The 5 Things that an organization gains when they hire a PMP® certified Project Manager

The Project Management Professional (PMP®) exam provides the successful candidate with a very valuable certificate stating they are PMP® certified – oh – any they also get a lapel pin from PMI®. Those are the two tangible things that the successful PMP® aspirant gets and I think it’s safe to say that one is really important and the other is well, a lapel pin. What about the other side of this equation? What about the employers? You know these are the organizations that shell out handsome salaries to these freshly minted PMP®s and what do they get for it? Many arguments can be made for all the value that a resource like PMP® brings to an organization but I have spent some time mulling my 20 years’ experience in corporate America and I think the PMP®s value to a company boils down to the following 5 things:

1. You know they have been trained – The first requirement The Project Management Institute (PMI®) makes the student aware of when they begin applying to the exam is that they must have a 35 hour training certificate from an approved training provider. This allows the employer to know that the student was taught by certified PMs all the material in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)s.

2. Validated Work Experience – Just to be able to sit for the PMP® Exam a candidate must go through a rigorous application process which includes verifying at least 4500 hours leading projects. So if you are an employer and you bring a PMP® into the office for an interview, you know that the person sitting in front of you has been legitimately running projects for a few years at least. That really means something because talent acquisition for firms these days is a significant drain on company resources and this helps reduce that whole investigation process the hiring manager goes through. Think about questions like “So, have you run many projects before” but how can you be sure the candidate is really experienced? Now, employers have that extra comfort that the work experience was verified before they walked in the door.

3. Framework Understood – The PM Framework as laid out in the PMBOK® Guide 5th Edition, is a globally recognized structure for managing projects. It operates on a beautifully simple principle. Every project creates a unique new result that wasn’t there before and every project uses a common framework to achieve that result. Projects are basically initiated, planned, executed, controlled and then closed. Within these overlapping phases a number of core knowledge areas are choreographed by the Project Manager including things like Scope, Schedule, Budget, Risk, Quality, etc. Any project in any industry from Health Care, to Construction, to software development can utilize this framework and all the folks who are PMP® certified can come together all speaking the international language of Project Management success.

4. Critical Thinking Skills – The PMP® exam is a bear. It’s very difficult. The questions are long and scenario based quite often with what the test taker finds to be not one but two possible correct answers on the test. I guess this is a lot like real project management where you run up against situations and it seems like there is more than one way to go. But there is always one way which is more right to go than all the others and it’s the dark art of the project manager to find his/her way down that safe passage. If a candidate knows the Project Management concepts so well that you can take these topics, twist them up into knots, throw them back at the candidate and they STILL get the right answer. This obviously shows you have an investigative, methodical and critical thinker on hand at your disposal.

5. Checking the box – As the PMP® has become a defacto standard in Government and Private enterprise, more and more clients prefer to have PMP® certified people working on their projects. Some organizations refuse to do business with other companies if they are not providing PMP®s as part of their offering. In this scenario, the organization does not face any barrier to entry with winning contracts because they have a stable of PMP®s and they can check that box off when they are completing their bid on that new work.

Nobody gets hired simply because of one credential or one particular work experience, but as I say to companies that bring me in to train and coach their PMs – The PMP® credential gives the employer valuable insight when considering a new hire and provides them with a company resource that is able to hit the ground running on a project applying the tools and techniques that are appropriate for that project or industry.

Written By Dan Ryan, MBA, PMP
About Dan. Dan is a Project Management Expert, PMP® Coach and Educator based in New York with a web presence at www.pmexamcoach.com