Should Project Managers Get Certified?

By Brad Egeland | Follow on Twitter!

This is the million dollar question in the project management world. To certify, or not to certify. And if you do certify, what certification should you get?

This topic is usually a hot one for professionals – and not just project management professionals. Think about it from your own PM experiences. Are you certified? Is a PM certification good? Is it worth it? Does it help the project manager? If you said “yes”, in what ways does it help? First let's consider the criteria. And for analysis in this article, let's stick with the Project Management Institute's (PMI) project management professional (PMP) certification... long considered the standard certification for project managers.

Here are the requirements to sit for the exam:

A four-year college degree
4,500 hours (a little over two full years) leading projects
35 hours of project management training/education

Upon sitting for the exam, the PMP hopeful must then score 61% (approximately) or higher to earn PMP certification.

Consider the Cost

You really can’t put an overall value long term on certification vs. non-certification because you can’t quantify exactly how much the certification will help you monetarily in your career path or how much it will help you get hired over another candidate. What you can do is look at the overall cost of certification. Let’s consider…

Membership is $129 initially and then an annual fee of $119 for renewal
Testing – pass or fail – is $555 for non-members and $405 for PMI members
35 hours of education prior to sitting for the exam costs something – several thousand dollars
Ongoing certification does require ongoing education – 60 PDUs per every three-year cycle

PDUs can be obtained for free, like the free project management webinars Project Insight offers, or for a low cost – either way, there is definitely a time commitment.

Hiring Strategy?

I’m not going to devalue the effort and dedication that goes into the PMP certification process for an individual. It shows a dedication to the profession and an interest in legitimizing your place in the project management world. But what about the PM hiring process? Less than three years ago it appeared that every project management position posted required PMP certification. I was receiving correspondence from job seekers who were very frustrated by this new trend.

It seems lately that HR departments and hiring managers have backed down from requiring PMP credentials and now often list them as preferred or helpful. But still, I can’t help but see the inclusion of PMP certification as a tool for HR departments and hiring managers to use as a weed out in the applicant evaluation process. They are certainly allowed to do this, but how many very experienced and qualified project managers are they overlooking in the process?

I’ve managed and worked with so many excellent and successful project managers who were not PMP certified, and if I had only looked at certified vs. non-certified, I would have certainly missed out on some great candidates and leaders.

Summary

My final thoughts are this... it's great to get a PMP certification. It should not be the sole hiring criteria and it should not be a weed out question in an interview or job application. When I've hired PM's, it has never been something I even considered. I have always considered quantifiable success above everything else when hiring project managers.

Project Management Chat

How about our readers? What are your thoughts on PMP certification? If you have it and you find it useful in your profession, let us know. Why is it useful? As a way of finding employment and career advancement, or has it been helpful in managing projects on a day-to-day basis? Or both? Please share your thoughts and discuss.

Should Project Managers Get Certified?

Consider the Cost

Hiring Strategy?

Summary

Project Management Chat

Questions or comments? Feel free to share them below!