Three years ago, at the time of writing this blog post, a nasty little virus appeared for the first time in the wet markets in Wuhan, China. Coronavirus (COVID-19) has permanently altered the way the world works. It isn’t all doom and gloom, however. It’s meant that the Project Management Institute (PMI) that gives out the PMP Certification had made the unprecedented move in April 2020 to allow the exam to be completed online.

tl;dr – the answer to the question “can you get a PMP Certification online?” is yes! The rest of this blog is going to tell you about how you can best prepare yourself for this.

How it works

There is a wealth of resources available, both paid and free, that can assist you with completing the PMP Certification online. The PMI, in an effort to still maintain the integrity of their certification process, enforces a proctoring process to make sure people are abiding by the rules.

For those who are unfamiliar with proctoring, it’s essentially letting the exam instigator have surveillance over the students while they’re performing the exam in real time. This means that they will be able to see you through webcam and possibly also hear you over microphone. This also means that you need to have an adequate machine/set up that facilitates the proctor process.

This video from Yassine Tounsi is a great summary of the differences between doing the exam at a venue and doing it through online proctor.

Key Points and Differences of the In-Person and Proctored Exam

Beyond the difference doing the exam online and in person, there isn’t a material difference in content of the exam questions themselves.

• There are still 180 questions (down from 200).
• There are 230 minutes allocated to complete the exam.
• There is an additional 10 minute break for the online proctored exam, but that’s the only difference.
• There are 25 questions that aren’t graded. You don’t know which ones they are before the exam, so you have to answer them all to the best of your ability.
• The passing score of the PMP exam isn’t concrete. Some sources say that it’s 61%, but there isn’t a definitive source of this, no less from the PMI itself.

How to prepare for the online version of the PMP Certification exam

While Coronavirus isn’t having as much of an impact as it has in the past, you might still want to do the exam online, now knowing there’s an option for it. Personally, I’m not as keen having a stranger spying at me through my computer, so I’d rather still do it in person.

Irrespective of what you choose, you can study the PMP Certification online. There are a number of good providers all over the world. Doing a quick Google search will yield several results and of course, this website your reading is also gradually being built out so watch this space!

So what do you think? Would you consider doing the exam online? Or are you more of a traditionalist, preferring to do it in person?