Every career-centric human being wants to rise up the professional ladder as quickly as possible. Skills and abilities matter a lot in such cases. The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is one of those professional certificates that can help an employee to achieve his or her career goals sooner.

Over the past few years, the PMP pass rate has been a major concern. One of the key issues was found is a lack of knowledge regarding the fulfillment of PMP exam qualifications. There are certain requirements that you must meet to be considered eligible to sit for the exam.

PMP certifications are one of the toughest professional certificates in the world. Therefore, it is important to ensure your eligibility before you even register for the exam.

PMP Exam Qualifications: 4 Requirements to Meet Eligibility
The reputation and strength of PMP as a professional certificate are immense. The certificate will allow professionals to climb the ladder of success faster. Moreover, it is a sure shot to earn more and get more reputation in the industry.

A person must fulfill 4 distinguished requirements to register for the exam. These criteria are set by the Project Management Institute (PMI). The qualifications are strongly related to your university credentials and knowledge of project management. Moreover, you will also require a specific amount of prior experience in project management.

The following parts discuss the qualifications required to be eligible for the PMP exam.

1. Formal Education Degree
The minimum education qualification you will require is 3 years of bachelor’s degree. This means that the candidate has completed a total of 36 months of formal education from an approved university of his or her country.

However, there should be project management courses included in your undergraduate degree. The PMP requires each graduate to have at least 35 hours of project management courses in total.

Furthermore, you can opt for a diploma degree as well. You will need a total of 5 years of diploma, that is 60 months or 7,500 hours in total. There should be a similar amount of project management course hours included in your diploma degree as well.

2. Formal Education on Project Management
As mentioned already, having 35 hours of project management courses included in your bachelor or diploma degree is a must. However, this amount of education can be gathered from outside education institutes as well.

There are several coaching centers, online courses, and project management short courses available. The requirement of 35 hours of formal education on project management can be acquired from there as well.

The key objective of such formal education is to know about project management and gain leadership learning. This can be undertaken through coaching centers, workshops, training programs, or even online courses.

As long as you can provide evidence that you have completed the 35-hour course threshold, you are qualified to sit for the PMP exam.

3. Professional Experience in Project Management
The PMI encourages candidates to have prior experience in project management. This can help in understanding critical questions that may come in the exam.

As a result, having prior professional experience has become a key requirement, along with just formal education.

In addition to this, prior experience can help a candidate in answering the questions better than a candidate with no experience. Of course, knowledge and education can help. However, the questions are super tricky. You may need real-life experience to understand the situation and critically analyze it before answering.

4. Capability to Lead and Direct Projects
Prior experience in project management should automatically give you some idea about leadership. The importance of having the capacity to lead and direct projects is immense in project management. The PMP exam will require you to have an understanding of how to guide a team to successfully complete a project.

Moreover, leadership experience in project management also includes communicating with a wide range of people. You must contact and face various challenges during different real-life tasks. This can help you in answering the PMP questions easily as they will be quite tricky, difficult, and based on real events.

Conclusion
The PMP certification is a very lucrative professional certificate for any employee. It can not only enhance your chances of promotion but also make you a demanding professional in the industry.

Eventually, you can expect your pay to rise rapidly as well as you can already understand that the PMP exam is not a piece of cake. There are certain PMP exam qualifications that you must fulfill as per the requirements and eligibility criterion of the PMI. If you can meet them and have great preparation, you can easily pass the exam and become a certified professional project manager.