First time I heard of the PMP certification was in 2010, and at that time I actually found the project management certification a little bit silly. I thought the exam should be so easy, that a certification was not worth anything. I have since then changed my mind, probably because of tougher job application competition. Here are my reasons to why I got the PMP certification:
1. It makes you more bulletproof for stress interviews.
You maybe have not heard of the interview type “stress interview”, but it is more or less an interview where the interviewers are trying to provoke you for everything you could have done better. Working as a project manager can include a lot of stress, and therefore the stress interviews are sometimes used to check how you handle stress. Not having the perfect paper work to show is, according to my experience, a typical theme for stress interviews.
2. It makes sense financially.
The cost of the certification is very low ($555), and most likely the company you are working for will pay for it. There are people who attend courses, which are expensive, but there is so much material available on YouTube that you don’t need to. Maybe you advance faster internally at your company, or maybe you stand out in front of other job applications the next time you are looking for a new job. Maybe the interviewer also has a PMP. Even the slightest little benefit makes it financially motivated.
3. The exam is multiple choice.
That means that you are going to spend 4 hours clicking on a screen and maybe occasionally do some calculations on the paper they provide you with. This is an exam type I find quite enjoyable compared to writing long texts.
4. You may learn something.
Even though I found the content of the PMP exam pretty straight-forward, I now afterwards realize that I more quickly realize why projects are failing. The exam questions are typical project situations, and you will for sure recognize that some of the questions are actually happening to you. You will also learn what a PMP certification actually means, and if there are people who claim they are Gods of Project Management only because of the certification, you can take them down on earth again.
5. It was quite easily done.
In total I spent about 40-50 hours of studying, spread over almost 1 month, and mostly during the weekends. For those of you that are interested, here is exactly what I did, listed in chronological order
Take a step today by registering for the next PMP training at Clarionttech Services Ltd. https://clariongr.com/project-management-pmp-primavera-p6/