Many people are not sure about their eligibility for PMP certification. To answer this question, you should always consider if you were engaged in the creation of anything new, such as a product, service, process, or system. If the response is affirmative, it will almost probably qualify. Completely disregard your job title; your function is what counts. In addition, you must evaluate the sort of job you have performed, the amount of hours, and the total length of your work history. SPOTO‘s articles analyze the PMP certification standards in further depth, so that you can be certain that you meet them.
What forms of job are eligible?
In the great majority of situations, PMI seems to accept the supplied experience as project-related without additional investigation. However, this does not mean you should falsify your experience and hope nobody calls you out on it. For starters, this would be a significant ethical breach that would likely prevent you from ever receiving your PMP certification or any other PMI® credential. In addition, PMI performs audits of random samples to ensure that individuals accurately describe their job experience.
These audits are rather basic. First, you must give documentation of your educational history, which you may do by sending a copy of your diploma. Then, someone who worked with you on each of the mentioned projects must sign a paper attesting that your descriptions are correct. The Project Management Academy® PMP test preparation course meets this criteria; thus, you need just provide a copy of your certificate.
If you give this information and the work is determined to be project-related, the audit will conclude fairly quickly and you will be able to go to the test. While only PMI can testify to its processes, history indicates that around 5 percent of applicants will be randomly audited.
How Many Years of Work Experience do I Need to be Eligible?
If you hold a bachelor’s degree, you must demonstrate that you have spent at least 4,500 hours working on projects over a minimum of three years. Thus, there are two distinct requirements: work volume (4,500 hours) and time spent working in that domain (3 calendar years).
Consider an example to show how this works. Assume you spent 4,500 hours on a single large project, but you worked really hard and completed it in two years. In this case, you would not qualify since you met the volume criterion but not the time requirement. If you had worked on another project for another year, even if you only spent a little amount of time on it, you might have used that additional year to complete the total time requirement.
Assume you spent 4,500 hours on the project, but that it lasted three years and you were engaged the whole time. Now, both the volume and time criteria have been met. Keep in mind that these criteria are separate; you may exceed 4,500 hours but still fail to fulfill the length requirement if those hours were not spaced out over a period of three years.
For instance, suppose you worked concurrently on two projects for two years. You dedicated 5,000 hours to the two projects throughout the specified time period. You devoted 3,000 hours to Project A and 2,000 hours to Project B, respectively. For the purpose of achieving the volume (hours) criteria, both projects will be evaluated. Due to the fact that you worked concurrently on both projects, only one of them will count toward the three-year length requirement.
This is what PMI means when they state that your experience must not overlap. In other words, you cannot claim to have spent two years on Project A and another two years on Project B, since they overlapped in time. If Project B started at the same time as Project A, but Project A concluded after two years and Project B lasted an additional six months, you may utilize Project B to get an additional six months of total time credit (even if you devoted only a small percentage of your time to it during those extra six months). Therefore, bear this in mind while calculating your experience. PMI wants to verify that you have worked on project activities for at least three full calendar years and that you have spent at least 4,500 total hours on project assignments.
If you have less than a four-year college degree (such as a high school diploma or an associate’s degree), you may still get your PMP certification; however, the standards are more stringent. Here, you would be required to demonstrate five years of total project experience and 7,500 hours to meet the volume requirement. The only criteria to raise is the number of years of job experience.
You must also demonstrate that you have worked in some capacity on each of the five process categories during the course of your experience: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing. You are not need to have experience in each of these areas for each project, nor is there an hourly minimum for each process group. Over the course of your trip, though, you must record a certain number of hours spent in each of these process categories.
A last reminder about the experience criteria is that PMI will not recognize work experience gained more than eight years prior to the application date. Occasionally, this cutoff wreaks havoc on individuals who worked on initiatives in the distant past but have been inactive lately. Ensure that you can fulfill the standards utilizing just experience gained within the previous eight years.
Next Actions
Focus on whether you were working to produce anything new – whether it a product, service, process, or system – as well as the project’s total hours and durations when determining if your job experience would be considered for the PMP test application.
There are ways to differentiate oneself prior to PMP certification even if you do not believe you qualify. Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)® certification should be considered by aspirant project managers. Discover more here.
If you believe your qualify, the PMP certification is a requirement for every serious project manager, opening the door to a higher salary and greater employment options. Let SPOTO® assist you in advancing your profession. Call or register online for the next PMP courses and exam dumps.
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