Professional Level

Professional Certification offers you an additional opportunity to have your leadership and communications skills confirmed.

Why Pursue Professional?

Professional level Certification demonstrates to peers, clients and organisation that:

      1. You have achieved the top-level Certification in your profession, only achieved by a limited number of business development professionals.

      2. You are recognised for making a significant contribution to your organisation and/or the profession.

      3. You are recognised for your ability to lead and direct others in achieving broad reaching goals.

      4. You are recognised for thought leadership and “out of the box” thinking

The Professional Certification level is appropriate for senior bid and proposal managers and BD professionals with 7 or more years in the profession and are represent organisational thought leadership.

Qualifying for Professional

To earn your APMP Professional certification, qualify by making a significant impact in your own organisation or in one of APMP’s business development communities. You must document and present that impact to a panel of assessors, demonstrating superior communications skills.

To earn Professional Certification you must:

      1. Be a current APMP member who has achieved APMP-Practitioner Level status.

      2. Have seven years experience in a bid and proposal environment.

      3. Provide a reference that will be asked to rate you on nine behavioral and attitude based competencies in the areas of managing and motivating others to carry out required actions.

      4. Develop a Proposal Professional Impact Paper (PPIPTM) providing evidence of how you have had a significant impact on your organization and/or the profession.

      5. Participate in a 45-minute panel interview (telephone or face-to-face) where you present and answer questions about your PPIP.

The APMP Professional Certification Format

Select a reference who knows you professionally and can rate your leadership skills on pre-defined statements related to the questionnaire.

How to Prepare Your PPIP

Prepare your Proposal Professional Impact Paper (PPIP) using the PPIP Standards and Guidelines. Your presentation is limited to 11 slides. You are expected to use graphics to contribute to the understanding of your impact. Submit your PPIP submit directly to the Chief Examiner, certification@apmp.org, for assessment. The subject line should use the syntax: [First Name] {Last Name] PPIP.

PPIP Presentation and Interview

After your PPIP is assessed, you may be invited to present the impact to a panel of assessors, via conference call or in person. The assessors will evaluate your communications skills against prescribed standards. After your presentation, you will be asked 4 behavioral and leadership questions, which will be provided to you in advance, with the standards for answering. After the interview, the panel will immediately prepare evaluation scores and confirm your results.

How to Select Your Impact

Your impact must represent a significant professional achievement that demonstrates you business development commitment and initiative. The impact must illustrate sustainable improvement in areas such as: customer interaction, proposal and bid management, individual or organisational development, processes or infrastructure improvement. It must represent a project where you were personally responsible and successfully demonstrated that your organisation, a client’s organisation or the proposal profession had a quantifiable gain.

Activities associated with your day-to-day job are not eligible for your professional impact, which must reach beyond your normal activities and assignments.

Receive Help from Professional Mentors

A Certification Mentoring Program is available to those preparing for Professional Level Certification. They will help you understand, plan, and complete your PPIP. Visit the Certification Mentoring Program for additional details.

For More Information

If you have questions, contact Rick harris at rick.harris@apmp.org.

Register for APMP Professional Certification

Click here to register and pay for the APMP-Professional™ Level Assessment.