[ExamsPM Review] How Paul Aced His PMP Exam In 4 Weeks

Hey guys, and thank you for tuning in. Today we have Paul Hill with us, and he recently passed his PMP, and he is going to share his strategies with us. So congratulations, Paul, and welcome. So why don't we start off, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself and what's your motivation behind wanting to get PMP certified?

Okay, well, I'm retired Navy, a Seabee, which Means Navy construction. We were the largest construction company in the world. After retiring from the Navy, I actually went into a civilian job, uh, working basically for the same organization that I was working for, but I just took my uniform off.

Mm-hmm.

And during the 11 years that I've worked there, I worked on very unique military logistics support type projects and other things. But during the course of my career, they were actually looking at, um, getting all of us managers PMP certified, but the program fell through. I still had an interest in it, but with everything that I had going on in my life, going to school and all of that, I just, I couldn't fit it in. I've always— I had a different title. I was really called the logistics management specialist, but I was a project manager. And it's just something that I've pretty much done my entire life. And I had the education. My undergraduate is in IT and I have an MBA with a focus in management, but the school at the time wasn't offering a project management program. So here I am, I went out on my own and I was a project manager for a long time, but I didn't have that title, nor did I have the formal education behind it. So I went to Florida Atlantic University, got an executive certificate in project management. And as a part of that package, I mean, why would I go to school and not follow through with getting Premier?

Oh, I think we lost you.

Sorry about that. That was, that was a phone call and I didn't know what to do. Um, but anyway, why invest, you know, 6 months worth of time going through a formal education program and not follow through with getting the Premier, you know certification that being the PMP. So after that, there was all kinds of ideas as we were going to school classmates. Yeah, I use this. Yeah, I use that. And I started looking for online programs. Well, I just happened to come upon your site and. There was a link to— I think it was an hour where you presented—

It's our free course.

Right, the free course. And after that, there were links to the different programs. And that's where I became skeptical because being in career transition is rough. I didn't like it very much. Um, so I said, well, it's do it now or just forget it. So I decided to do it. And, uh, it was actually a lot more than what I thought it was.

Yeah.

And as I said, as I was progressing through, I actually did it in 3 and a half weeks' time, 3 and a half to 4 weeks. I, I started the program. I took a month break to go visit with my daughter and twin grandsons up in Washington State, came back and I said, well, I scheduled my exam for the 15th of October. It's do or die time now. So every night, you know, when I got home from work, I would do at least one section. And try to take the test. If not, I would take it the next day, and I just followed through until I got through to the end. And then I did the— I think I did 4 or perhaps all 5 of the practice exams.

Practice exams.

Exactly. And that actually Helped me gauge where I was at. And, um, like I've told you in my emails and our conversations, without your course, yeah, sure, I had the, you know, 4 months of school and that, but It was one day a week and I needed immersion. I needed repetition. I needed to hear things several times in order to get it through this sometimes thick skull of mine. So that's exactly what your program did for me. I loved how you kept repeating about the ITTOs. There's just so much Misinformation out there as far as what you need to focus on for your PMP exam. A lot of people are like, oh God, I've got to, I've got to memorize these 5 knowledge areas, 10 process groups of 49 processes. No, that's what I thought at first.

Right.

And, uh, no, I mean, something else that was very helpful is Bringing up that process chart before every single lesson. Okay, here's where we're at, here's how you read it. That helped me put together visualizing all the processes and how you go through it.

Right.

Because many of those questions on the exam, you know, at least from what I can remember, mine was heavy in communications management. And change management.

Right.

Um, they give you a scenario-based question where here's where you are. You were a project manager of this project. Now what do you need to do?

Right.

And, um, going through that was very helpful and I'm grateful that I found, you know, your website and went through the program. And I must say it's an immense value compared to, Some of the others I was looking at that are hundreds of dollars more.

Oh, thank you so much for saying that. I really appreciate it.

Sure.

Yeah, thank you so much. I'm so glad that it helped you get certified. Now, what tips and tricks would you give someone who is going through the certification journey now? So to put it another way, if you could rewind time and start studying again— I'm sure you don't want to do that— but if you could do that, what would What would you have done differently?

Well, I think I would have found your site a lot earlier and used that in conjunction with my formal studies at, you know, FAU, just to— like I said, what helped me was the repetition of terms, the repetition of certain concepts in order to memorize the process, not the process flow, I guess I should say, not the processes themselves. 'Cause they're, unless you're 25 years old and have photographic memory like I once had, there's no way you're gonna memorize all of that stuff. There's just no way.

Yeah, it's more about understanding how they all come together to complete.

Exactly. Exactly. So if I had it to do all over again, I would have purchased it a lot sooner and I would have used it in conjunction with my formal studies, just to reinforce the concepts and get them logged into this brain housing group of mine.

So do you have any maybe tips, tricks for people who are going through the process now?

Well, study the flow of that chart.

In our free course. So I'll make a link below.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

So it's understanding how the different processes come together to complete the project. Right?

Exactly. And knowing my biggest problem, I would have to say, as I said, I went through and I was a project manager for years and years. However, The way we were trained is an entirely different language. Our academic platform is a place called Defense Acquisition University. They have different certifications, as you will. They're all project management, but that's not what they call it.

Mm-hmm.

And I was, uh, you know, Do we a Level 3 certified, um, logistics manager and also Level 2 program manager on top of that? My problem was it's kind of hard to break old habits. What I called things was not— there was a relative term in PMI speak or vocabulary.

Mm-hmm.

That I had to relearn. And that was, that was difficult. But for somebody that hasn't had that, you know, kind of exposure where you have to kind of break your old habits and get into new ones, it's, it's fresh. So repetition is the key. If you don't understand a concept, you know, the course, you can go back to wherever you want. And just Keep repeating it until it starts sinking in.

Starts to sink in.

For me.

Starts to sink in.

Right.

Yeah, once I had a student who said that he started to hear my voice when he's at the gym or something because it was so ingrained. But yeah, no, I think one thing that we do well at ExamSPM is that it's a repetition and helping you understand the structure of how things link together in a project, not just like, here's a term, go memorize it for your exam, but help you understand why that term was there in the first place. So it's more about understanding and not memorization.

Right.

Cool. So I know we touched on this a little earlier, but could you elaborate a bit more on your study plan? So you said it took you 3 and a half weeks to get certified. So what What's the day-to-day look like and how did you get certified so, so quickly?

Well, as I told you, I had that, that formal education, but after a while, I'm a big believer if you don't use it, you're going to lose it. So I needed to reimmerse myself in the subject matter. Yeah, I had a pretty good idea But what was killing me was some of the terms, that and earned value management. That's definitely not my friend, trying to memorize those formulas.

Yeah.

But I immersed myself every day. I got home from work around 6:00 PM here, Eastern time. And depending on how I felt, you know, some days I was more tired than others. I dedicated study time from 6:00 PM at least until 9:00.

Wow.

So I would go through all of that for 3 hours. And if I felt okay and I wasn't doing the head nods, I would go sometimes like on the weekends all day. Or, you know, 4 hours. I, I know I was taught in my military career, uh, backwards planning.

Yeah.

You kind of hear those terms like H-hour, D-Day. Well, D-Day was the 15th of October for me when I took my exam, so I kind of gauged how much time I needed to spend each day. And I know that I had to compress it. So you have to, you basically have to make a commitment to study time. I mean, you're not going to get, and it doesn't matter what program you may purchase, if you don't dedicate a consistent—

Time.

Time and you wait 3 weeks in between doing them, you're not doing yourself any good.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's all about staying consistent.

Exactly.

Yeah. So with the material that you did learn to pass your PMP, did you find that you can now apply it to your job now? And does it— did you notice it helps?

Well, for me, I'm still kind of in career transition. Right now I'm, I'm in a technical writer position. I have an automotive background. I was a mechanic forever. I'm still trying to transition my skills and experience from my federal employment days into the private sector. So can I apply some of those skills? Well, yeah, I have to plan my day, just regular, I guess, daily planning. Every day, no matter who you are, you, you're doing a project.

Yeah.

You know, it's just part of everyday life. Have I been able to apply it to my workplace like I'd want to? No, because that's not really what I'm doing right now. Although I want to get into the private sector and, you know, do real project management type work.

Right, right. And you've only gone certified for 2 days now, so you still have time to kind of find that new role and apply some of these skills into it. But I think one thing you said is a good point. It's like when you get kind of get back into the habit of studying again, we all been out of school for a long time, it helps you kind of get that discipline back into your work and your life. One thing you said earlier was about the EVM formulas, so the Earned Value Management formulas. Did you find a lot of those questions on your exam, or like, how did you find the math section of your exam?

Well, I was pleasantly surprised because I am not Very good at math and my memory just is terrible anymore. I only found 5 questions and there was only 2 that I remember directly related to earned value management. Wow.

Okay. So it wasn't a lot of calculations that you had to do.

No, I was blown away. I expected a lot of those and When I was in school, our instructor professor had us make flashcards, and I used those in conjunction with the flashcards you have up in the test simulator.

Yeah.

To train my mind to try to remember. I remembered, I want to say, 6 of the formulas out of all of them. And I'm not talking just earned value management. I'm talking, you know, net present value, buy-build, you know, all that kind of stuff. So like I said, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there wasn't very many of those questions on there. My exam was heavily focused in communications and change. I mean, which makes sense if— All right, Gunny. Um, if you're spending 90% of your time communicating, right, well, I would expect that it would be heavily focused on that. Yeah, but it was, it was a lot of those scenario-based questions. Like I said, if you're doing this, what should you do next?

Right, right. Right.

And the progression through those modules, you know, helped out quite a bit with that. My cat just— I think he's jealous.

Yeah, so it's not about just understanding the processes. You also have to know how to apply those processes in situations, right?

Exactly. Yep.

Okay, so walk us through your actual exam date. Like, how, how did, you know, October 15th, uh, go for you? Um, walk us through that date and then, you know, um, the whole process, like, you know, getting to the center, doing your exam, coming out. How would you describe it?

Well, I started my day by, like I do every Monday through Friday, I went to work. And, uh, when I first started working for this employer, Uh, they knew on the 15th I had an exam. Um, so I left the military. Me, I'm always early for everything. Late is not in my vocabulary. So my test was scheduled for 12:30. I showed up at 11:30.

Hmm.

As I sat out in my car, I went back into your course on my phone, back into Earn Value one more time to get that stuff in my brain. Uh, I went in there early. I went in there around 10 to noon and I said, well, am I too early? They said, well, no, absolutely not. And it's kind of funny because I've been in Prometric testing centers before for other things like ASE certifications, which is automotive related, right? Um, it's easier to get processed into jail than to get processed into doing it. It's funny. It is really funny.

Yeah.

They had, they had me remove everything from my pockets. They had me take my pockets inside out. They had me take my earring out of my ear. Everything. I finally got processed in. I had to sign a log. Of course, they had me put the actual time that was on their clock. Um, it was, at least at the testing center I went to, uh, it was a little annoying at first because I wanted to get that brain dump on paper.

Right.

Of course you can't. write anything on it. They tease you by putting that scrap paper in front of you with pencils, but they won't let you touch it until you're actually seated.

Yeah.

Which that process took about 10 minutes. They finally, um, had me take all my materials. She set me up at my workstation where I was going to be, and then I sat down. At first, when you go to take the exam, they have a little tutorial that kind of takes you through the navigation of the website or their program to show you how to navigate through the test. And something that I found helpful also, now that I remember, if you don't know the answer to a question, you have, say, 50% confidence, you can Always click the button that says mark.

Right.

You mark that question and you go on.

Right.

And it's a 4-hour exam. And I was surprised. I finished it in an hour and 50 minutes.

Wow.

Wow. But I've always, I've always done rather well at tests. I've always been good at it.

Right.

Have I failed tests before? Yeah, not too many times, but I guess I'm gifted in that way. But that included going back through. Once you get to the end, you definitely don't want to hit that end exam button, folks. Don't hit that. You hit the review button and the tutorial will tell you all this. And it will show you a list of all the questions. It'll tell you which ones you've answered, which ones you've marked, and which ones you have not answered. So then you go back to those. And as you're going through the exam, I didn't see it too much in mine, but sometimes they will give the answer away.

Yes.

In a future question. So that, in that case, I marked a couple because I thought that that was the strategy that I used, but it didn't come to fruition for me anyway. But that, that's one of the tips that, uh, my professor was telling me about.

Right. Yeah. Um, yeah.

And so then once I was done, I just Ended the exam. Basically, it took a couple minutes, but it processed, and the result come right up on the screen. I raised my hand, they escorted me out, they gave me my printout with their little seal.

Awesome.

And that was it. I was done at about 3 o'clock, and I left. Went home and kind of like I am now in my recliner.

Yeah, yeah, you deserve the break. Yeah, yeah. So I know that PMI doesn't allow you to disclose any questions that you saw on the exam, but can you broadly tell us kind of like what style of questions did you see and Was there any tips that you used to help you pick the correct answers to the questions?

Well, as I said earlier, there was a lot of questions. It seemed like they were focused on communications and change management. Some of the questions could be wordy. So my strategy was to read the question, and then the question I asked myself was, what are they really asking?

Hmm.

So you narrow that question down to what they're really asking. And there is a feature also when you go in there, Where if you right-click the mouse on a certain selection, it will strike it through. And I believe you mentioned this, um, in your course. 50— you've got with 4 answers, you have a 25% chance unless you're absolutely confident.

Right.

Well, there's always 2 in there that are They're way off the chart, or at least one.

Yeah.

So you strike through that one. Now you've got, you know, what, 33, almost 34% chance of hitting it. If you forget what the question, you know, that's actually being asked, because some of the questions could be wordy, read the question again. Write it down on your scratch paper what they're really asking, right? If you didn't do that the first time, and then just the, the answer will come to you. If you have dedicated the time to study, to go through your course, the answer will leap back out in your mind and you'll be able to select the best answer.

Okay, okay.

I don't know if I answered your question or not, but Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So let me just summarize and see if I got it. So use process of elimination, cross out the ones that you know are wrong. So then that gives you a higher probability of getting it right. Usually there's 1 to 2 answers that pretty much doesn't look right, so you can cross those out right away. And then if you're still not sure, mark it for review and see if the answer to that question is given in another question down the road. Basically, and see, right, and be prepared for situational questions.

Right, a lot of scenario-based questions.

Right, change management, communications, etc. Right, right.

And there were others, but that was the focus.

That was the focus. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Yeah.

Did you have a lot of definition questions where they just asked you What a specific term meant, or no, not really?

Not really, no. No, it was not that I remember.

So it was mostly, mostly how to apply that specific scenario into your— into a scenario, sorry, how to apply a concept into a scenario. That's what I meant to say.

Right, or navigation of the process itself.

Right.

Um, you're project manager for Project X. You have just given your project charter to your sponsor. What happens next? Those kinds of questions. Or there were a couple of questions thrown in there. Uh, a, Significant risk just happened on your project that wasn't documented. Where would you go to, or what would you improve upon in your project management plan to prevent that in the future? A few of those questions too.

Gotcha. Got it. Got it.

Got it.

Well, thank you so much, Paul, for sharing all of your exam tips with us.

us.

Um, any, anything I didn't ask you that you want to share with anyone who might be listening?

Well, if you want it, you'll get it, but you have to, you have to want it. And, uh, purchasing this course was an awesome investment. And as I said, I, I don't think I would have been as successful as I was had I not purchased your course. And just hang in there, make time to study. This is for you, and it's a big step and a big accomplishment. So you have to invest the time. And what does Nike say? Just do it.

I think that's a good way to close off this, uh, interview. Thank you so much, Paul.

Oh, you're welcome, Helena.