As a busy young professional, amidst your career, you find yourself on the crossroads. On one hand, furthering your education is crucial for more lucrative opportunities to come your way. On the other, there is no time! I am with you on that one, after all, I am a full-time corporate professional and a full-time parent. Most of the time, squeezing more hours out of the 24 hours, appears more challenging by the minute!
However, on a larger scale of your successful professional career, these obstacles are only lame excuses to get lazy, and in the end, stagnate in the same salary range forever! Did this thought make you jump off your chair and hit the books again? I hope so.
Getting your PMP certificaiton, is one of the most important steps forward in opening more doors for your career path, as a professional projet manager. It is definitely a game-changer for your career. Speaking from my own experience, I studied for about 3 months and passed the examh, without taking any specialized courses. If I did it, you, certainly, can too!
Here is my own step by step breakdown on the road to passing the test (assuming that you have been approved by PMI to sit in on PMP exam):
1. Prepare yourself mentally for this journey. However long it takes you, studying should not be your back burner. You are a student again: think college! You were good at multi-tasking your parties, part-time jobs, dates, and, of course, academics, right? Well, it’s no different now. Utilize your multi-tasking skills. Reward yourself somehow for keeping concentrated for at least 2 hours each day!
2. Buy a PMP study guide, preferrably the one that has at least one full-size practice test. I will mention more on the specific resources in another blog.
3. Register on PMI website. Pay for the membership AND the test. Schedule the test. Do it ALL at the same time. This way you will not have time for your doubts and insecrurites to come out. What’s done is done, like a band-aid! The date is set, and it should appear on ALL of your virtual and physical calendars.
4. Use supplemental study material. Personally, I used – The PMP Exam: How to Pass On Your First Try and Head First PMP Exam!
5. Read your study guide and your PMBOK guide at least twice, actively highlighting and taking notes. It’s crucial to focus on both, because both of them cover different material segments and study techniques, complimenting each other. One is more boring than the other, so switch around, keep going!
6. Flashcards gave me a definite studying advantage. The more I read about each term, the more info I added onto the same cards.
8. At least a month prior to exam concentrate on taking the actual timed full length practice exams . Keep taking them until you are satisfied with the scores. It builds your mental endurance and prepares you for the actual setting of the exam. In the upcoming article, I will give you the links to Full Free PMP Simulation Exams.
9. Don’t simply answer those questions robotically. Analyze all of your answers, particularly wrong one. If there are no explained answers given, go back and hit your study guides. If you are lucky to find questions with the explained answers, don’t be lazy, read through the explanations, even to the questions that you’ve answered right. That way you will sharpen your skills, on how to get to the right answer, by way of logical or strategic thinking, explained by another expert.
10. Keep studying every minute you get! Make the test your main priority, and let your loved ones know of it. Keep your eyes on the prize! In the end, there will be no better feeling to enjoy the sweet fruit of your tedious labor: more substantial job offers!
As always, email me if you have any questions or suggestions.
Article written and contributed by Kamilla Kay, PMP. She can be contacted via kamillabk@hotmail.com
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