Interview with: Adeyemi Jinadu, Chemical Process Engineer
Interview by: Frank Turley
Date: December 2018
Job Title: Studying for the PMP Exam
Introduction
Adeyemi has just recently taken and passed the PMP exam and so this is an opportunity to ask him some question on how he did it.
1) Why did you decide on doing the PMP exam?
I decided to go for PMP because I was looking to change and enhance my career and I thought PMP would be a great addition to my years of experience as an R&D Process Developer.
2) What was your PM experience?
I have worked on several projects in P&G and dealing with different aspects of the project's life cycle. P&G has its own internal methodology for managing projects which is quite similar to PMI's framework.
3) How did your PM experience help you to prepare for the exam?
The privilege of having worked on several projects from end-to-end helped me to easily assimilate the PMI's concepts and framework.
4) Which material did you use to study?
I used the PMBOK guide, Rita Mulcahy's PM prep book and an excellent PMP exam simulator which helped me a lot. I also found some tips online about the best way to prepare for the exam e.g this site: https://edward-designer.com/web/pmi-acp/. I must say that I used more of Rita's book at the beginning and then 2 weeks to the exam, I started using the exam simulator.
5) Which concepts did you find the hardest?
The aspect I found the hardest is procurement management, mainly because I do not have real life experience with it and also because it was one of the last part I studied for the exam.
6) Do you think a PMP study group would have helped you?
Absolutely. This will be a great and cheaper alternative to many of the classes being offered out there. And candidates will be able to share best study ideas together.
7) How much of the PMBOK did you read?
Not a lot. I used it as a guide rather than the textbook. I read more of Rita's book.
8) Was it easy to fill in the all documentation to take the exam?
It was relatively easy since I had real life examples for the questions being asked.
This took about 3 weeks (because I was hopping between my job, family and other things).
9) How did you prepare for all the exam questions?
I used exam simulator.
10) What would you do different if you had to repeat the whole exercise again?
I would do the following differently:
- Start with the exam simulator much earlier. e.g., 2 months before the exam.
- Stick to my initial plan of consistently spending at least 1 hour every day. In my case, I was not very consistent with my daily reading. Sometimes, I had a gap of weeks in between consecutive studies.
- Join a Study Group if possible to do so.
