When Should I Sit My PMO Certification Exam?

Since the beginning of the pandemic, online exams have become increasingly popular amongst certification bodies, with some such as PeopleCert moving exclusively to online proctored exams. This can be beneficial for delegates; they are able to sit their relevant exam from the comfort of their own home or office, are able to schedule their exam around their own schedule, and have time between course completion and sitting the exam, giving time to recap the content and revise. However, this move towards online exams means delegates often don’t ever get round to booking and sitting their exam.

In traditional classroom training, the exam is typically sat on the final day of the course. However, with the increased flexibility in scheduling your exam, we often have delegates ask, “when should I sit my exam?”

At PMO Learning, for all of our virtual certification courses, exam vouchers and exam instructions are issued on the first day. Depending on the certification body, your exam voucher expiration varies from 3 months up to a full year. Whilst it may be tempting to leave booking your exam until close to the expiration date, we typically don’t advise this for a number of reasons…

Keeping the knowledge fresh in your mind is relevant not only for the exam content, but also the exam structure and exam booking process. Whilst technical support is available from PMO Learning before, during and after your course the best time to book your exam is whilst the exam booking instructions are clear in your mind. There’s also less of a chance your exam registration email getting lost in the email void! This also gives you enough time to test your equipment, contact your IT department as necessary and ensure you are ready to go for your exam date.

Our trainers typically recommend you book your exam before the end of the course, for a date within two weeks of the last day of the course. This way, the course content is fresh in our minds and we can remember areas that we may need to revisit before sitting the exam. We often tell ourselves, “I’ll wait to book the exam until I’ve done some revision” – much easier said than done!

With busy professional and personal lives, revision can often be put on the back burner, and before we know it months have passed without even thinking about sitting the exam. If you have a date scheduled, you are much more likely to make the time to revise. We also recommend that an hour prior to sitting your exam, you complete any practise questions/papers – this will ensure that you have a solid understanding of the exam structure and layout, as well as what the questions look like. It can also be a great confidence boost!

At PMO Learning, delegates have access to the Trello and Miro boards for one month following the end of the course, tools we highly recommend delegates utilise in order to solidify their knowledge before the exam. These have activities delegates have completed throughout the course and can be great revision materials – so make sure you use them whilst they are available to you!

So, what to do if your exam expiration date is looming and you are yet to sit the exam?

For delegates looking to extend the expiration date, for an additional cost we are able to prolong the expiration date – please contact us to find out more.

If you were looking for some more time with the trainer to review any content, again for an additional cost you can schedule a revision session.

So in order to avoid any additional costs, and ensure you achieve your certification, here are our top 3 tips for sitting your exam: