I have a bit of a negative view of the project management institute. Whoever started PMI is brilliant though. Come up with a certification, market the crap out of it to become the be all and end all, make people take additional courses or attend conferences you put on to collect precious PDUs that you need to keep an active certificate, and profit. There was a joke going around years ago that PMI stood for Put Money In. I think it was their previous version but when it first came out not enough people were passing and they lowered the mark.
My issue with it is I’ve seen far too many people who have it but have no experience. They want you to have thousands of hours but what you can use seems fairly loose. I knew people fresh out of university who somehow got it. That seems wrong to me. Years ago everyone and their dog seemed to be a MCSE - Microsoft certified solution “engineer”. People were attending boot camps where they ran you through exactly what you needed to know for each exam and then you wrote it that day or the following. The term was paper MCSE as really didn’t know anything. I’ve seen similar programs for PMP.
I think certifications or field specific education is useful, but there are others and one specific certification shouldn’t be the only thing employers look for. Some education in the field augmented with experience should have at least equal if not more weigh.
/rant
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