Can A Project Management Certificate Help Landing A Job?

By Author: Jack Church
Total Articles: 158
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Landing a good job is one of the most important goals for many of American consumers. Being able to improve the odds of landing a high paying and secured job is important and obtaining a project management professional certificate can do right that.

The first thing to ask yourself is what job you are looking for. If you are interested in project management than thinking about obtaining a project management professional certificate makes sense. Obtaining suck a certificate like many other certificates involves an major investment in time and money. You will need to sign up and be accepted to a project management program in one of the local schools that provides such a program. You will need to pay tuition that can vary a lot depending on the school. You will have to attend class do homework and successfully pass the project management professional test.

In order to get to a project professional program you will need to prove some hands on experience in project management. In other words you can not just decide one day that you like project management and apply for the program. You need to actually have worked for ...
... a few years as a project manager before any of the project management schools will accept you. This is a good precaution as it will make sure that you are aware of what the profession requires.

It is also important to take a step back and look at your long term goals. If you are interested in project management you should consider if this is your long term career goal. Would you want to be a project manager for two years or twenty years? If project management is a short term goal for you in order to step up the corporate ladder for higher or just different jobs than obtaining a project management professional certificate might be an overkill. If on the other hand you plan to stay in the profession for a long time and maybe one day managing other project managers or even becoming a company chief project management professional than obtaining a certificate is a good investment.

Project management is a very specific type of management skill. Managing project means taking care of many aspects of taking a project from its beginning to its successful end. The project itself can be anything from designing a new software product to building a new skyscraper to simpler tasks as fixing a hole in the road. All projects have a few things in common when it comes to successfully managing them. There are human resources or in other words employees and people to manage. There are resources that needs to be allocated either physical or electronic. There are unforeseen things that happen during the project that need attention. There are time schedules to follow rules and regulations and other terms that the project must adhere to. Projects can be as short as a day or as long as decades.

Project management is different than general management. If your goal is to be the CEO of a company or to just jump the general management ladder of a corporate than obtaining a project management professional certificate is probably not enough for you. Obtaining a masters in business administration also known as MBA is a better choice for general management. Jack Church is a well known author. Read more on here