Boards of Directors in countless companies are stocked with different kinds of “leaders”. Some are attorneys, others the holders of multiple doctorate degrees, still others captains of industry. Accordingly, there seems to be an endless supply of Leadership Acadamies, whose weeks-long courses purport to prepare those who pass them for high-level leadership positions. As with the graduates of private colleges (like Kaplan and others) discover, the high-paying jobs usually go to those with the best academic pedigree, no matter what the school brochures say.
Just as only one out of every 1,000 high school athletes ever makes it to the professional ranks, the top project management jobs in the world are pretty much reserved for those who hold the title of PMP. Experts recommend that one should study rigorously for the PMP exam prep for a duration of six to twelve months. While 75 percent of the questions are based on the contents of the Project Manager Book of Knowledge – the standards for major development projects – there are still many tutorials, audio workshops and web-based study groups that can help.
Assuming one meets the minimum requirements for taking the exam – a bachelor’s degree plus 4.500 hours of experience, or a high school diploma and/or an associates degree plus 7,500 hours of experience – there is still the daunting challenge of passing the 200-question PMP exam, a feat that must be accomplished within a four-hour time frame. If one cannot pass the test in three tries, he or she must wait for another year before they can attempt it again.
Plenty of tutorial agencies are out there, many of which include the exam price in their class fees, but a good number of people also take a Web-based approach their PMP exam prep, Google groups and Yahoo gropus included. Two heads are better than one, they say, and two thousand heads are better than two. With only 50,000 certified PMPs available to meet the world’s burgeoning development needs, the exam is designed to be passed only by the best and the brightest, To the those victors go the spoils.
