Is certification required to grow in Project Management?

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Project Management is one area where experienced people are generally employed and when it comes to offer employment at senior level, only interviews are not enough as assurance of knowledge of individuals. This is the primary reason why certifications are required.

Many of the certifications also provide assurance on experience one has in Project Management which is a benefit of employing organization because one level of verification on the same has already been done by certification institute. With this foundation, let’s understand in little delay why certification is required to grow in Project Management

Why certification is important for the career growth?

Why Certifications?

Specifically for Project Management, there are certain objectives of any certification with which one decide to invest in it. Not all may be valid for every certification but most of the below are definitely the driver towards attempting the certification

 Why to go for PMP certification

Better Visibility

Once you acquire any Project Management certification, your first move is to let your senior management know, Update your CV, Update your profile on LinkedIn and Update your profile and job search portals. The reason all these things are done because you will get VISIBLE among the lot. This visibility is equally important in your current organization as well as future organization in case you are looking for a change. Project Management certifications are well known certifications and give enough visibility to the one who invest time, money and effort into it.

Better Salary

Salary hike is one of the main drivers for doing any certification. Ultimately if one think about Return on Investment, Salary is one aspect everyone would like to expect hikes once certification is completed. As per the salary survey done by PMI (Project Management Institute) Below are the figures for India when compared between PMP certified and non-certified audience

 Annualized Salary by PMP status

It’s clear that the difference in salary for PMP and non-PMP is considerable. Even if the comparison is at the level of freshly done PMP audience. More details of this survey can be referred at below link

Similarly many other institutes also might have don similar researches and results are not different. Certifications give assurance and organizations has to invest by paying more to get that assured skill in the form of a certified resource. Many Project Management certifications like PMP is even mentioned in the job description of the opening as pre-requisite.

Better Credibility

Credibility comes from the institutes who vent the applicant’s eligibility and knowledge on the subject. Once certification is gained, same credibility is achieved by certification gainer as well. There are many known institutes who offer Project Management certifications like PMP, PRINCE2 and on agile PMI-ACP, CSM, PSM etc. All these certifications hold lot of credibility in acquirer’s knowledge and skill. That’s how organizations are able to make a choice among individuals when they recruit a person for Project Management roles.

Better Career Opportunities

Almost all opening on Project Management at senior or junior level has project management certification as mandatory or desirable. Definitely if recruitment agency get 10 application and out of those 5 are having Project Management certification as per desirability, those candidates will be preferred. This opens up many avenues for individuals to have better career opportunities.

Many good organizations have these pre requisites because in their contracts/proposals with clients, clients demands for the same. The point here is even clients in industry are aware of the value of certification and they ask service providers to adhere to it.

Better Knowledge

There is a lot of difference in an individual before and after taking project Management certification. This knowledge upliftment helps in speaking common language at multiple levels in current organization as well as future organizations.

Also this knowledge helps individuals in the projects big time. The concepts on the whole or asis may not be implemented but if you have that knowledge you will be able to fix it as per the situation and problem and use it. Without this knowledge individuals struggles in two ways. First they won’t be able to convey the problem in standard project management language second they will not have mush clue on industry practices or guided solution with which they can start

Better Network

Certifications also help in creating a healthy network which is a boon to have in the area of project management. Project Management is one area where experience from fellas is equally important. What new experiences and approaches are being used in the industry? Where the future is trending? What is expected in the world of project management in recent future?

These are few questions which networking helps and most of time networking opportunities comes with certifications. You widen your networking periphery to an altogether new community once you do certifications. Most of the certification has continuous renewal which force for gaining knowledge and these knowledge meetups helps in networking and sharing each other project experiences.

From organization point of view also, networking with outside world in the form of interaction by your own Project Managers can help a lot. This works from getting a solution for a typical situation with client to opening new avenues of growth

On top of all that, maybe it’s not a good news for current organization but networking helps individuals to explore better career opportunities in other organizations as well. Rather as grow higher in the ladder of the roles especially in Project management, most of the moves you do is through networking.

Conclusion

All above aspects summarizes why certifications are required in the area of Project Management and how it helps in growth. I think one thing we can conclude after discussing on these points is its worth investing in project management certifications as the return on investment is not only direct benefits like salary, career but also lot of indirect benefits like visibility, credibility, networking and knowledge enhancements.

One more aspect which is not listed above but come naturally with this is opportunity to share knowledge as speakers also at different meetups, conferences etc. That indirectly enhances visibility and add weightage to your CV.

About Dharmalingam N

Dharmalingam.N holds a master degree in Business Administration and writes on a wide range of topics ranging from technology to business analysis. He has a background in Relationship Management. Some of the topics he has written about and that have been published include; project management, business analysis and customer engagement.

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