HRCI and BenchPrep joined forced to create a smoother, more successful certification process.
Download PDFRequest a DemoHow can credentialing organizations support candidates so they show up confident and ready for their exams? These professionals often spend countless hours learning about and preparing for the certification process, from considering licensing options to poring over exam materials.
Without the right support through tools that provide a path to success, candidates can become overwhelmed and drop out of the process, deciding not to take the test altogether. This “candidate journey” has received a lot of attention at HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®), which supports professional advancement by developing and administering best-in-class certifications, including the Professional in Human Resources® (PHR®) and Senior Professional in Human Resources® (SPHR®).
For 40 years, HRCI has set the standard for HR expertise and excellence around the globe. With an eye towards improving the customer journey, HRCI set out to provide its customers with additional resources to help learners feel more prepared when exam day arrived. Since most of its customer interactions revolved around the exam itself, HRCI also saw an opportunity to strengthen connections and support professionals throughout their careers.
While HRCI does not endorse a particular resource, provider, or method of study, the organization knew that selecting an exam preparation method could feel overwhelming to new customers. To provide its customers easier access to various certification preparation providers’ offerings, HRCI partnered with BenchPrep.
As the industry’s first learner success platform, BenchPrep offers personalized, ondemand exam preparation to improve participation and competency for more than 3 million learners worldwide.
BenchPrep’s focus on the learning experience resonated with HRCI, which wanted to ensure that candidates stayed engaged while they prepared for certification exams. The cloud-based platform is accessible on web or mobile to help candidates maximize study time, with personalized dashboards and real-time feedback pinpointing strengths and weaknesses.
While BenchPrep’s platform delivers meaty educational content, like retired questions from previous certification exams, it features games, achievement badges, and collaboration with other learners to make learning more fun. BenchPrep also provides an enterprise-grade platform, which helps to power exam prep for some of the world’s leading credentialing organizations.
Dania Eter, MBA
Chief Global Credentialing and Products Portfolio Officer at HRCI
In May 2015, HRCI debuted its “build your own bundle” program on the BenchPrep platform. The bundle program allows candidates to register for exams and purchase voluntary study and prep materials offered by external providers at reduced rates with one click, helping them save time and money while taking a critical step toward preparing for exam day.
HRCI candidates can study anytime on their computers, tablets or phones, with seamless syncing across devices.
Engaging games, achievement badges, and interactive discussions with other learners make studying feel less like studying.
Learners can focus their time where it matters most with self-guided study plans and real-time feedback on performance and confidence levels.
To improve competency and confidence, candidates receive rigorous instruction through simulated exams, official questions from previous texts, exam content outlines, and interactive assessments.
Since launching the PHR and SPHR certification program bundles for HRCI in 2015, BenchPrep has added HRCI practice exams for all HRCI certifications and is planning another major product rollout in Spring 2018. BenchPrep’s turnkey platform and hands-on support help to simplify new launches, allowing HRCI to add prep courses easily as candidate needs evolve. Throughout their partnership, BenchPrep has enabled HRCI to facilitate:
By combining pedagogically robust content with an engaging approach, BenchPrep is helping HRCI reduce candidate anxiety and improve readiness.
The bundle program offers candidates a one-stop shop for exam preparation and certification, helping HRCI beocme more tightly ingrained in the candidates journey and encouraging candidate follow-through. Professionals who use the bundle program are less likely to drop out of the certification process, HRCI reports.
Adding bundles to the exam registration process has created a new stream of high-margin revenue that HRCI can use to support its mission. BenchPrep’s powerful reporting tools also give HRCI a window into how learners and courses are performing so it can continue to evaluate external certification preparation providers to include in the bundled offerings.
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