Rant: Is requiring PMP certs actually hurting our projects?

I've been on 3 different crews this year where the PM had a PMP but couldnt read a set of plans worth a damn. Had a guy in Grand Rapids last month trying to schedule concrete pours without checking the weather once - cost us $2k in overtime. Meanwhile the foreman who's been doing this 20 years never took a single cert exam. Are we hiring for paper or for actual job knowledge? What's your take on this?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_thomas1d ago

One bad PM doesn't mean the whole cert system is broken. Sounds like a hiring problem more than a PMP problem.

patricia2621d ago

Seriously though, isn't that exactly why hiring managers get so focused on certs in the first place? I had a PM who was PMP certified but couldn't get a simple status report out on time, it was just a bad hire and the cert didn't fix that. The problem isn't the PMP, it's treating it like a magic wand instead of one piece of the puzzle.

emmam891d ago

Bit of a tangent, but PMP actually isn't about getting status reports out on time, it's more about the big picture project framework lol. Sounds like that PM just wasn't a good fit for the role regardless of the cert.