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Project Management Institute

Engaged Employer

Project Management Institute reviews

2.5

26% would recommend to a friend

(300 total reviews)
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Pierre Le Manh

30% approve of CEO

31% positive business outlook

Project Management Institute has an employee rating of 2.5 out of 5 stars, based on 300 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Project Management Institute employee rating is 33% below average for employers within the Management & Consulting industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

300 reviews
1.0
Mar 31, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Organization has very dedicated, talented and pretty friendly staff and volunteers who work hard and deliver member value in spite of the management team. They have the industry standard in project management certification. Pay is ok, benefits very good, telecommuting excellent (for some), decent number of personal/vacation days that increases with tenure. Opportunity for travel if you are with the right department.

Cons

Different sets of rules and privileges based on where one sits within the organization. No advancement opportunity. Only laterals. HR knowingly supports unqualified and occasionally abusive management at the expense of talented staff leaving (often without another job) or being fired. There are groups that annually lose 40% of their staff year after year and hr and senior management pretends everything is just great. When organizational culture survey results come in with poor results, HR and senior management remove the questions from the next survey rather than addressing the issue. A couple years ago trust scored very low, so they simply removed it from the survey. Said it was no longer relevant. Rather than address a very real and growing culture of fear and mistrust, they changed the way they evaluate employee satisfaction. This is called unethical manipulation. The current culture, emanating from the CEO down increasingly since 2011, is that the boss must always be right no matter what. Questioning this ultimately leads to a written warning. If they want to fire you, management with HR's blessing uses fear and manipulation to emotionally degrade and manufacture a performance issue until the time period expires and you are terminated. My manager refused to develop written performance objectives with me as is called for in the employee handbook, and spent nearly three months trying to trip me up. HR's response to my concern about not having objectives was to "just do my job" . I did my job, but my manager manipulatively withheld email and verbal responses to time sensitive questions until the deadlines had passed, and only then responded to say that I had missed deadlines. I documented everything, so could see how these examples of performance issues cited in my termination letter consisted of instances where my manager manipulated to create a specific outcome, and HR fully supported the lying manager. Overall a lousy and unethical culture of dishonesty and fear that has become institutionalized. PMI is ok , I guess, if you have no ambition and just want to punch a clock, keep your head down and collect a mediocre paycheck. Sadly, I have a dozen or more former colleagues - all talented contributors in most cases for years - who had variations of this experience, and am sorry to say that I know a few current employees who are right now starting to go through this humiliating process.

1.0
May 7, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Currently people who are boots on the ground are doing an amazing job with what they have to work with right now. I’m talking everyone under director level.

Cons

If you’re curious to know about this company, I can tell you that about four people have quit in the last few months with absolutely no job lined up — they just left on the spot because of how overwhelmed they were and how poorly the directors and upper management treat employees. And honestly, these were some of the hardest-working, most talented people at the company. What’s even worse is that none of those roles have been filled. Everyone else is just absorbing the extra work with no additional pay, recognition, or support. That pretty much sums up what’s going on here. People are doing the work of what feels like 10 different departments. I know remote work sounds nice, but let me tell you, everyone is struggling. The culture is horrible too. There’s never even time to have a quick conversation about how someone is doing because everyone is buried under so much stress and work. Pierre and Menaka have to see what’s happening. At this point, people constantly talk about whether they’re intentionally running PMI into the ground and cleaning house, or if they’re just so out of touch that they genuinely don’t care. It’s really sad because my teammates are incredibly hardworking and genuinely care about what they do, but it’s gotten to the point where almost everyone around me is talking about interviewing elsewhere because things have become so bad. Seriously, if you’re thinking about applying here, I would reconsider it. Especially if you’re applying for anything below a director-level role — you will not have support. Another thing worth mentioning is that there’s absolutely no room for mistakes at this company. If you make one, be prepared to be called out publicly in huge Teams chats or meetings instead of having a constructive conversation about it. And to be clear, this behavior comes directly from management, not the employees actually doing the day-to-day work. It’s honestly really sad because I started at this company with so much hope. At first I genuinely loved working here. But over time, I started seeing how management treats employees. I work 12-hour days regularly, and when I’ve asked my director for help, I’ve been met with nothing — no support, no solutions, and no raise — even though I’m now doing the jobs of three other people and far beyond what I was originally hired to do. I’m disappointed and sad. Soon the cracks are going to start showing to attendees at our events and in our products too, because there’s only so much employees can keep carrying before everything starts falling apart.

1.0
Feb 3, 2026

Company in major crisis

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There appears to be an influx of recently submitted (fake) reviews that do not authentically reflect the current state of the organization. In reality, the outcomes of the recent Employee Engagement Survey paint a much different picture, indicating major areas of concern, employee unhappiness & dissatisfaction is rampant. High employee turnover, low employee satisfaction culture. Pros: -Remote Work -Generous retirement-plan matching

Cons

Reactive, crisis-driven management: -Middle management up to the Executive team constantly pivot to handle immediate, urgent problems rather than focusing on long-term planning. High-stress work environment, frazzled, often resulting in reduced productivity, Lack of standardized routines, and neglected proactive improvement. Absence of Project Management Methodologies:  -This feedback may come as a shock to any external readers of this review.  Project Management Institute does not "practice what they preach" (or sell), nor do they consistently apply standardized project management practices internally.  Every project seemingly executed differently across teams and business units, with no shared standards or templates. Multiple project management platforms (e.g., Monday.com, MS Project) are used concurrently, sometimes within the same project. Deadlines are often arbitrarily dictated by CEO (end of year, end of quarter, etc) with no clear rationale or alignment with business objectives. Overcommitting but underdelivering is a lifestyle here. Culture: -Heavy infighting between Chief Product Officer & Chief Marketing Officer, & underlying teams often boils over and creates delays.   Initiatives in general are extremely siloed resulting in rework and delays because cross-team dependencies are often missed (or ignored). -The CEO promotes “psychological safety” in company-wide forums; however, in smaller settings will berate employees.  From Chief of Staff to non-management, no role or level is safe from his very public disparagements.  This inconsistency undermines trust and engagement. -The organization experiences frequent restructurings per year, often resulting in sudden role eliminations. Employees are dismissed unceremoniously without advance notice or formal performance improvement plans. Tenure beyond three years feels uncommon. Workforce structure imbalance: -Too many "idea people" up top with not enough employees "down below" executing tasks at the the operational level: results in burnout for anyone under a Director level.  Unclear roles and responsibilities with many employees wondering what middle & upper management even does. -Middle-management completely checked out and disengaged. A perceived emphasis on internal and external self-promotion via daily/weekly "Yammer" & LinkedIn self-congratulatory missives rather than operational leadership. Regular internal social posts and external LinkedIn communications appear to take priority over team support and execution.

Viewing 16 - 18 of 300 Reviews

Glassdoor has 391 Project Management Institute reviews submitted anonymously by Project Management Institute employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Project Management Institute is right for you.