For this past holiday season you might have decorated your house with wreaths, your children with bows, your spouse with gold jewelry, or your table with turkey. Decorations lift our spirits, and put us in the holiday mood. For this new year, don’t forget to decorate your name, with a professional certification.

By adding a dash of PMP^® or a sprinkle of CAPM^® to the end of your name, you are showing your peers, employers, or potential employers, that you have what it takes to ring in the new year with success.

The CAPM^® and PMP^® are both powerful credentials, and their popularity and relevance within the Project Management industry has been growing over the past 4 years, as the graph below illustrates. 

From January 2008 to September 2011, the number of PMP holders grew 69.7% to 464,168 PMPs in September 2011. In this same time period, the number of CAPMs grew 293.5% to 15,695 CAPMs in September 2011. Project Management credentials are now, more than ever, a standard for PM professionals in industries all over the world.

For the PMP^® credential specifically, the benefits far outweigh the cost and time commitment it takes to earn your credential. It only takes a quick Expected Monetary Value demonstration (http://www.cheetahlearning.com/accpmp/risk1.pdf) to see that studying for and earning your PMP^® pays for itself immediately. Once you have invested your resources to obtain this credential, what should you expect? Cheetah Learning interviewed 70 Project Management Professionals with various levels of experience, and here is what we learned.

Life After PMP Certification
Everyone has their own reasons for sitting down to that 4-hour exam and earning a PMP certification. Maybe you are a project manager who finally wants recognition for your knowledge and skills. Maybe you are seeking a new job or a new position within your company.

We polled our project management group to see how earning a PMP has changed their careers. Following are the top 3 outcomes:

1. Enhanced reputation within PM community (21%)
2. Promoted within current organization (17%)
3. Obtained a new job (16%)

Others reported answers include increased confidence and capabilities.

As these results show, obtaining a PMP certification produces not only monetary rewards, but also the intrinsic reward that comes from feeling good about your standing within your industry.

Money Money Money!
We know that many of you wish to obtain your PMP certification for the same reason that our polled group did: to earn a reputation for yourself within the PM community. But who can blame you if you also want to be compensated appropriately?

We polled our same trusty group of PMs to see how earning the PMP credential affected their earnings, and the results were impressive. The average reported increase in annual compensation after obtaining a PMP credential was $24,556 (ranging from an annual increase of $5,000 to $63,000). What would you do with an extra $24,556 this year?

Looking for Work? Look No Further
Searching for a new job can be either challenging and exciting, or stressful and tiresome. This greatly depends on the length of time that you are looking before you are able to land a job.

When we asked our professionals how long it took them to find a job if they found themselves unemployed post-PMP-certification, 77% of them said they were never in this situation, as their PMP provided job security and a career path that allowed them to be fulfilled in their current position. The remaining 23% who did need to make a career change reported that on average, it only took them 1.5 months (ranging from 0 months to 7 months) to find a new job.

This year, make sure to differentiate yourself with credentials that are worth their weight in gold. Decorate your name with PMP^® or CAPM^®, and bring on the all-year-long holiday cheer.

What’s your take on this subject? Leave a comment and get the conversation going.