Are you considering APMP certification? Perhaps you’re already certified at the Foundation level but are wondering if you should pursue Practitioner or even Professional accreditation. Capture and proposal professionals often ponder whether certification benefits them as well as those around them.

Research shows that getting certified benefits you (selfish reasons) as well as your colleagues (selfless considerations). Here are the reasons why.

Five selfish reasons

First and foremost, take care of yourself. Certification benefits you as follows:

  1. Get hired faster. Employment studies demonstrate that job applicants with certifications are more attractive to recruiters and employers, and thus are likely to more quickly succeed in getting a job offer. Certification is a great way to differentiate yourself from competing applicants, whether you’re applying as an employee or 1099 consultant.
  2. Advance more quickly. Research also shows that certified employees advance quickly within their companies, earning promotions at a more rapid pace in today’s skills-based economy.
  3. Reap rewards. Certified employees also achieve higher compensation.
  4. Feel satisfied. When you study and prepare for an APMP exam and pass, you feel motivated, disciplined, and proud of your success.
  5. Gain self-confidence. When you are happy, certified, and earning more, you feel more self-confident, which earns the respect of your peers and leads to greater opportunities. Colleagues and peers trust you more when they know that you have invested in your career and have demonstrated knowledge and analytic skills.

Five selfless reasons

Once you’ve taken care of yourself, you are better able to care for those around you. Certification benefits your colleagues and employer for the following reasons:

  1. You can share best practices. Preparation for APMP certification exams includes careful review and application of industry best practices that you can apply with credibility to the workplace.
  2. You will be an asset to your employer. Certification helps you build a knowledge base of the most current expertise. This knowledge benefits your employer by increasing your company’s ability to win bids.
  3. Your employer will gain credibility. Employers benefit when their employees are certified because they can leverage employees’ qualifications on social and business networks to market products and services.
  4. You reduce turnover. If your employer paid for your APMP certification, then you will feel more satisfied and less likely to seek a new job. This improves your company’s retention rates.
  5. When you are happy, you radiate that feeling to others. It’s common sense. When you feel content, you set a positive tone for others. Perhaps you will even inspire your peers to get certified!

Take the next step

APMP offers plenty of online resources, including the Body of Knowledge (BOK), to help you prepare. However, the best way to learn is to take a training class delivered by an APMP Approved Training Organization (ATO) like Lohfeld Consulting Group. We offer APMP Foundation certification training, and our free APMP Practitioner training webinar is available to watch on-demand. Make yourself and your company more competitive in today’s market with professional certification!

Author

  • Lisa Pafe

    Lisa Pafe, Vice President at Lohfeld Consulting Group, CPP APMP Fellow and PMI PMP has 30 years’ capture, project, and proposal experience. She served as President of the APMP-National Capital Area (NCA) Chapter, VP, and Speaker Series Chair for two years each. She holds a BA from Yale University, MPP from Harvard University, and MIS from George Washington University. She is a trainer and frequent guest writer for Washington Technology.

    View all posts