Raw talent can only take you so far. Companies looking to promote or hire project managers for those truly challenging projects need talent with proven leadership and project management abilities. Certification as a Project Management Professional® (PMP®) not only sharpens your skills but gives your employer confidence that you're trained and endorsed as a competent and capable project leader.
You'll learn to be a flexible, focused leader
A good PMP exam prep program does more than instruct you in the nuts and bolts of project management like scheduling and hosting productive meetings; the right PMP program helps you develop as a project management leader who guides stakeholders and resources through the project with focus and resolve, maintaining open and healthy communication lines and delivering the right results.
Project management is much more nuanced than having an aptitude for organization. A PMP exam prep program trains you to find resources where they're scarce and deliver results on tight timelines, because quality PMP training helps you to strengthen your own project management competency, and to use it to inspire results from others.
Leadership, flexibility, and even a bit of charm (or, at least, very solid communication skills) make a truly great project manager, and employers know that a certified PMP has honed these skills. Those employees are not only valuable in project management but in leadership positions throughout the company.
You'll be well-versed in delivering tangible results
Lofty ideals aside, certified PMPs are trained to deliver real, black-and-white results for their organizations. By completing PMP certification, you'll learn to promote greater process efficiencies, foster program expansion and profitability, and better control project timing and costs - all results your upper management team cannot ignore.
You'll also learn how to assess project risks based on probability and impact, so you'll lead informed, thoughtful projects with realistic goals and appropriate checkpoints and measurements throughout the project life cycle. A PMP is skilled in orchestrating success within an organization, and that's a powerful role to play in any company.
And not too shabby at the intangible ones, either
It's true that project managers are in the trenches when it comes to building better, more efficient and more profitable companies, but learning to deliver those successes hones skills that are attractive and applicable company-wide. Communication skills, rapport with staff and strong decision-making skills are the hallmarks of a well-trained PMP, and they also happen to be assets that catch the attention of hiring managers.
A PMP is, in essence, a small-scale CEO, with each project a microcosm of the company. Earning PMP certification gives you the skills to lead a team to project success, achieving stakeholder buy-in and creating a collaborative sense of shared responsibility and cooperation along the way - all a great education for the CEO-in-training.
Your visibility at your company will soar
With PMP certification, you're more visible to your supervisor and more attractive to handle nuanced and difficult projects. Your PMP certification will have armed you with practical and actionable project management advice, and trained you to apply it in complicated situations. Especially in big companies with large, multi-layered project management teams, Project Management Professional certification gives you a skill differentiator that shows drive and promises your supervisor you're capable of handling a challenge.
Plus, your overall company visibility, including access to upper management across almost all department, will increase as your PMP reputation grows. You'll learn to drive better projects with more dramatic successes, so you'll be perceived as increasingly valuable to your organization, a position which opens a variety of career avenues, both within your organization and at future companies.
