SPHR Exam Prep: Senior Professional in Human Resources 3rd Edition

2 weeks ago I passed the SPHR exam. This was my 2nd try and this book helped! Although there's a lot of information to absorb the structure is not intimidating and the tone is very conversational. Cathy provides great tips and highlights important concepts such as everything stems from the organization's mission. For me, tidbits such as this provided a solid foundation to understanding/linking the rest of content. Each chapter has review questions (open-ended and multiple choice) and a final exam at the end of the book. I'm giving the book 4-stars because you can't use this as a stand-alone resource. It was a combination of this book, LOTS of practice tests/quizzes and flash cards that helped me ace the SPHR exam.

This book has many errors. I only read through the first chapter and there were so many errors that I’m returning it. It is clear that someone decided to cut and paste different sections of. Possibly better written book and mix them all up in this book without paying attention to the language. For example, a section I read at the start of the chapter referenced to another section as “earlier in the chapter” except that section was AFTER the section I was reading. Another spot transposed the definitions for accounts payable and accounts receivable! There were key points that numbered 1, 2, 13, 14, 15, 8, 9, 4....all out of order! How is someone supposed to take proper notes and understand key points when they are written out of order like that! There were also grammatical errors. Maybe there are people out there who have time to spend deciphering how this content was originally organized or can look past all the confusion and still find it useful but I am not one of them. I found it to be a huge distraction and was worried that it would only make prolong studying for the exam. What a waste!!!

I purchased Winterfield's PHR Exam Prep to prepare for the PHR exam because I wasn't sure I was ready to take the sPHR exam. I found the PHR exam to be an easy exam to pass, so I decided to prepare for and take the sPHR exam. I purchased Winterfield's sPHR Exam Prep as part of my preparation plan. However, upon comparing the two books I found that this book is just a reproduction of the other. I've compared them side by side and found that aside from the paragraph sections being slightly rearranged, the paragraphs themselves are exactly the same. The chapter summaries are the same. The vocabulary lists are the same. Even the end-of-chapter review quizzes are identical. I didn't go through every page, so it is possible that there are some small differences between the material, but finding them would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. I believe that there should be a notation in the description of this book provided here on Amazon that informs the consumer that purchasing this book is not necessary if you already own the PHR Exam Prep, and the Winterfield should either change the title to PHR/sPHR Exam Prep or actually write a second book if she wants to sell two books.

I liked the book content but could not get the CD ROM practice test to work.

Very comprehensive.

It's outdated

bent cover