Do I qualify to take the PMP exam?

Submitted by steph746 on Thu, 12/06/2012 - 02:48

 Hello,

I would like to be able to take the PMP exam and I was wondering if you can tell me if I am even eligible. I have been working in IT Desktop Support for about 9 years. While my title is not "Project Manager" I have worked on various company projects and headed a couple of smaller projects at my previous employer. I am unemployed now. I have been out of work for about one year. The projects I worked on were at my last job and I had been working on them for about the last 2-3 years when I was there.

Being able to take the exam, means I need a "sponsor" from my previous company and this person would need to verify the hours I worked on various projects?

Thanks very much in advance for any feedback you might be able to provide.

 

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aarush78

Thu, 12/06/2012 - 03:41

Steph,


Its not the designation but the role you need to justify ..do you think you somehow contributed even minimally to all the process groups ..the overall experience for all projects need to be 4500 hours and there is no minimum requirement for a particular process group.... and yes as you suggested the person or manager whom you reported to; need to be taken into confidence before you file the application


As we give his or her email id and tel no he or she can be contacted to verify your inputs..In the worst case if your application gets selected for audit you have to manually send some docs so give references of people preferably whom you know are still there in that organisation and are easily traceable and Yes the ones whom you enjoyed good working relations are the ones who will qualify on the top of that list..hope this helps.....

steph746

Thu, 12/06/2012 - 04:01

 Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply and clarification. Just off a rough calculation, it seems that 4500 hours would equal about 1.5 - 2.0 years of project management work?

As I mentioned, while I didn't have a project management title, I for example was "in charge" of a laptop database at work. This project made sure that all laptops were up to date with security patches and also tried to limit the number of laptops at the company due to the presence of Blackberries. So, it was an ongoing project and I was in charge of it for more than two years. Obviously I didn't spend 8 hours a day working on it, but there were other "projects" such as a new joiner database, visitor database and rollout and office moves that I contributed to. 

Would you say that the projects I'm decribing would qualify towards PMP credit?

 

Thanks again very much...

 

Steph

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admin

Thu, 12/06/2012 - 07:36

The question to ask is not how much time you have spent on project. But have you spent enough time on project management activities. If you are doing part time project management say only schedule management or resource management then it may take you 4 to 6 years to complete 4500 hours. End of the day you should have evidence or should be able to justify.

steph746

Thu, 12/06/2012 - 08:30

 It seems that it is not really defined then how one can get to 4500 hours. If I say yes, and a sponsor (i.e. Manager) concurs, then it should be justified? Will I have to break down at some point exactly what I did and how many hours I spent on average on a particular project, etc?

aarush78

Fri, 12/07/2012 - 08:58

Steph,


Admin and I have answered your questions already , its the project management activities spread out in 5 phases over any project which would qualify so as a checklist first try to enumerate 7-8 categories of tasks which you did and then try to put them back in 5 process groups


Yes as you asked, definitely you have to break it into 5 process groups at an approximate level ...You can also search in google for a sample display of efforts , i am sure many people must have already put their effort as an illustration..


you can just start filling the application and can always save the work and resume it later if you have doubt