All That You Need to Know About PMP Certification

In today’s fast paced corporate environment, it is important to be able to manage everything well or your projects may just fall flat. Here’s where project management comes into play. A project manager is responsible for handling tasks and managing them efficiently. It is their responsibility to seek out the best ways that would benefit their company in the most efficient manner. Also, project managers need to carry their team along and make sure that a project is completed efficiently and within the given time by using only the available resources. A person who is able to achieve all this is said to have effective project management skills.

With that being said, in order to be a successful project manager professional, you have to go through PMP certification which is offered by the PMI, Project Management Institute.

It involves preparing for the PMP exam and passing it to gain a PMP certification. When you have a PMP certification, it automatically pushes you ahead in the race of project management world and provides opportunities that people only dream of.

A lot of candidates go through the PMP exam to get their hands on a PMP certification as it has a huge demand, however, only a handful of them reign supreme. It is not a very easy exam to pass, however with the right kind of guidance you can hit the bull’s eye.

Here’s everything that you need to know about PMP certification:

Who Is Eligible To Participate In The Exam?
For people to be eligible for a PMP certification they must hold an associate degree, a high school diploma or any equivalent certification/degree. Other than that, a person who has no hands on experience on working on project management related tasks won’t be eligible to appear for the exam because it is mandatory to have at least some years of experience related to handling project management tasks, out of which some hours should be spent upon leading the project and the team. Here’s how it works:

• If you happen to have a high school diploma, an associate degree or any equivalent certification then it is important that you have at least 5 years of work experience in the project management field. That’s not all, it is also mandatory that you must have led and managed a team by giving at least 7500 hours to a company by working on project management tasks.
• In case you have a bachelors degree, then you need to have 3 years of working experience and 4500 hours spent on handling a project and a team.
• Beside this, you should also have spent at least 35 hours in getting project management training or you won’t be eligible.

Exam Cost
Beside having experience and working hard, you also need to bear the exam fee which is not cheap. If you happen to be a member of PMI (Project Management Institute) then you will be able to enjoy discounts.

PMI members need to pay $405 to be able to give the exam while non-PMI members have to bear a fee of $555. To be a PMI member, you will have to pay an addition $129 along with the $405. Being a member has other benefits too, which you can check on the official website.

In case, you lack in gaining a 35 hour project management education then you need to get enrolled in a course in an institute which may cost you around $1000. If you are looking to save cost then you can also opt for online project management courses as they will cost you around $200 to get a 35 hour course on Project Management. Keep in mind, that along with the course fee, you will also have to bear the books and material expenses too.

How To Prepare For The Exam?

• Practice: You can’t just appear out of the blue on the exam day, thinking that you can pull it off. It requires consistent practice and a lot of hours studying. You can seek help from mock papers and improve your chances of nailing it
• Time Management: With excessive practicing you will know how much time it takes to solve a question and you can then distribute the time accordingly so that you finish the paper in time.
• Answer Everything: There’s no penalty or negative marking on giving the wrong answers so make sure you give all the answers even if you don’t know the correct answer.

Make sure to follow the latest syllabus to be able to pass the exam.