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My husband is the head of HR for his company and has been working in the field for almost 20 years. He has no special certificates or anything like that. Quite frankly, many of those designations are gained by paying money to an organization for membership which inludes training/conferences. I'm not saying the training isn't valuable! Just that the certificates/designations are not a pre-req for getting into the field or moving up in the field.
It also depends on what you want to do in HR. If you are in a small company, you may have to do all sorts of things. If you are looking at being part of a bigger company you will most likely have more of a "specialty" - Benefits, Compensation, Recruiting, Training, or being a "generalist" - which is usually the liason between a specific business unit (or units) and the rest of the HR functions.
All that said, a good way to get in the door is through being an admin. asst. in HR. I am the asst. to the Global Head of Benefits for MasterCard and I have huge exposure to all of our benefits planning/execution. I personally am content in my postion, but others in it before me have gone on to benefit specialists positions and generalist positions here. I don't know where you live and how admins are paid there - I'm in metro NYC so we get paid well - but it's always a good way in the door. If recruiting is your thing, then look into openings for junior recruiters.
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