How to Pass the PMP Audit Process Smoothly?


PMP audit process

According to PMI, the PMP audit process is random based. Every PMP aspirant will have equal chance to be selected for an audit. PMI does not specify the percentage of candidates selected, but from various sources on the internet, it is estimated that around 5% – 25% of candidates from the United States and ~0.5% of candidates from all other countries would be required for an audit. A PMP candidate will not know whether they will be selected until they have settled the PMP Certification fee.

The requirement for audit is part of the quality assurance procedures established by PMI to maintain the quality and standing of the PMP certification. It is meant to help PMP aspirants rather than set up as a stumbling block. In case you are lucky enough to be among the few who are required for a PMP audit, keep calm and respond according to what PMI tells you. Passing the audit should be a breeze.

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Required PMP Audit Package

In the PMP audit email sent out to you once you have settled the PMP certification fee, it is written clearly that the following three kinds of proofs / verifications are need. These need to be mailed back to PMI in the United States as currently PMI does not accept online submission.

  1. Academic education – you will need to provide a photocopy of your degree/sub-degree certificate
  2. 35 contact hours of Project Management Education – if you attend a PMP exam prep course provided by a PMI Authorized Training Partner, you will just need to have a photocopy of the project management education certificate; if you receive the education as part of your degree course or if you attend course from providers other than PMI R.E.P, a photocopy of the course certificate/degree certificate and the course outline on the project management education component would be needed
  3. Project Management Experience
    • In the myPMI section of the PMI website, you will be able to find the audit package prepared by the PMI on your project experience as individual PDF files (i.e. PMI has reflowed the project management information you have submitted into individual PDF files, one PDF for each project).
    • Print out all the PDF files and prepare an envelope for each distinct supervisors (i.e. different projects with the same supervisor can be grouped into the same envelope).
    • Send the form together with the envelope by mail or in person to your supervisors/managers for signing. Your supervisors/managers will need to verify and sign the experience record(s), put them into the envelope and sealed the envelope with one more signature.
    • Ask the supervisors/managers to pass the sealed envelopes containing the record forms back to you. Don’t ask them to mail these back to PMI directly.
    • If several experience record forms are to be signed by the same supervisor/manager, the supervisor/manager will need only to sign and fill in the details on the first form only and write down his/her initials (e.g. E.C. for Edward Chung) on all the rest of the record forms to save him/her the hassles of having to repeat the same information on many forms. The original wording of PMI: “If one person is verifying multiple projects for the same company, they can fill out one form and initial or highlight on the Experience Record the projects that they are verifying”.
    • Each PDF file contains a total of 3 pages. The 1st page bears the details of the project while the 3rd has the contact methods of PMI. Posted below is the sample of the 2nd page of the project experience record form (the only page needs to be signed by the supervisor).
      PMP audit package page 2

Once you have got all the documents are ready, put these into a large envelope and mail the audit package back to PMI at:

PMI Global Operations Center
14 Campus Blvd., Newtown Square, PA 19073-3299 USA

It will take PMI 5  – 7 days upon the arrival of the audit package to review and process your case.

Don’t worry if you do not receive an acknowledgement receipt email from PMI in normal postage time. There may be a delay of several days in sending out the acknowledge email. Chances are that the acknowledge email may arrive at your email account roughly the same time as the audit confirmation email. 

Here are some additional tips on how not to fail the PMP audit (with sharing by a PMP applicant with his application rejected by PMI). 

What’s Next?

Should you have duly followed the instructions of PMI, a verification confirmation email will arrive at your email account around 7 days after PMI has received your audit package.

You will be given the details to schedule your PMP exam in the email.

 

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Edward Chung

Edward Chung aspires to become a full-stack web developer and project manager. In the quest to become a more competent professional, Edward studied for and passed the PMP Certification, ITIL v3 Foundation Certification, PMI-ACP Certification and Zend PHP Certification. Edward shares his certification experience and resources here in the hope of helping others who are pursuing these certification exams to achieve exam success.

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19 Responses

  1. Isaac Mensah says:

    Hi Edward,
    I am an IT graduate from Ghana and studied project management for a semester( 3credit every week for 4months), is that ok for the number of hours needed to pass the audit, should i be selected, if yes, how do i prove it in documentation, since courses i study are not indicated on my certificate, but appear on my transcript rather

    • If the course you attended is purely on project management, then you will have enough contact hours for the PMP Exam. In case of an audit, the transcript plus course outline is enough provided it is in English.

      Wish you PMP success!

  2. Prat says:

    Hi Edward,
    Thank you for the information.
    I was an entrepreneur for 3 years in my home country. If I was chosen for the audit, how can I provide the necessary information considering I was my own supervisor/boss/manager. I had no business/project partner.

    Best regards,
    Prat

    • Do you have any colleagues or sub-ordinates who are familiar with your role? Just get them sign the form and you are ready to go!

      Wish you PMP success!

  3. Sarah Eryani says:

    Hey, I have a question to ask. If I was selected for Audit, can I send supporting project documents such as project charter to prove my experience even though they’re not required? Or PMI will review them as “over-documentation” since they didn’t request them which will create a question mark on my audit process.

    Thanks in advance!

    • Hi Sarah,

      Generally speaking, there is NO need to send supporting documents (which are often confidential), just the signatures by your supervisors are enough.

      Sorry, I did not know how PMI will treat the documentation but there is no “over-documentation” as described in the audit status and it can safely assume that PMI will just ignore those.

      Wish you PMP success!

  4. Anabelle says:

    Hi Edward, i´m one of the non-lucky foreigns that were selected for the audit, and regrettably i failed the audit.
    Now i have another chance to send my audit package, but don´t know how to make it right.
    Do you have some example of a correct project experience description for the audit?

    This was my audit feedback…
    Review Feedback:
    • Deliverables do not show leading and directing. The deliverables you documented do not indicate how you lead and directed in all five process groups across all your projects submitted on the application as detailed in the PMP Exam Content Outline and the PMBOK Guide.

    Eligibility Not Met: Domains are not included
    It is required that candidates show that they led and directed the project as identified with the tasks, knowledge, and skills specific in the PMP Exam Content Outline. The PMP candidate is not required to show experience leading and directing projects in all five project domains for each project, but must have this experience within the total number of experience hours and in their project deliverable descriptions.

    Project domains (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, Closing) and domain-specific deliverables are incomplete; project management methodology used is unclear, without clear project domains we are unable to determine if a project is valid

    Thank you in advance!!

  5. Josh says:

    If I worked in Afghanistan at 84 hours a week minimum sometimes 100 would PMI accept those larger than normal hours?

    • PMI normally does not consider overtime a viable option for projects. If that’s the case, I would advise you to ask PMI directly. Sorry that I cannot answer your queries.

      Wish you PMP success!

  6. Gulzaib Khan says:

    Hi Edward … !!! Thanks for sharing information. I recently submitted my PMP application & it has been selected for audit process. On the audit form, candidate is written at the end of the page. Do I need to mention my name there ?

  7. Aby says:

    Hi Edward,
    Your site has been so helpful in preparing me for the exam. I submitted my PMP application and got an audit request almost immediately I hit the submit button. Luckily I have all my credentials ready and I will submit them in few days. I did not get to the payment portion of the application. How do I go about this? Do I wait for a decision to be made on the audit package? thanks for your help

    • Hi Aby,

      Yes, being well prepared for the audit will help you pass the PMP audit tremendously. If I were you, I would wait until the audit package is approved before submitting the payment.

      Wish you audit and exam success!

      P.S. However, one thing I am not sure is that you got the “audit request” before you settle the PMP Exam payment? That was not the case in my experience. I only got the audit request after submitting my payment. I just wonder if things have changed.

  8. Rahul says:

    Hi, Thanks for the informative article

  9. Rachi says:

    Very informative. Thanks a lot.

  10. Emre says:

    Hi,
    Firstly thanks for creating such a useful page and sharing your experience.
    Since, there is no more comment section on the ITTO page, I had to reach out to you via here.
    Is there –still- any chance to receive the mindmap via email?
    Thanks…
    Emre

  11. Sarah Musa says:

    Edward I wanted to ask you a question, I was chosen for a PMP auditing process. I downloaded the package and filled it from my supervisor but, both me and my supervisor are at a training course outside of our country so how can I provide a seal to my experience package?
    What does PMP mean by seal?

    • The word “seal” is a bit misleading indeed. All PMI asks you is to “seal the envelope with glue/tape and put a signature on it”.
      That is you just need to ask your supervisor to sign the experience form, put it into an envelope and seal the envelope tap with glue/tape, then ask your supervisor to sign again across the tap of the envelope (just to act as a proof that no one has opened the envelope before reaching PMI). You can then mail the PMP audit package back to PMI.