Recruiting 101
Cost: $299
Duration: 12 weeks
Curriculum: This program covers topics including search engines, sourcing on job boards, writing job descriptions, utilizing social media, sourcing candidates, screening for candidates, managing the interview process and more.
Association for Talent Development (ATD)
The Association for Talent Development works with HR professionals and recruiters in a variety of industries from more than 120 countries to provide educational material on all things recruiting. In addition to their wealth of resources, they provide two certification exams, which we break down below.
Associate Professional In Talent Development
Certification: Associate Professional In Talent Development
Exam Cost: $400 (members), $600 (non-members)
Exam Duration: 2 hours
Curriculum: This exam is directed toward HR professionals with 3-5 years experience in a talent development role that focuses on training and instruction. To be eligible for this certification, you must have one of the following qualifications:
- 3+ years experience in talent development or related field
- 2+ years experience in talent development or related field AND 1 year of university courses in talent development or a related field
- 2+ years experience in talent development or related field AND another ATD certification
Certified Professional in Learning and Performance
Certification: Certified Professional in Learning and Performance
Exam Cost: $900
Exam Duration: 3 hours
Curriculum: This exam is for professionals with more experience in talent acquisition. In order to qualify for this certification, you must meet one of the following requirements:
- 5+ years full-time professional experience in talent development or related field
- 4+ years full-time professional experience in talent development or related field AND 1 year university courses in talent development or a related field
- 5+ years full-time professional experience in talent development or related field AND completion of either the Associate Professional Talent Development certification or a ATD Master Series program
Talent Management Institute (TMI)
Talent Management Institute is a globally recognized talent management organization that helps novice and practiced HR professionals grow in their career. They offer a number of courses across 180+ countries. In addition to the two below, they also offer a certification in Global Talent Management for international professionals.
Talent Manager Practitioner
Certification: Talent Manager Practitioner
Cost: $525 (includes educational materials and exam fee)
Duration: 3-4 weeks
Curriculum: The Talent Manager Practitioner certification is ideal for recent graduates and HR professionals early in their careers. This certification helps aspiring professionals become more competitive in the HR industry.
Senior Talent Manager Practitioner
Certification: Senior Talent Manager Practitioner
Cost: $850 (includes educational materials and exam fee)
Duration: 3-4 weeks
Curriculum: The Senior Talent Manager Practitioner certification is intended for mid-career HR professionals, looking to advance in their professional development. This certification can also help you prequalify for the TMI-Wharton Associate Fellow of Talent Management program.
The Recruitment Education Institute
The Recruitment Education Institute is an affiliate of SHRM that offers more than 15 courses on everything from onboarding to offboarding, and a number of their courses are offered at no charge. We cover their main certification course below.
Recruiter Certification Program
Certification: Recruiter Certification Program
Cost: $799
Duration: n/a
Curriculum: For both novice and experienced recruiters, this course provides techniques on recruiting, client management and full life cycle recruiting. They also delve deeper into topics, like advanced sourcing and performance metrics for more advanced professionals.
Recruiter Academy
Recruiter Academy is referred to as “an MBA class for recruiting.” It’s different from other crash courses or boot camps in recruiting because their team understands that most people fall into recruiting as part of their HR responsibilities. They have both a more general program for corporate recruiters as well as one for healthcare recruiters.
Recruiter Academy Certified Recruiter Program
Certification: Recruiter Academy Certified Recruiter Program
Cost: $1,795
Duration: Ten 90-minute webinars
Curriculum: They’ve created this program in several easily digestible webinars that focus on managing the full recruitment life cycle. This course is approved for SHRM and HRCI programs, so you can gain credit hours that work toward more advance certifications with either organization.
Sourcing Certifications
Sourcing Certifications offers training and certification programs for recruiters and talent acquisition professionals. They offer one brief 60-question exam that can be taken at your convenience online.
Certified People Sourcing Professional
Certification: Certified People Sourcing Professional
Preparation Material Cost: Free to members ($99/month subscription)
Exam Cost: $399
Duration: 3-4 hours
Curriculum: With a monthly subscription, you’ll have access to more than 30 hours of content, including webinars, ebooks and support from professionals.
Additional Online Resources
In addition to the certification courses we covered above, there are several other resources available for HR professionals and recruiters interested in ways to grow as a professional. Some of these courses are free or can be purchased in a subscription so you have unlimited access to resources. For further details, click on the links provided.
Recruiting Toolbox
Recruiting Toolbox offers courses in eight main categories: recruiting strategy, sourcing, interviewing, selling & closing, talent advisor, recruiting leadership, hiring manager selling and systems. They also offer custom training for individual professionals as well as consulting services for companies.
Social Talent
Social Talent has more than 40 recruiting and HR experts on staff who create content for HR professionals and recruiters to engage with on their own time. They have three content tracks for professionals that work for a company, agency or privately, and their products focus on interviewing, diversity & inclusion and career pathing.
Lorman
Lorman offers a course on Recruiting Skills Training & Continuing Education, which includes webinars, articles and more. This particular training delves into recruiting tactics and techniques for a competitive candidate market. They offer an annual subscription at $699/year, which provides you with access to all of their training courses.
Monster
Monster offers Online Recruitment Training courses that are both free and fee-based. Their Online Resource center is free, and their three additional content resources are fee-based: Specialized training options, Custom Webcasts & Materials and On-Site Training Sessions. The main goal of their training is to help employers find the best candidates more efficiently.
Alison
Allison offers a Modern Human Resource Management course that’s free and takes about 2-3 hours to complete. They recently revised this course, so if you’ve already taken it, there may be new material for you to learn from. It covers recruiting and selecting candidates in a step-by-step playbook. This course does come with an assessment and certification.
Coursera
Coursera offers a wide range of courses, including several relevant to HR professionals, like Recruiting, Hiring, and Onboarding Employees — an 18 hour course designated for professionals new in their career. Like most of the classes on this list, all of their courses are online, have flexible deadlines and are offered in several languages.
Udemy
Similar to Coursera, Udemy also offers a wide range of courses, including more than 50 topics for recruiters. You can narrow down classes based on your interests and expertise, and unlike many of the other programs, you can actually see how previous students rated the course to determine if it’s right for you.
There you have it! No matter where you are in your professional career, there are a number of recruiting certifications and classes out there to help you learn and advance in your career. If you’re still thirsty for more content, check out some of our other recruiting and tech recruiter resources.
FREE E-BOOK: SCALING YOUR RECRUITING PROCESS – 40 TIPS FROM THE PROS. DOWNLOAD HERE.
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