Online PM Courses

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Your Free Guide to our

PMP Preparation Course
Project Management Professional
(PMP) Edition
 Online PM Courses
Build Your Project Career


PMI’s Project Management Professional
Your Free Guide to Our PMP Preparation Course

Part 1: Some Basic Questions

First, a couple of online resources that will answer a lot of your questions…

If you are not sure whether you should be taking the PMP, or the more
foundational Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) certification,
please do take a look at our article:

‘PMP versus CAPM: All You need to Know’

And the other vital article will give you a complete review of what you need to
know, if you are seeking PMP certification:

‘PMP Certification: What You Need to Know’

Of course, I’ll assume you already know who the PMI (Project Management
Institute) is. If you don’t, we have a short video, 'What is the PMI?'.

And finally, we have published two other useful guides:

• PMI Education Contact Hours and PDUs: Your Essential Guide

• The PMI Talent Triangle: A Guide [for members and non-members]

Is it worth getting the CAPM certificate, or is it better to wait

and get the PMP certificate?
CAPM is certainly not as well known as PMP. If you tell people involved in
projects that you are a certified Project Management Professional, most of
them will know what it is. And they will appreciate what it represents.

Not everyone knows about the CAPM certificate.

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Part 2: Preparing for Your Exam

Can I take the PMP exam without taking a course?

No. The PMI says you must have formal education for the exam. You can get
this anywhere, as long as it fulfills PMI’s conditions. And you must log your
education hours. Our Exam Prep Guide Premium Edition includes a helpful
spreadsheet.

It is ideal if you can take a course with a PMI Registered Education Provider
(REP). Our PMP and CAPM Exam Preparation is provided by unbored
Training/PTCOE, which is a REP.

Isn’t it necessary to take classroom courses for the PMP

exam?
PMI accepts both classroom courses and eLearning courses for exam
preparation. You will be eligible to take the PMP exam once you finish our
eLearning course.

Do I get PDUs for this course?

PDUs are for renewing your existing certificates with PMI. If you’re going to
take the PMP exam, what you need is ‘contact hours’, rather than PDUs.

We give you the contact hours that you need for the exam, and these are pre-
approved, as our endorsed partner is a REP. Our eLearning course gives you
48 hours.

• You need 35 contact hours for the PMP exam.

• For the CAPM exam, you should either have relevant work experience
or 25 contact hours.

However, if you are not going to take the PMP or CAPM exam but you have
another certificate with PMI (such as PMI-ACP), then you can apply for PDUs
with this course.

Do I need to study the PMBOK Guide?

You don’t have to study the PMBOK Guide when using our eLearning course,
as everything is covered throughout the course.

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Do I need to buy the PMBOK Guide?
The PMBoK is not necessary but we do recommend you have a copy.
However, we recommend you become a member in PMI, so you can
download the PMBOK Guide and other publications for free. Or you can buy a
paper copy from Amazon (US|UK) or other booksellers.

Is the PMBOK Guide practical? Does it add value to my work?

We believe the PMBoK is a great guide to the whole breadth of project
management. However, a common problem with many PMP courses is that
they are only about learning how to pass the exam.

What we hope our eLearning course does is to create something that is useful
and can add value to your work as well.

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Part 3: The Exam
How much is the exam? How can I pay for the exam?
The exam price is not included in this course fee.

When you finish the course, you will be eligible to take the PMP or CAPM
exam, and you can start applying for it. When PMI accepts your application,
you can pay the exam fee to PMI and book it.

The PMP exam fee is (Jan 2019) $405 for PMI members and $555 for non-
members. We recommend you become a member, because although it costs
you about $150, as a member you can download all standards for free and
you’d have about $150 discount on the exam.

Please check the PMI’s website for up-to-date prices: PMP / CAPM.

The full application process is explained in our eLearning course.

Is the exam online?

The CAPM exam has recently been made available online, but the PMP and
other exams from PMI are not (Jan 2019) online. Exams are done in
Prometric centers, and there are centers in all major cities.

After you pay PMI for the exam, they will give you a link, which you can use to
select the location and time of your exam. It’s best to set the time a few weeks
ahead to be sure it will be available at a time that suits you. You may not be
able to find available places for ‘tomorrow at 3 pm’.

Is the PMP exam difficult?

Well… it’s not the easiest exam in the world 🙂

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What is the format of the exam?
The PMP exam has 200 questions and lasts 4 hours.

All questions are multiple-choice with one correct answer. Everything is in

English, but a language aid is available for some languages, and the
questions are designed in a way that is comfortable for an international
audience to understand.

• There are no trick questions – at least, in theory.

• There’s no exact passing score for the exam, but it’s about 62%.
• You can have breaks during your exam.

Is the exam in open-book format?

No.

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Part 4: Work Experience

Do I need to have work experience to be eligible for the exam?

For the PMP exam, you need to have 4,500 hours of related work experience
if you have a 4-year degree, or 7,500 hours if you have no such degree. You
will find full details on the PMI’s website, and in our article, ‘PMP
Certification: What You Need to Know’

The work experience should relate to managing, directing, and leading

projects. It doesn’t have to be as a project manager, but it should involve
project management activities.

For example, if you’re a project planner, then almost everything you do is a

project management activity, and so it counts. But if you’re a developer, say,
the technical work that you do doesn’t count, whereas if you also spend a part
of your time doing things such as collecting requirements, then you can
submit that part.

Having the required amount of related work experience is not enough. You
will also need to satisfy the following two conditions as well:

1. You should have experience in all types of project management activity

(i.e. initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and
closing).
2. You should have experience in leading teams. If you’ve done
everything by yourself, it won’t be enough.

Both of the above conditions are, however, open to interpretation. For

example, you may consider yourself the only person who collects
requirements. At first, this may seem like something that is done without a
team, but when you think about it, you can see that more than ten people
have been contributing to that activity, and you’ve been following up with
them, asking them to provide you with different types of information, coaching
them, and so on. So, you have really been leading a team to collect
requirements. If that’s the case, then it will be fine.

The final thing you should remember when submitting your work experience is
to explain everything from the project perspective, rather than from the
organizational perspective. For example, instead of saying that you’ve been a
quality expert in the QA department of the organization, you should say which
projects you’ve been involved in, and what your role was in those projects.

There is a helpful spreadsheet for collating this information in our Exam Prep
Guide Premium Edition.

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How should I prove my work experience?
The PMI selects a small percentage of candidates, to audit their applications.

If you get chosen, they will ask you to send them proof of everything in your
application. In that case, what you need for your work experience is letters
from your previous managers in which they explain your responsibilities and
duration of service. Not, it’s letters from your previous managers they want,
not from the companies, which makes it easier.

If you don’t have access to your previous managers, you can ask the
managers of those managers for the letter, and if you don’t have access to
anyone in the chain of managers, you can ask your previous peers to write
the letter for you.

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Part 5: FAQs about the PMP and CAPM Exam
Preparation Program

Do you issue a certificate at the end of the course?

Yes, unbored issues a certificate of completion at the end of your course,
which you can send to PMI to show you’ve had formal training for your exam.
And of course, you can also add your certificate to your resumé.

Does your certificate of completion offer the evidence of

Contact Hours that the PMI needs?
Yes.

PMI conducts a quality assurance (QA) audit of its Registered Education

Providers (REPs). They will check all PTCOE’s certificates (and other
records) periodically. This is necessary for PTCOE to continue as an REP
with PMI.

How can I make sure that PTCOE is a REP?

You can search the REPs on this page: https://ccrs.pmi.org/search/providers

And here we are as well: https://ccrs.pmi.org/search/provider/1000004868

Please note that OnlinePMCourses re-sells courses by unbored Training. And

unbored Training is a brand name. The legal name of the training provider
company is Professional Training Center of Excellence.

How long does it take to finish your course?

You need about 48 hours, although some people prefer to repeat certain
activities. So, it may take longer.

We suggest you spend 20 to 30 minutes per day. In this case it would take
you about four months to finish it. A short amount of daily activity doesn’t put
pressure on you (we know that you’re busy with your work and already have a
lot of things to worry about).

This approach also allows you to learn more efficiently. When you learn
gradually, your brain has more time to digest and absorb the information.

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There is a guide to effective learning techniques in our Exam Prep Guide
Premium Edition.

On the other hand, if you prefer, you can take the course as if you are
attending a classroom course: 7 to 8 hours a day. In this case, you can finish
the course in a week.

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Part 6: Your Qualification

Does the certificate expire?

You have to renew your PMP certificate every 3 years, by submitting 60
PDUs, which is 60 hours of professional development: that is, learning new
things about project management, helping others learn about project
management, working as a practitioner. Take a look at our article: PMI
Education Contact Hours and PDUs: Your Essential Guide

How does the PMP certificate help me in my career?

The PMP certificate is extremely well-known in most countries and industry
sectors. It is probably the most sought-after project management qualification
globally. But this may not be the case where you are, and in the sector within
which you aspire to work. You must do your own research.

However, PMI assert that PMP will probably have a positive impact on your
career. Employers and colleagues would know that you have proven
knowledge, that has been endorsed by one of the most credible professional
bodies.

Does a professional qualification perform magic? No. It isn’t the only thing you
need, for a successful career. But it can be a big help.

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