PMP Certification
The PMP is an abbreviation of the Project Management Professional. The Project Management Institute PMI awards the certificate to all applicants that meet the certification requirements of PMP, and then pass certification examination of PMP successfully. The PMP certificate is the highest recognized professional certificate of project management profession in the world.
Many employees look for candidates that have the certificate in profession management during hiring of new staff. Other employees ask for certificate as a perquisite, when promoting their employers in management positions. Any employer who holds the PMP certificate gets a 14% increase in the salary. Therefore, the PMP Certification Requirements has become very important.
PMP Certification Requirements
You must meet all the Project Management professional requirements, for you to be satisfied. Generally, PMP eligibility is all based on project management experience, academic education, and the project management training. Once you meet all the requirements, you can proceed to the PM’S portal and submit it online.
A few applications will be done random auditing. Soon after the approval you can proceed and have your PMP examination at your most nearer Prometric testing center. Since the exams are done through a computer, you will get your results immediately. Once you have passed you are allowed to use PMP credentials only for 3 years. At this time, you must earn a 60 professional development unit (PDUs) for maintaining your PMP credentials for another 3 years.
Generally, the PMP certification does not have to prove any experience or competence. However, it requires certain knowledge on the project management field. The process is very strict. That is why most of organizations and companies acknowledge the PMP certificate, when compared to any other certificate. An employer will always know that a PMP certificate holder underwent a very strict process, and has a high knowledge on project management. The exam is not easy to pass.
Eligibility and Approval Period
Generally, it will take five business days for your application to be reviewed. As soon as your application has been approved, you will get an invitation for paying the exams that would have been scheduled to a specific date and time. Once the application has been approved, you will be having one year to seat for your examination. Many people seat for examination up to three times during this eligibility period.
Certification Process
- Fix Test Appointment: Your examination will be done from any prometric site. Plan your appointment through online using your own eligibility number provided. You can choose to have your examination at any testing sites, or online through proctored environment via Pearson VUE through logging to MyPMI account then following prompts.
- Application review: once the application is received, you will be notified after an audit of the same. Typically, they will have to review it in 5 to 10 working days. You will be notified through your email and proceed to the next step. Whenever there is any issue or questions, they will contact you. For every certification, they pick random applications for audit. This process enhances credibility of certification program and the certification holders.
- Payment: when you get notified that the application has been approved, it is the time to make payment, to enable you move to final stages. The most convenient way to pay is via the online certification systems. Once the payment is acknowledged, you will receive an email with the eligibility number. The number you shall use it when scheduling for the examination. Eligibility is only for one year. During this one year you can have the exam three times.
- Eligibility criteria: you are required to meet the domain level of experience, and educational level. You could be having the both. You will be required to furnish them with education or experience levels. Therefore, it is very important to have all the necessary information before opening the application.
- Complete application: Once you have meet all the eligibility information, you can proceed to apply. Below are some of the information that will be required;
- Contact information such as email, phone number, address
- Education attained; level of education, school attended, date of degree
- Domain experience; programs, details of the projects, Companies, or organizations. Employment date, details of organizations, experience summary and reference
- Domain education; dates, institutions attended, names of the courses done, qualifying hours
PMP Certification Training
Taking PMP examination
The examination contains 200 questions and a 4-hour limit. The questions are divided into 5 process group;
- initiation 13 %
- planning 24 %
- executing 30 %
- controlling and monitoring 25 %
- closing 8 %
since the examinations are computerized, you will get your score immediately. The score will show according to every level. Once you have passed the exams, you will be able to use your PMP credentials for 3 years. Nevertheless, you have failed an attempt never get discouraged.
How to know if audited
It will not be easy for you to know if you are audited, unless your application is fully accepted and authorized to make the payments. Once you are done with making payments, you will be notified that you are selected as audit candidate.
This will only take few minutes through your email. You can also get notification via the online portal. However, if you get an email with approval code, or get approval code in your PMI portal, then you are audited. You may plan for another PMP examination at your free time.
What to do if audited
The auditing process is a very intimidating one. But if you follow the steps, you will find it okay. As soon as you are notified of your audit, it will be very important to download audit package. The package contains instruction for providing verification for various item submitted along your PMP application. You will be required to provide sufficient proof of:
- project management education this means the 35 hours of training included in the PMP examination application. Many companies offers a certificate, a copy of the certificate should suffice. In the situation that you were not given the certificate during the training, there will be required a letter from the manager, giving all the details of the training. The training should be in the areas that cover the 5 process groups of project management.
- academic education this refers to the level of education that you stated during the application. However, if your certificate is quite big to have it printed, the you can comfortably use your academic transcripts. Many learning institutions will make sure they provide verification whenever requested.
- Experience in project management as a requirement of the PMI package in audit, you are required to download (PDF) adobe acrobat version. This is majorly for proving and verifying your experience. In this document will also be required to provide your supervisors contacts.
When verifying the experience acquired, it is very important that your supervisor, puts all signed documents in the envelope. Make sure that he signs across the seal once he seals it. Let your supervisor sign all positions you have the experience. He should not send the signed documents to PMI, but back to you.
PMP Certification Increase in Salary
The most encouraging thing is that, when you are certified you are entitled to 20% increase in salary. This is a different case with any manager not certified. Therefore, there is a PMP certification growth.
PM Certification questions to expect
- Background Information just like any other interview, you will be required to provide some information concerning yourself. You will telling about your education and projects you have completed. For any graduate, you can talk about university projects. Use two or three lines to describe yourself.
- Challenging project managed this is a very important question. Before you seat to answer, go through your experience. Make sure to choose the most difficult project you ever did. This will also show your limits. Show the nature of the project, statics, budget, and numbers if you could be having any. This makes your answers very strong.
- Experience in budget management budget management is a very important part of any project. Therefore, this is a very important part of project management interview. This shows that the candidate is capable managing budget if selected. You should be very keen when responding to that question.
- Monitoring projects This question based on monitoring, you should be very careful when responding. This question, will assess your skills in controlling the project and how familiar you could be with the tools used I project management. The most important this is for a project manager to finish the scope of the work or project, within a given time and on budget provided. therefore, a project manager is required to use all his skills and tools.
Purpose
The commercial organizations and the government employ only certified project managers. This helps in improving the rate of success in many projects. With the PMI certification, this shows that you are in a position to handle any project in the entire world.
It is very important to have the PMP certificate behind your name. Most employers are hiring the qualified candidates. Therefore, when you have this certificate you stand at high chances of getting employed, compared to any other manager without the PMP certificate. You will as well get a salary increase in your salary.