Business and finance

Human Resources Manager in the United States

26 postings read · sampled 2026-10-01 · source ats · 24 employers · largest 8% of it

What employers actually ask for

Credentials named in the 26 postings we read, ranked by how many mentioned each one.

Bachelor's DegreeAccredited institution
15%
4 of 26 postingsAccredited institution →
PHRHRCI
12%
3 of 26 postings$500 exam · fee checked 2026-08~120 hrs prepHRCI →
Master's DegreeAccredited institution
4%
1 of 26 postingsAccredited institution →
PMPProject Management Institute
4%
1 of 26 postings$555 exam · fee checked 2026-08~200 hrs prepProject Management Institute →
SHRM-CPSociety for Human Resource Management
4%
1 of 26 postings$510 exam · fee checked 2026-08~120 hrs prepSociety for Human Resource Management →

What it costs

Exam and application fees plus typical self-study hours. Almost nobody needs every credential on this list — start with the top line.

Most-asked-for, on its own

$500PHR · ~120 hrs

asked for in 3 of 26 postings — 12%

If you earned all 3 of them

$1,565

fees checked 2026-08

440 hrs

440 hours — about 44 weeks at 10 hrs/wk

Not in the total: Bachelor's Degree — cost varies by institution; Master's Degree — cost varies by institution.

What the official taxonomy says

O*NET surveys people already doing this job. That describes who got hired over a long window, not what employers are asking for now — where it disagrees with the counts above, the counts are the more current answer.

Education reported by people doing this job

82%reported bachelor’s degree

Bachelor’s degree82%
Post-baccalaureate certificate9%
Post-secondary certificate5%

Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed. Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

O*NET 11-3121.00 · pulled 2026-10-01 · percentages are of surveyed workers, each rounded separately, so they need not total 100

This sample is small enough that one posting moves any percentage by more than a couple of points, so we are not calling anything low-signal here. Read the numbers above as a direction, not a measurement.

What it pays

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. A different survey from the postings above, so the two do not share a sample.

$88,200

10th percentile

$149,280

median

$267,810

90th percentile

Every credential above costs $1,565 — about 3 days' pay at the median.

Who was hiring

Employers with at least one matching posting in this sample.

Flexport · MongoDB · Boyd Gaming · Coinbase · Crestwood Behavioral Health · Databricks · Deegit Inc · Ethos Life · Figma · Innophos · J&J Snack Foods · Lyft · MAT Holdings · Monzo · Morgan & Morgan · O-I (Owens-Illinois) · PSI CRO · Range · SoFi · SpaceX · System Canada Technologies · Tomra · Verkada · Zoox