Does this sound like you?
- You’re not quite an up-and-comer anymore in your large, multinational organization. However, you’ve definitely been around the traps before and are known as a project management problem solver across departments,
- You’ve been watching the headlines over the last few years nervously. COVID, upturns, downturns. It was a game of Russian Roulette, particularly for the tech industry. You’re feeling safe-ish, but don’t want to leave your professional future to the whims of the economy.
- You’ve been getting modest pay increases at best, barely beating inflation, but with the insane increases post COVID, you’ve actually been getting a net pay drop. Cost of living is biting to the bone and you need to find a way to get paid more, stat.
Project Management Certification Online Canada: What’s Out There?
I’m running this blog for people like you. While I don’t fully believe any of us are in control of our futures, being more proactive is better than ruminating and taking what comes. You’re here to supercharge your project management career and stand out from the rest. I’ll go through a few options for you.
Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
This is the namesake of the blog I run, so I am a bit biased. However, I think it’s for good reason. The PMP Certification online is a way to study and take the exam through the Internet. It’s the golden standard for project management professionals in North America and can lead to pay increases of up to 35% in the USA. PMP Canada (linked below) is a great starting point to find a vendor that suits you.
To apply for it, you need to have either:
- a high school diploma, with at least five years of project management experience, with 7,500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education, OR…
- a 4-year undergraduate degree and at least three years of project management experience, with 4,500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education.
Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)
If you don’t have the time to study for and pass the entire PMP Certification, often a nice stepping stone to get the attention of your superiors is the study for the CAPM. The eligiblity requirements are similar but different: at least 1,500 hours of project management experience or 23 hours of project management education. It also costs less, being $225 USD for PMI (Project Management Institute) members and $300 for non-PMI members.
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
If you’re wanting to go down a slightly technical route, dealing in the software industry for example, the Agile Certified Practitioner might be more up your alley. It utilizes the best of PMI’s project management ideologies, pairing it with the globally accepted standard of agile methodology to give you a modern yet highly applicable certification. With it, you can approach the likes of Microsoft, Google, Amazon and the like to show you have what it takes to run their biggest projects, helping them reach their goals.
Here is their eligibility criteria (there’s a lot so I’ve taken a screenshot instead of copy pasting it verbatim):
