Shall i opt for PMP exam?

Question

First a brief description about myself. I am having a total IT experience of around 7 Years.I have been working mainly in these years on ASP.Net and around 2 years on CMS Ektron. Although i have 7 years of exp but my journey as a developer is not very cherishing. I am an average kind of guy who is not conceptually very good in coding and does not have that much of experience in development as well. As a result i am always in a fear of my job security.

So in order to survive in the industry some of my friends suggested me to go for PMP which would help me move into the management side. I have good verbal and written skills.

Can anyone please suggest me if i should go for PMP or not?

Thanks

Can you rewrite the question so that the answer is useful to others? — MCW, Dec 30 '13 at 11:55
Possibly a duplicate of all the related questions: http://pm.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/certification — Todd A. Jacobs, Dec 30 '13 at 16:32

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 30 '13 at 12:40

Nitesh,

please let me share with you my vision regarding PMP.

First of all, you need to understand that this is just a certification. It is something like certification exams for programmers. If you are proficient in ASP.NET, you, probably, will learn ASP firstly, then you will try to use ASP in your work in order to get some experience, and after that you, possibly, will think: "Am I ready for Microsoft Test to prove my knowledge in ASP.NET?". Thus, according to my perspective, you should pass PMP when you already have some experience in project management and practiced PMBoK, for example. After that you can try to start working on preparing for PMP to get the certificate.

In short, my point is that the fact that you have the PMP certificate shows other people that you can speak the same language (the same "project management language") with them.

So my advice for you is that you should get a Project Manager position, maybe in the company you are currently working in. As soon as you understand what PM job is about, you will decide for yourself if you should or should not pass the exam. Also, in parallel, you can make some research regarding the experience of the people who already have passed PMP in order to understand the difficulties and the goals why they did this.

Finally, you will need to formulate the goal why you need to pass this exam for yourself.

Hope this helped.

Regards,

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 30 '13 at 18:12

After reading the description you have given, I think you do not have enough Project Management requirement. You will need some recommendation for your management experience as well. so I must suggest you to hold on for some more time, gain some experience and then go for it.

As far as question of survival is concerned, you can always improve your skill-set for different languages etc..

PMP Certification Eligibility Requirements are:

Category 1: PMP Certification Eligibility Requirements

PMP Aspirant possess Baccalaureate(Bachelor's Degree)/equivalent university degree

4500 hours of Project Management Experience.
Three (3) years of Project Management Experience within the past eight-year period prior to the application.
36 unique (non-overlapping) months of Project Management experience.
35 contact hours of Project Management education.

Category 2: PMP Certification Eligibility Requirements

PMP Aspirant possess High school diploma/equivalent secondary school credential
(Participants who do not possess Bachelor's Degree can also apply for PMP Certification Examination provided they meet the following Eligibility Requirements)

7500 hours of Project Management Experience.
Five years of Project Management Experience within the past eight-year period prior to the application.
60 unique (non-overlapping) months of project management experience.
35 contact hours of Project Management education.
Please be updated of PMP Certification eligibility 2012 and PMP Certification eligibility 2013 by logging on to PMI.org

Shall i opt for PMP exam?

2 Answers2