Why are continuing education webinars just sales pitches?
Professional certification holders are forced to sit through promotional spam and sponsored webinars that offer no actual value just to earn renewal credits. This constant barrage of advertising makes maintaining credentials feel like watching endless commercials.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1letting certifications lapseDid this help you?
- 2using a throwaway email address and phone numberDid this help you?
- 3joining alternative state or independent local organizationsDid this help you?
- 4keeping the certification on the resume without continuing to pay for membershipDid this help you?
- 5Blocking the organization's email addresses to stop the daily spam.Did this help you?
- 6Canceling the membership.Did this help you?
- 7Switching to alternative, more respected accrediting bodies for certifications.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I can’t remember the last time I’ve read anything valuable from SHRM or attended a webinar that wasn’t a sales pitch.”source ↗
“This morning alone i received FIVE emails from SHRM and all five are junk - advertising a HRIS, trying to sell me a membership even though i have one, and nonsense webinars that will bring me no value except credits to maintain my cert.”source ↗
“There was a point in time to where SHRM would send useful insights and I enjoyed seeing their emails come across. Now, it all seems to be product bloat. Sometimes even multiple time a day.”source ↗
“It drives me crazy because credentialing for free basically requires for you to sit through commercials under the guise of “continuing education””source ↗
“The webinars are the worst part, it's a 45 minute sales pitch with 15 minutes of actual content crammed at the end”source ↗
“It’s honestly kinda whack how to maintain it you basically have to watch commercials too lol.”source ↗
“Yes I blocked their email because I was literally getting like 5 emails a day from them, sometimes more. Ridiculous.”source ↗
“Every webinar is a sales pitch for whoever sponsors.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 6Why am I paying for professional certs that barely increase my pay?
- 9How to get live continuing education hours for certification
- 3How to pass work certifications fast with no experience
- 2Paying for IT certifications without company sponsorship
- 5Should I switch to the new CPA program or rush the old one?
- 50Are professional certifications actually worth the money for a promotion?