Thank you

My experience was that in the weeks leading up to the exam, I studied intensely making sure to take all online prep tests and case studies multiple times until I achieved 95-100% for each test. Additionally, I had re-read many of the salient sections of the textbooks. There are several versions of the exam so the chances of you taking the same exam that I took is slim. Here are my recommendations:

Take as many practice test as you can. It’s not like the PHR more like the SPHR in that the questions are more strategic than actually recalling information.

Know Cultures inside out and backwards:Trompennaar’s and Hampden-Turner’s Dilemmas
Hofstede’s Dimesions and Global HR
Mergers Acquisitions
IA Process
Repatriation
Componets of International Compensation

The testing site had large ear phones which really helped with concentration, and allowed me to imagine the scenario questions rather than just try to answer based on memorization, so knowing how to make a decision using the HR BOK and also knowing the WRONG answer from studying really does help, but otherwise the test was completely foreign to everything I studied.

Make sure you have enough time to check your answers. I changed many answers after reading the question again.

Also, I spent a lot of time on each question, and then tried to make up time by flying through the ones I knew, rather than skipping a question I wasn’t sure about and going back, to me that was backwards.

Hope that helps. Good Luck, if I could do it so can you regardless of your background. Most of my experience is in Recruiting and I studied on my own because my company didn’t pay for the class or the 2010 SHRM learning system (which I bought from an HR Director who sold it to me via Craigslist for $50).

I will share a couple of tips in case it helps someone to study a little differently. When taking the practice exams, I answered the “situational” questions how I would handle the situation, then what I thought the book answer was…neither worked. For the test, however, I answered the questions from the perspective of how the question was asked. (i.e. I knew the first thing to do in a merger was to prep, then do due diligence. So in the practice exams, my answer to the first thing to do or most important thing to do was prep. Well, the question might already be past that step. It would be like answering “put the keys in the ignition” when someone asks “now that you pulled up to the stop sign, what do you do?”) A very subtle difference, but I felt like it was the difference between recalling the steps and understanding the steps.

Secondly, the night before, or in my case 30 minutes before the test, memorize some acronyms and other concepts that were tripping you up. As soon as you get into the exam room, use the tutorial time to write down as many concepts and acronyms that you can remember. This way the context of the question, won’t cloud your understanding of the material.

Finally, the test is a marathon. I was ready to be finished at question 76 and still had well over 2.5 hours left. Preparing to pace yourself and know that you are going to be in there for the full hours. If you finish early, great, but don’t compromise your thought promise or you may have to do it all over again. Take the test in sections, 10 questions, 20 questions at a time. I went with 25 questions. Then I went back to any questions I marked and answered them. In some cases the answer was much more clear once I left it alone for awhile. Only in one or two cases did I move on before those 25 questions were answered. This helped me mentally when I went to review the questions knowing I had 25, 50,….200 questions down and I didn’t have to go back. Marking 75 and having to go back after question 225 would have been demoralizing.

Extra tip. use the context of future questions to help you on previous questions where you were not as confident. for example, I couldn’t remember was the OFCCP was. I marked that as my answer to an ADA question. A later question referenced the OFCCP governing an AA plan. I went back and changed my answer on the previous question. Even if I hadn’t had to change my answer, I would felt more confident.

This was the hardest test I have ever taken since the answers are not right out of the book. However, if you had the book or your notes next to you in the testing room, you would see how the question relates. Don’t get too frustrated. It will all be worth it when the four friendliest letters appear at the end of the exam P-A-S-S. Hope this helped.

Terri Zaugg
HRCP, L.C.
Business Manager