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Why get a project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate? Do you real­ly need the best project man­age­ment train­ing, or is it enough to learn on the job? As it turns out, there are sev­er­al rea­sons to get a cer­tifi­cate. For one thing, project man­age­ment isn’t just a job with­in a job any­more. It’s becom­ing its own sep­a­rate career, and as such, it requires spe­cif­ic career train­ing. With cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, you can prove that you’ve had that train­ing. Next, project man­age­ment requires a spe­cif­ic set of skills, includ­ing lead­er­ship, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, plan­ning, and orga­ni­za­tion. Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion can help you increase those skills.

With the best project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grams online, you can learn how to work on projects more effec­tive­ly so that you fin­ish them on time and stay with­in your bud­get. Employ­ees who can accom­plish these goals are assets to their employ­ers, which is why employ­ers often look for peo­ple with cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. In fact, hav­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion can give you a leg-up in the job mar­ket in gen­er­al, whether you plan to go into project man­age­ment as a career, or you just want to increase your man­age­ment skills. This can help you whether you’re get­ting a job or try­ing to increase your salary.

Methodology: Ranking the Best Online Certificate in Project Management

To rank the Best Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cates Online, Bachelor’s Degree Cen­ter edi­tors focused on trust­ed, accred­it­ed insti­tu­tions offer­ing an online or hybrid cer­tifi­cate pro­gram, prefer­ably that could accom­pa­ny or lead into a bachelor’s degree. Pro­grams are ranked by tuition, salary poten­tial, and rep­u­ta­tion, using data from Niche and IPEDS.

1. Georgetown University

George­town Uni­ver­si­ty offers a Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate that can be com­plet­ed entire­ly online. George­town University’s best online project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cates are designed for mid and senior lev­el pro­gram man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­als. Stu­dents enrolled in Georgetown’s best project man­age­ment pro­grams online can com­plete the pro­grams in as few as two weeks or up to two years if study­ing part-time. Class­es for this project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate includes project man­age­ment fun­da­men­tals, lead­ing project teams, and man­ag­ing projects in the real world, among others.

George­town Uni­ver­si­ty is one of the orig­i­nal colo­nial schools hav­ing been estab­lished in 1789. The school’s cam­pus in the US cap­i­tal is home to approx­i­mate­ly 18,850 stu­dents. George­town Uni­ver­si­ty is con­sid­ered a high­ly selec­tive insti­tu­tion of high­er education.

What We Like: George­town Uni­ver­si­ty holds the dis­tinc­tion of being the old­est of all Catholic schools in the nation.

Pro­gram: Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

George­town Uni­ver­si­ty Project Man­age­ment Certificate

2. University of Washington

The Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies and Pro­fes­sion­al Edu­ca­tion Divi­sion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton offers one of Wash­ing­ton State’s best project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­grams online. These best online project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cates from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton were explic­it­ly devel­oped for those pro­fes­sion­als who want for­mal project man­age­ment train­ing. UDUB’s cer­tifi­cate is approved by the Project Man­age­ment Insti­tute. Stu­dents take course­work in risk man­age­ment, project man­age­ment, and orga­ni­za­tion­al strat­e­gy, to name a few.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton is rec­og­nized among the old­est of all uni­ver­si­ties on the west coast of the Unit­ed States, hav­ing been found­ed in 1861 when the state was just a ter­ri­to­ry. The school is also a sea-grant and space grant high­er learn­ing insti­tu­tion with a stu­dent enroll­ment of approx­i­mate­ly 46,450 students.

What We Like: The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton col­lab­o­rates with the near­by tech giants like Microsoft and Nintendo.

Pro­gram: Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

Wash­ing­ton State’s Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

3. Purdue University

Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty offers two of the best online project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­grams in Indi­ana and beyond with its Project man­age­ment Essen­tial cer­tifi­cate or its PMP Exam prepa­ra­tion pro­gram. Pur­due University’s best project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­grams online are offered through­out the year in rolling admis­sions. Pur­due is a reg­is­tered provider of edu­ca­tion by the Project Man­age­ment Insti­tute. The cur­ricu­lum for Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty’s cer­tifi­cate close­ly aligns with the PMBOK Guide, the Project Man­age­ment Body of Knowl­edge Guide. Those enrolled in the Project Man­age­ment Essen­tial pro­gram will receive instruc­tor-led, online class­es, where­as the PMP exam prep is a self-paced program.

Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty was estab­lished under the Mor­rill Land Grant Act in 1869. More than 42,950 stu­dents attend class­es offered by Pur­due University’s thir­teen colleges/schools.

What We Like: Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty has been affil­i­at­ed with more than two dozen Amer­i­can astronauts.

Pro­gram: Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

4. UCLA

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les is an autho­rized and pre­mier Train­ing PMI Part­ner that pro­vides one of the nation’s best project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­grams online. These best online project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­grams from UCLA Exten­sion can also be com­plet­ed in a more tra­di­tion­al for­mat. The course­work for this pro­gram com­plies with PMI stan­dards and the 49 process­es frame­work. Stu­dents com­plete five core cours­es, plus one elec­tive to earn this project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Los Angeles.

UCLA was ini­tial­ly estab­lished as a branch of one of California’s nor­mal schools in 1919. UC Berke­ley is now rec­og­nized as the 2nd old­est of the state’s uni­ver­si­ty mem­ber schools. Addi­tion­al­ly, UC Berke­ley is a land-grant and space-grant school with a stu­dent enroll­ment of approx­i­mate­ly 45,650 students.

What We Like: UCLA’s ath­letes have won a gold medal in each of the Olympic games since 1932 that the Unit­ed States par­tic­i­pat­ed in.

Pro­gram: Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

5. University of California, Berkeley

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley offers a project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate that helps pre­pares stu­dents to pre­pare for their CAPPM and PMP cre­den­tials. UC Berkeley’s best project man­age­ment online are typ­i­cal­ly com­plet­ed in one to two years, depend­ing on the work­ing learn­ers’ time avail­abil­i­ty. Class­es for these online cer­tifi­cate pro­grams from UC Berke­ley include project ini­ti­a­tion, lead­er­ship and team build­ing, project man­age­ment, and project exe­cu­tion & con­trol, among oth­ers. Cer­tifi­cate can­di­dates are required to com­plete 15 semes­ter cred­its over 210 instruc­tion­al hours.

Estab­lished as a land-grant insti­tu­tion of high­er edu­ca­tion in 1868, the Berke­ley cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia is a com­pre­hen­sive uni­ver­si­ty that main­tains a vari­ety of research insti­tutes. Although the school’s cam­pus is about 175 acres, the uni­ver­si­ty owns more than 8,000 acres in total.

What We Like: The school’s stu­dent enroll­ment exceeds 43,250 students.

Pro­gram: Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

6. University of San Diego

The Uni­ver­si­ty of San Diego offers one of the best online project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­grams with its Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate pro­gram. These best project man­age­ment online cer­tifi­cate pro­grams from the Uni­ver­si­ty of San Diego are designed for those pro­fes­sion­als who wish to gain a hand’s on approach to acquir­ing the required project man­age­ment skills and those prepar­ing to sit for one of the many project man­age­ment cre­den­tials and cer­ti­fi­ca­tions. Each of the required class­es runs sev­en weeks using online-fixed date modalities.

Found­ed as a women’s col­lege in 1949, the Uni­ver­si­ty of San Diego oper­ates now as a space-grant, pri­vate insti­tu­tion of high­er learn­ing with a stu­dent enroll­ment of approx­i­mate­ly 8,650 grad­u­ate, under­grad­u­ate, and law school students.

What We Like: The school’s cam­pus in Alcala Park over­looks near­by Mis­sion Bay.

Pro­gram: Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

Uni­ver­si­ty of San Diego Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

7. University of Texas at Austin

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin offers one of the Lone Star State’s best project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­grams online with its online project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­gram. Stu­dents enrolled in these best project man­age­ment will com­plete PMI rec­om­mend­ed course­work that includes the essen­tial skills & the process­es required to man­age a project from start to fin­ish suc­cess­ful­ly. This course is equiv­a­lent to 35 PMI tech­ni­cal PDUs, with a cur­ricu­lum that aligns with PMI’s PMBOK Guide – the 6th Edi­tion. This pro­gram in project man­age­ment from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas is designed for man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­als who wish to improve the effi­cien­cy of the project man­age­ment work.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas (Texas) is con­sid­ered the flag­ship cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas sys­tem. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas was estab­lished in 1881 and is also a space-grant school. The stu­dent enroll­ment at UT Texas is approx­i­mate­ly 50,850 students.

What We Like: The LBJ pres­i­den­tial library resides on the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas’s 400+ acre property.

Pro­gram: Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

8. Rutgers University

The Busi­ness School at Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty offers one of the Gar­den State’s best online project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­grams with its self-paced project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­gram. Rut­gers University’s pro­grams are also the per­fect study tool for man­agers who wish to become pro­fes­sion­al and cer­ti­fied project man­agers. This pro­gram close­ly fol­lows the con­tents of the Project Man­age­ment Institution’s PMBOK Guide – the Sixth Edi­tion. Can­di­dates enrolled in this cer­tifi­cate pro­gram will com­plete 55 PMI PDU’s. Class­es include project qual­i­ty plan­ning, inte­grat­ed ini­ti­a­tion, and plan­ning, and con­trol­ling costs, to name a few.

Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty is one of the old­est schools in the Unit­ed States, hav­ing been estab­lished as Queen’s Col­lege in 1766. Rut­gers is also a land-grant, space-grant, and sea-grant insti­tu­tion of high­er edu­ca­tion with a stu­dent enroll­ment of approx­i­mate­ly 68,850 students.

What We Like: Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty is New Jersey’s flag­ship cam­pus and is rec­og­nized as the Col­lege of New Jersey.

Pro­gram: Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

9. University of California, Davis

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis offers a project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate pro­gram that can be com­plet­ed entire­ly online. Stu­dents enrolled in UC Davis’s State’s online pro­grams are required to com­plete six online class­es, which are self-paced. UC’s best project man­age­ment pro­grams offer a dis­count­ed tuition for those stu­dents who enroll in the school’s fast-track option. Class­es for this degree include con­trol­ling qual­i­ty in project man­age­ment, man­ag­ing risk, mas­ter­ing project time and cost man­age­ment, and nav­i­gat­ing project procurement.

The Davis cam­pus with­in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia is a pub­lic Ivy League school that was estab­lished in 1905. AS the most north­ern of the UC cam­pus­es, UC Davis serves approx­i­mate­ly 39,050 students.

What We Like: Orig­i­nal­ly, the school was an agri­cul­ture col­lege that oper­at­ed a small farm as well.

Pro­gram: Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

10. James Madison University

James Madi­son Uni­ver­si­ty offers one of Virginia’s best online project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cates with its Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate. JMU’s cer­tifi­cate pro­grams are avail­able entire­ly online or held on the Har­rison­burg cam­pus. Course­work cov­ers the essen­tial project man­age­ment top­ics of ini­ti­at­ing, plan­ning, devel­op­ing, man­ag­ing, and con­trol­ling project work. This project man­age­ment online cer­tifi­cate is equiv­a­lent to 35 con­tact hours of train­ing that can be applied to the PMP exam requirements.

James Madi­son Uni­ver­si­ty was estab­lished as a teacher’s train­ing school for women in 1908 by the Vir­ginia Gen­er­al Assem­bly. The school’s cam­pus in Shenan­doah Val­ley is home to approx­i­mate­ly 22,550 stu­dents. The school was named to hon­or Pres­i­dent James Madison.

What We Like: James Madi­son Uni­ver­si­ty is orga­nized into nine colleges/schools.

Pro­gram: Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

James Madi­son Uni­ver­si­ty Project Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate Online

Why Get a Project Management Certificate?

Why get a project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion? And what is a project man­ag­er cer­ti­fi­ca­tion? Project man­age­ment has become a more promi­nent career in recent years. Of course, project man­age­ment itself has always exist­ed. Any time some­one leads a team for a short-term under­tak­ing, that per­son is doing project management.

But what is project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion? Project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion comes from PMI, or the Project Man­age­ment Insti­tute. PMI offers many resources for cur­rent and future project man­agers, includ­ing some of the best project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grams online. In addi­tion to the best project man­age­ment train­ing, PMI offers an offi­cial exam for project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. When a per­son pass­es this exam, they prove that they can lead projects effectively.

Your online cours­es should be designed to pass the exam. Project man­age­ment cours­es should be inter­ac­tive, offer­ing pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment and access to project man­age­ment tools that will make you invalu­able to stake­hold­ers. You may also get cred­it for your years of expe­ri­ence, although with a good cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stu­dents can go from begin­ners to cer­ti­fied scrum­mas­ter in a mat­ter of weeks with no work expe­ri­ence at all. Learn­ing skills like agile project man­age­ment and agile method­olo­gies, pm soft­ware devel­op­ment, project plan­ning, and oth­er key parts of the skill set puts you ahead of your com­pe­ti­tion. Project man­age­ment prin­ci­ples are a key part of PMP train­ing and con­tin­u­ing education.

So could you do a few mod­ules on Cours­era and learn just as much? Maybe, but a good online learn­ing edu­ca­tion provider can teach you com­pe­ten­cies and spe­cial­iza­tion that only a real cer­ti­fi­ca­tion course can pro­vide. You’ll excel

Is the PMP Exam Hard?

Is the PMP exam hard? And what about CAPM certification?

First, yes, the PMP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion exam is chal­leng­ing. It goes well beyond the basics of project man­age­ment and delves into deep­er ques­tions. Some of the ques­tions are very spe­cif­ic and ask test-tak­ers to con­sid­er what they should do in cer­tain lead­er­ship sce­nar­ios. Test-tak­ers will also have to call on their crit­i­cal think­ing skills to find the right answers.

The lat­est ver­sion of the test comes with 180 test ques­tions that cov­er peo­ple skills, tech­ni­cal skills, and how to run an effec­tive busi­ness environment.Test-takers get 230 min­utes to com­plete the exam. The good news is that many of the PMP exam ques­tions are mul­ti­ple choic­es, which many peo­ple may find help­ful. While the PMP exam is not impos­si­ble, it does require a lot of study. The Project Man­age­ment Insti­tute offers train­ing mate­ri­als and prac­tice tests. It’s a very good idea to spend some time with those prac­tice exams to make your cer­ti­fi­ca­tion train­ing count. You may con­sid­er pay­ing for a prep course.

You should also con­sid­er the PMP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cost. The exam fee is $405 for PMI mem­bers and $555 for non-members.However, for a lot of peo­ple, get­ting cer­ti­fied is worth the PMP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cost, con­sid­er­ing the fact that PMP hold­ers make an aver­age of 25% more mon­ey than those who don’t have this certification.

For those who aren’t yet ready for the rig­or­ous­ness or cost of the PMP exam, there’s CAPM cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, or the Cer­ti­fied Asso­ciate in Project Man­age­ment exam. CAPM cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is meant for entry-lev­el project man­agers. It’s less dif­fi­cult than the PMP exam, takes less time to com­plete, and has low­er fees. Pass­ing the CAPM exam can count toward your pre­req­ui­sites for the PMP exam, if you should decide to take it later.

What Can I Do with a Project Management Certification?

Get­ting PMP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is a big com­mit­ment, which is why a lot of peo­ple ask “What jobs can I get with a project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion?” The answer is that you can get a lot of jobs with project man­age­ment certification.

Many project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion jobs have the spe­cif­ic title of “project man­ag­er.” How­ev­er, if you broad­en your scope, you can also find project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion job oppor­tu­ni­ties with dif­fer­ent titles. Some project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion jobs are over­all man­age­ment posi­tions that require a lot of short-term project leadership.

Some peo­ple who ask “What jobs can I get with a project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion?” want to know what indus­tries they should look into. The soft­ware indus­try has a lot of jobs for project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. In fact, soft­ware engi­neer­ing jobs make some of the best project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion jobs. That’s because soft­ware engi­neer­ing gen­er­al­ly involves one short-term project after anoth­er, espe­cial­ly in soft­ware com­pa­nies that build cus­tomized soft­ware solutions.

The con­struc­tion indus­try also offers a lot of pos­si­bil­i­ties for those who want jobs with project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Much like the soft­ware indus­try, con­struc­tion involves a lot of projects, so it’s full of project man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion job opportunities.

Can I Get a Job with a Project Management Certificate?

What jobs can you get with a project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate? Can you get a job with a cer­tifi­cate in project man­age­ment? The short answer is yes. There are plen­ty of project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate jobs avail­able. How­ev­er, when you look for cer­tifi­cate in project man­age­ment jobs, remem­ber that the cer­tifi­cate alone won’t get you the job. Just to qual­i­fy to take the exam, you’ll need a cer­tain amount of edu­ca­tion and expe­ri­ence under your belt. You can’t bypass those pre­req­ui­sites and take the test just to find cer­tifi­cate in project man­age­ment jobs.

That said, hav­ing Project Man­age­ment Pro­fes­sion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tion or PMI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion can give you a leg up in the job mar­ket. Many project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate jobs require the spe­cif­ic skills that you’d learn dur­ing your cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. In fact, some jobs out­right require PMP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from appli­cants. By pass­ing the exam, you’ll open your­self up to job oppor­tu­ni­ties that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.

So, what jobs can you get with a project man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate that you wouldn’t be able to get with­out one? The answer is most jobs that have the words “project man­ag­er” in the title. With these jobs, employ­ers gen­er­al­ly look for appli­cants who have passed the exam.

Relat­ed Rankings:

25 Best Online Bach­e­lor’s in Project Management

15 Best Bach­e­lor’s in Project Management

10 Fastest Online Bach­e­lor’s in Project Management

15 Best Online Train­ing and Devel­op­ment Programs